Chapter XII (1)

"For every man shall bear his own burden."
_Galatians_, c. vi. v. 5.

"Brethren, every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that he would have freed an existence so brief from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a divine revelation that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life. If I am a rich man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother to the stern discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold: why inflict hardships on his childhood, for the purpose of fitting him for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into man? But if, on the other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him, prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain to the infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man? So is it with our Father that is in Heaven. Viewing this life as our infancy, and the next as our spiritual maturity, where 'in the ages to come, he may show the exceeding riches of his grace,' it is in his tenderness, as in his wisdom, to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking the powers and developing the virtues of the soul, prepare it for 'the earnest of our inheritance, the redemption of the purchased possession.' Hence it is that every man has his burden. Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a human father, you will know that your troubles in life are a proof that you are reared for an eternity. But each man thinks his own burden the hardest to bear: the poor man groans under his poverty, the rich man under the cares that multiply with wealth. For, so far from wealth freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written in all ages, have repeated with one voice the words of the wisest, 'When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?' And this is literally true, my brethren; for, let a man be as rich as was the great King Solomon himself, unless he lock up all his gold in a chest, it must go abroad to be divided amongst others; yea, though, like Solomon, he make him great works--though he build houses and plant vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards--still the gold that he spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and Solomon himself could not eat with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest labourer who planted the vineyard. Therefore, 'when goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the inspired writers, represents the man who by force and wit had risen to be a king, sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his subjects--all bearing out the words of the son of David--'The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.'

"Amongst my brethren now present, there is doubtless some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich. Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired?--has he not both vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow? But it is right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care--to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and (to use the language of the world) 'seek to rise in life,' their most valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in--namely, the successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune--a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine, have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labours of the last, and, in free countries, often lifts the child of the labourer to place amongst the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is the creator of the arts. If there had been no poverty, and no sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of a country? Subtract from civilisation all that has been produced by the poor, and what remains?--the state of the savage. Where you now see labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed--the equality of wild men. No; not even equality there! for there, brute force becomes lordship, and woe to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some in purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stand the palace and the cot, you would behold but mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant excels the king among savages, so far does the society exalted and enriched by the struggles of labour excel the state in which Poverty feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other hand, if the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, their hearts would become hardened in the sensual enjoyments it procures. It is that feeling, by Divine Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity and vexation of spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the rich man sensitive to the instincts of heaven, and teaches him to seek for happiness in those elevated virtues to which wealth invites him--namely, protection to the lowly and beneficence to the distressed.

"And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the vast subject opened to us by the words of the apostle--'Every man shall bear his own burden.' The worldly conditions of life are unequal. Why are they unequal? O my brethren, do you not perceive? Think you that, if it had been better for our spiritual probation that there should be neither great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would not so have ordered the dispensations of the world, and so, by its mysterious but merciful agencies, have influenced the framework and foundations of society? But if, from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality is necessary and essential? Ask why this inequality! Why? as well ask why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues. For if all men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half at least of human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what would become of fortitude?--what of patience?--what of resignation? If there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of benevolence, of charity, of the blessed human pity, of temperance in the midst of luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question farther; grant all conditions the same--no reverse, no rise and no fall--nothing to hope for, nothing to fear--what a moral death you would at once inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link between the heart of man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder! If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and hope, my brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be 'a time to weep, and a time to laugh,' it is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort, and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. Ah! my brethren, were it possible to annihilate the inequalities of human life, it would be the banishment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity, and contrast.

"'Every man shall bear his own burden.' True: but now turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter.--'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Yes; while Heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering, it connects the family of man into one household, by that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguish us from the brute creation--I mean the feeling to which we give the name of _sympathy_--the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind that he is _inhuman_? and do we not call him who sorrows with the sorrowful, _humane_?

"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our Lord, is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute. He seizes, not upon some faculty of genius given but to few, but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of his laws. The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who is my neighbour?' Our Lord replies by the parable of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded man that fell among the thieves, and passed by on the other side. That priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite, nor to the doctrine of the priest, does our Saviour even deign to allude. He cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.'

"O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God's chosen race though they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving--to that relief of distress which is commonly called charity--to the obvious duty of devoting, from our superfluities, something that we scarcely miss, to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those of the body--if the kind word and the tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown. Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all,--yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the contrary. But I say also to the poor, '_In your turn have charity for the rich_;' and I say to the rich, '_In your turn respect the poor_.'

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more; nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed--'How hardly they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven?' And what are temptations but trials?--what are trials but perils and sorrows? Think not that you cannot bestow your charity on the rich man, even while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer, often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said--'Wherever there is room for a man, there is place for a benefit.'

"And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath gone forth to survey his barns and his granaries, his gardens and orchards, if suddenly, in the vain pride of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow of the labourer--if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth--if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against him with the hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with the ingratitude of envy--I ask, I say, any rich man, whether straightway all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not fade from his heart, and whether he does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the power of the poor man to bestow! For all these things of Mammon pass away; but there is in the smile of him whom we have served, a something that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another's burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors, and compassion for the griefs, of the rich. To all men it was said--yes, to the Lazarus as to the Dives--'Judge not that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich man, that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty not to grudge thee thy substance, it is thine to do all that may sweeten their labour. Remember, that when our Lord said 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,' he replied also to them who asked, 'Who then shall be saved?' 'The things which are impossible with men are possible with God:' that is, man left to his own temptations would fail; but strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender, temperate and benign; and thy riches themselves may become the evidence at once of thy faith and of thy works.

"We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, 'Do unto others as ye would be done by.' Why do we fail so often in the practice? Because we neglect to cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an instinct, and the Saviour exalts as a command. If thou wouldst do unto thy neighbour as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well how thy neighbour will regard the action thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his place. If thou art strong, and he is weak, descend from thy strength, and enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes--thy heart beat as in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what had seemed just to thy power will seem harsh to his weakness. For 'as a zealous man hath not done his duty, when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,'[2] even so an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes on the grand column of society, only warnings that irritate the bold, and terrify the timid: and a man will be no more in love with law than with virtue, 'if he be forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.'[3] If, then, ye would bear the burden of the lowly, O ye great--feel not only _for_ them, but _with_! Watch that your pride does not chafe them--your power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of the class from which the apostles were chosen--amidst which the Lord of Creation descended from a throne above the seraphs."

The Parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced towards the pew near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of Hazeldean. The Squire was leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards, and the natural glow of his complexion much heightened.

"But"--resumed the Parson softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment--"But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they were meant to be--exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each; and thus, if in the body each man bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship of the soul all have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other.

"This is the law of Christ--fulfil it, O my flock!"

Here the Parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their heads.

ANCIENT AND MODERN ELOQUENCE.

Eloquence, in its highest flights, is beyond all question the greatest exertion of the human mind. It requires for its conception a combination of the most exalted faculties; for its execution, a union of the most extraordinary powers. Unite in thought the most varied and dissimilar faculties of the soul--strength of understanding with brilliancy of imagination; fire of conception with solidity of judgment; a retentive memory with an enthusiastic fancy; the warmth of poetry with the coldness of prose; an eye for the beauties of nature with a command of the realities of life; a mind stored with facts and a heart teeming with impressions--and you will form the elements from which the most powerful style of oratory is to be created. But this is not all. Physical powers, if not essential, are at least a great addition to the mental qualities required for its success. The orator must have at once the lengthened thought which is requisite for a prolonged argument, and the ready wit which can turn to the best advantage any incident which may occur in the course of its delivery. More than all is required the fixity of purpose, the energy in effort, the commanding turn, which, as it is the most valuable and important faculty of the mind, so it is the one most rarely to be met with in any walk of life, and least of all in combination with the brilliant and imaginative qualities, which are the very soul of every art which is to subdue or captivate mankind.

It is not surprising that the art of the orator should require, for its highest flights, so rare a combination of qualities, for of all the efforts of the human mind it is the most astonishing in its nature, and the most transcendent in its _immediate_ triumphs. The wisdom of the philosopher, the eloquence of the historian, the sagacity of the statesman, the capacity of the general, may produce more lasting effects upon human affairs; but they are incomparably less rapid in their influence, and less intoxicating from the ascendency they confer. In the solitude of his library the sage meditates on the truths which are to influence the thoughts and direct the conduct of men in future times; amidst the strife of faction the legislator discerns the measures calculated, after a long course of years, to alleviate existing evils or produce happiness yet unborn; during long and wearisome campaigns the commander throws his shield over the fortunes of his country, and prepares in silence and amidst obloquy the means of maintaining its independence. But the triumphs of the orator are immediate; his influence is instantly felt: his, and his alone, it is

"The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read his history in a nation's eyes."

To stand up before a vast assembly composed of men of various passions, habits, and prepossessions; to conciliate their feelings by the art, and carry away their judgment by the eloquence, of the orator; to see every gaze at length turned on his countenance, and every ear intent on the words which drop from his lips; to see indifference turn into excitement, and aversion melt away amidst enthusiasm; to hear thunders of applause at the close of every sentence, and behold the fire of enthusiasm kindled in every eye, as each successive idea is brought forth; and to think that all this is the creation of the moment, and has sprung extempore from the ardour of his conceptions, and the inspiration they have derived from what passes around him, is perhaps the greatest triumph of the human mind, and that in which its divine origin and immortal destiny is most clearly revealed.

It is the magnitude of the combination requisite for its greatest efforts which renders eloquence of the loftiest kind so extremely rare among mankind. It is less frequent than the highest flights in epic or dramatic poetry. Greece produced three great tragedians, but only one Demosthenes; Cicero stands alone to sustain by his single strength the fame of Roman oratory. Antiquity could not boast of more than five or six persons who, by the common consent of their contemporaries, had attained the highest rank in forensic eloquence; it is doubtful if modern times could count as many: as many, we mean, who have attained the very highest place in this noble and difficult art; for, doubtless, in the second class, great numbers of names are to be found; and in the third their name is legion. It is not meant to be asserted that great temporary fame and influence by eloquence may not be, and often has been, acquired by persons who are deficient in many of the qualities above enumerated, as required to form a perfect orator. Without doubt, brilliancy of genius will often, for passing effect, compensate the want of solidity of judgment; and fire of imagination make us for the moment forget a squeaking voice, a diminutive figure, an ungainly countenance. No one, at times, commanded the attention of the House of Commons more entirely than the late Mr Wilberforce, and yet his stature was small, and his voice weak and painfully shrill. But great earnestness of will and brilliancy of fancy are required to compensate such defects; and we are persuaded that none will more readily admit the justice of these observations than those who have laboured under, and, by their powers, in a certain degree surmounted them.

As little is it intended to assert that vast influence may not be acquired, and unbounded celebrity for the time obtained, not merely without the cooperation of such varied and extensive qualities, but by the aid, in many cases, of the very reverse. As temporary influence, not lasting fame, is the immediate and chief end of oratory, its style must be adapted to the prevailing cast of mind, and ruling interests or passions, of the persons to whom it is addressed; and as it will share in elevation of sentiment, if that is their characteristic, so it will be deformed by vulgarity or selfishness when they are vulgar and selfish. It is a common saying, that a speaker must descend to the level of his audience, if he means to command their suffrages or enlist their passions; and we have only to look around us to see how often, in assemblies of an inferior, interested, or impassioned character, the highest celebrity and most unbounded success are attained by persons who not only have exhibited few of the qualities of a refined orator, but who had studiously concealed those which they did possess, and secretly despised in their hearts the arts to which their triumphs had been owing.[4] But this is no more than is the case with all the arts which aim at influencing, or charming mankind. The theatre, the romance, poetry itself, share at times in the same degradation. It would be as unjust to stigmatise oratory as the art of sophists or declaimers, intended to seduce or deceive those who cannot see through its artifices, as it would be to reproach the stage with the vulgarity of the buffoon, or novels with the licentiousness of Aretin, or poetry with the seductions of Ovid. We must not think lightly of an art which has been ennobled by the efforts of Cicero and Burke in the most refined assemblies, because it has also led to the triumphs of O'Connell and Wilkes in the most ignorant.

To the highest triumphs of the art of oratory, that first of blessings, CIVIL LIBERTY, is indispensable. More truly of it than of the liberty of the press, it may be said, "It is our vital air: withdraw it, and we perish." Regulated freedom is essential to its success. It is hard to say whether it perishes most rapidly amidst the studied servility of courtly rhetoric, or the coarse adulations of democratic flattery; whether the atmosphere of Constantinople or that of New York is most fatal to its existence. Genius, and that of the very highest kind, may exist in despotic communities; but it is degraded by selfishness and misdirected by servility.

Where there is only one ruling power in the state--be it monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic--this corruption is equally certain, and equally unavoidable. The sonorous periods in which Fontanes celebrated the triumphs of the empire, the impassioned strains in which Robespierre eulogised the incorruptible virtue of the people, the coarse flattery with which O'Connell captivated his ignorant and excitable audiences, equally marked the approach of the period in which oratory, if such a _régime_ continued, must die a natural death. Under such influences it necessarily perished from its own exaggeration: it ceased to be impressive, it became ridiculous. As in all the other arts which are intended to please and instruct mankind, TRUTH, and a regard to the limits of nature, are essential to its success. Exaggeration and hyperbole not only degrade the character of eloquence, but destroy its influence, because they induce a style of expression with which subsequent times, emancipated from passing influences, cannot sympathise--look upon as contemptible. Then, and then only, will oratory attain its highest perfection, during that period "slow to come, soon to perish," as Tacitus said of balanced freedom, during which no one interest in the state is irresistible; and truth, in assailing the vices or resisting the encroachments of others, can find a fulcrum from whence to direct its efforts. Withdraw the fulcrum--remove the support--and truth, and with it genius, will sink to rise no more.

It is surprising, however, how solicitous the human soul is for liberty of expression; how eagerly, if one channel is closed, it seeks out and often finds another. When the power of Government, or the tyranny of the majority, has shut out the natural expression of unfettered opinion in the discussion of the social and political interests of man, it takes refuge in the regions of imagination. Romance becomes the vehicle of independent thought: the stage the arena of unrestrained debate. So delightful is free expression to the human mind, that it proves agreeable even to those whose ascendency may seem to be endangered by its prevalence. It may appear strange, but it is undoubtedly true, that the germ of the doctrines of human perfectibility, the general vices of those in authority, and the expedience of universal freedom alike in trade and employment, emanated from the precincts of the most despotic authority in Europe, and at the period of its highest exaltation. It was in the palace of Versailles, in the court of the Grande Monarque, and when discharging the duties of tutor to the Dauphin, that Fenelon wrote, for the instruction of his royal pupil, _Telémaque_--perhaps the most thoroughly democratic work, in its principles, that ever emanated from the pen of genius. It was in the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour, and when surrounded by the corruptions of Louis XV., that Quesnay first announced the doctrines of throwing all taxes on the land, and of universal freedom of trade and occupation, which have subsequently had so powerful an influence in producing the Revolution of France, and altering the political system and social conditions of Great Britain.

The extraordinary perfection to which tragedy has been brought in many modern countries where the institutions are of a despotic character, is mainly to be ascribed to this cause. The stage became the outlet of independent thought; it was there alone that unfettered expression could be safely attempted. Put into the mouths of historical or imaginary characters, portraying remote events, for the most part drawn from the classical ages of Greece or Rome, such unrestrained ideas attracted no disquietude in the depositories of authority. They were regarded as an attribute of a primeval world, which had as little relation to the present, and as little bearing on its fortunes, as the skeletons of the Mammoth, or the backbones of the Ichthyosauri, on its material interests. A direct argument in favour of republican institutions would have secured for its author a place in the Bastile, or in the dungeons of the Inquisition; an incitement to the people to take up arms, to dethrone the reigning monarch, would have led to the scaffold; but the most eloquent and impassioned declamations in support of both the one and the other, when couched in verse, put into the mouth of Virginius or Brutus, and repeated on the stage by a popular actor, excited no sort of apprehension. On the contrary, it was only the more admired from its very novelty. Such ideas fell on the mind, amidst the seductions and restrictions of a despotic court, with somewhat of the charm with which the voice of nature, and the picture of her beauties, was in the last days of the French monarchy listened to from the gifted pen of Rousseau, or the vehement and imaginary passions of the Greek Corsairs, as delineated by Byron, were regarded by the worn-out victims of London dissipation.

If we would see in modern literature the most exact counterpart which Europe has been able to present to the oratorical perfection of antiquity, we must look for it, not in the debates of its National Assemblies, or even the effusions of its pulpit eloquence, but in the speeches of its great tragic poets. The best declamations in Corneille, Alfieri, and Schiller, are often nothing but ancient eloquence put into verse. The brevity and force of Shakspeare belong to the same school. These men exhibit the same condensation of ideas, terseness of expression, depth of thought, acquaintance with the secrets of the heart, which have rendered the historians and orators of antiquity immortal. Like them in their highest flights, they present intellect and genius disdaining the attractions of style, the flowers of rhetoric, the amplifications of imagination, and resting solely on condensed reason, cogent argument, and impassioned pathos. They are the bones and muscles of thought, without its ornament or covering. It is this circumstance which rendered their drama so popular, and has given its great masters their colossal reputation; and in their lasting fame may be found the most decisive proof of the undying influence of the highest species of eloquence on cultivated minds. Men and women went to the theatre not to be instructed in the story--it was known to all; not to be dazzled by stage effect--there was none of it: but to hear oratory of the highest, pathos of the most moving, magnanimity of the most exalted kind, repeated with superb effect by the first performers. The utmost vehemence of action, with all the aids of intonation, action, and delivery, was employed to heighten the effect of condensed eloquence, conveying free and lofty sentiments which could nowhere else be heard. This was the secret of the wonderful influence of the stage on the polished society of Paris, during the latter days of the monarchy. The audience in the _parterre_ might be seen repeating every celebrated speech with the actor.

To illustrate these observations, we shall subjoin a few passages--two from Corneille, one from Shakspeare, one from Alfieri, and two from Schiller, in prose--partly to show how nearly they approach to the style of ancient oratory, and partly from a sense of the hopelessness of any translation conveying more than a prosaic idea of the terseness and vigour of the originals,--

"When the people are the master, tumults become national events.
Never is the voice of reason consulted. Honours are sold to the
most ambitious, authority yielded to the most seditious. These
little sovereigns, made for a year, seeing the term of their
power so near expiring, cause the most auspicious designs to
miscarry, from the dread that others who follow may obtain the
credit of them. As they have little share in the property which
they command, they reap without hesitation in the harvest of the
public, being well assured that every one will gladly pardon what
they themselves hope to do on a future occasion. The worst of
states is the popular state."[5]

Corneille's celebrated picture of Attila, which he puts into the mouth of Octar, but which was really intended for Louis XIV., exhibits another example of the condensed style of oratory, perhaps still more applicable to a greater man than the Grande Monarque,--

"I have seen him, alike in peace and war, bear everywhere the air
of the conqueror of the earth. Often have I beheld the fiercest
nations disarm his wrath by their submission. I have seen all
the pleasure of his heroic mind savouring of the grand and the
magnificent, while his ceaseless foresight in the midst of peace
had prepared the triumphs of war; his noble anxiety, which, amidst
his very recreations prepared the success of future designs. Too
happy the people against whom he does not turn his invincible
arms! I have seen him, covered with smoke and dust, give the
noblest example to his army--spread terror everywhere by his
own danger--overturn walls by a single glance, and heap his own
conquests on the broken pride of the haughtiest monarchs."[6]

Napoleon said, if he had lived in his time, he would have made Corneille his first councillor of state. He was right: for his thoughts were more allied to the magnanimity of the hero than the pathos of the tragedian; and his language savoured more of the sonorous periods of the orator than the fire of the poet.

Beside these specimens of French tragic eloquence, we gladly place the well-known speech of Brutus in _Julius Cæsar_, which proves that Shakspeare was endowed with the very soul of ancient oratory:--

"Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be
silent that you may hear; believe me for mine honour, and have
respect to mine honour that you may believe; censure me in your
wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If
there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to
him I say that Brutus' love to Cæsar was not less than his. If,
then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is
my answer: not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome
more. Had you rather that Cæsar were living and die all slaves,
than that Cæsar were dead to live all free men? As Cæsar loved
me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice in it; as he
was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his
valour, and death for his ambition. Who is there so base that
would be a bondsman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who
is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for
him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his
country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I have done no
more to Cæsar than you should do to Brutus. The question of his
death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory is not extenuated,
wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced for which he
suffered death."[7]

This is in the highest style of ancient oratory. Whoever has had the good fortune to hear this noble speech repeated by the lips, and with the impressive manner of Kemble, will have no difficulty in conceiving how it was that eloquence in Greece and Rome acquired so mighty an ascendency. Shakspeare has shown, however, in the speech of Antony, which follows, that he is not less master of that important part of oratory which consists in moving the feelings, and conciliating by pathos an adverse audience. Antiquity never conceived anything more skilful, or evincing a more thorough knowledge of the human heart, than thus turning aside the lofty patriotic and republican ideas awakened by Brutus' speech, first by the exhibition of Cæsar's garments, rent by the daggers of his murderers, and yet wet with his blood, and then unveiling the mangled corpse itself!

The eloquence of Alfieri and Schiller, perhaps, of all modern writers, is that which approaches most closely to the brief and condensed style of ancient oratory. The speech of Icilius, in the noble drama of _Virginia_, by the first of these writers, affords a fair specimen of its power:--

"Listen to my words, O people of Rome! I who heretofore have never
been deceitful, who have never either betrayed or sold my honour;
who boast an ignoble origin, but a noble heart! hear me. This
innocent free maid is daughter of Virginius. At such a name, I
see your eyes flash with resplendent fire. Virginius is fighting
for you in the field: think on the depravity of the times;
meanwhile, exposed to shame, the victim of outrage, his daughter
remains in Rome. And who outrages her? Come forward, O Marcus!
show yourself. Why tremble you? He is well known to you: the last
slave of the tyrant Appius and his first minister--of Appius,
the mortal enemy of every virtue--of Appius, the haughty, stern,
ferocious oppressor, who his ravished from you your freedom, and,
to embitter the robbery, has left you your lives. Virginia is my
promised bride: I love her. Who I am, I need not say: some one
may perhaps remind you. I was your tribune, your defender; but in
vain. You trusted rather the deceitful words of another than my
free speech. We now suffer, in common slavery, the pain of your
delusion. Why do I say more? The heart, the arm, the boldness of
Icilius is known to you not less than the name. From you I demand
my free bride. This man does not ask her: he styles her slave--he
drags her, he forces her. Icilius or Marcus is a liar: say,
Romans, which it is."[8]

That Schiller was a great dramatic and lyric poet, need be told to none who have the slightest acquaintance with European literature; but his great oratorical powers are not so generally appreciated, for they have been lost in the blaze of his poetic genius. They were, however, of the very highest order, as will at once appear from the following translation (imperfect as it, of course, is) in prose, which we have attempted of the celebrated speeches of Shrewsbury and Burleigh, who discussed before Queen Elizabeth the great question of Queen Mary's execution, in his noble tragedy of _Maria Stuart_:--

SHREWSBURY.

"God, whose wondrous hand has four times protected you, and who
to-day gave the feeble arm of gray hairs strength to turn aside
the stroke of a madman, should inspire confidence. I will not now
speak in the name of justice; this is not the time. In such a
tumult you cannot hear her still small voice. Consider this only:
you are fearful now of the living Mary; but I say it is not the
living you have to fear. _Tremble at the dead--the beheaded._ She
will rise from the grave a fiend of dissension. She will awaken
the spirit of revenge in your kingdom, and wean the hearts of
your subjects from you. At present she is an object of dread to
the British; but when she is no more, they will revenge her. No
longer will she then be regarded as the enemy of their faith; her
mournful fate will cause her to appear only as the granddaughter
of their king, the victim of man's hatred and woman's jealousy.
Soon will you see the change appear! Drive through London after
the bloody deed has been done; show yourself to the people, who
now surround you with joyful acclamations: then will you see
another England, another people! No longer will you then walk
forth encircled by the radiance of heavenly justice which now
binds every heart to you. Dread the frightful name of tyrant which
will precede you through shuddering hearts, and resound through
every street where you pass. You have done the last irrevocable
deed. What head stands fast when this sacred one has fallen?"

BURLEIGH.

"Thou sayest, my Queen, thou lovest thy people more than
thyself--show it now! Choose not peace for yourself, and leave
discord to your people. Think on the Church! Shall the ancient
faith be restored with this Stuart? Shall the monk of new lord it
here--the legate of Rome return to shut up our churches, dethrone
our queen? I demand the souls of all your subjects from you.
As you now decide, you are saved or lost. This is no time for
womanish pity: the salvation of your people is your highest duty.
Has Shrewsbury saved your life to-day? I will deliver England, and
that is more."--_Maria Stuart_, Act iv. s. 7.

Demosthenes could have written nothing more powerful--Cicero imagined nothing more persuasive.

We shall now, to justify our assertion that it is in the dramatic poets of modern Europe that a parallel can alone be found to the condensed power of ancient eloquence, proceed to give a few quotations from the most celebrated speeches of antiquity. We have selected, in general, those from the historians, as they are shorter than the orations delivered in the forum, and can be given entire. A fragment from a speech of Demosthenes or Cicero gives no sort of idea of the original, because what goes before is withheld. To scholars we need not plead indulgence for the inadequacy of our translations: they will not expect what they know to be impossible.

Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola, puts into the mouth of Galgacus the following oration, when he was animating the Caledonians to their last battle with the Romans under Agricola.

"As often as I reflect on the origin of the war, and our
necessities, I feel a strong conviction that this day, and your
will, are about to lay the foundations of British liberty. For
we have all known what slavery is, and no place of retreat lies
behind us. The sea even is insecure when the Roman fleet hovers
around. Thus arms and war, ever coveted by the brave, are now
the only refuge of the cowardly. In former actions, in which the
Britons fought with various success against the Romans, our valour
was a resource to look to, for we, the noblest of all the nation,
and on that account placed in its inmost recesses, unused to the
spectacle of servitude, had our eyes even inviolate from its
hateful sight. We, the last of the earth, and of freedom, unknown
to fame, have been hitherto defended by our remoteness; now, the
extreme limits of Britain appear, and the unknown is ever regarded
as the magnificent. No refuge is behind us; naught but the rocks
and the waves, and the deadlier Romans: men whose pride you have
in vain sought to deprecate by moderation and subservience. The
robbers of the globe, when the land fails they scour the sea.
Is the enemy rich, they are avaricious; is he poor, they are
ambitious--the East and the West are unable to satiate their
desires. Wealth and poverty are alike coveted by their rapacity.
To carry off, massacre, seize on false pretences, they call
empire; and when they make a desert, they call it peace.

"Nature has made children and relations dearest to all: they are
carried off by levies to serve elsewhere: our wives and sisters,
if they escape the lust of our enemies, are seduced by these
_friends_ and _guests_. Our goods and fortunes they seize on as
tribute, our corn as supplies; our very bodies and hands they
wear out amidst strifes and contumely, in fortifying stations in
the woods and marshes. Serfs born in servitude are once bought,
and ever after fed by their masters; Britain alone daily buys its
slavery, daily feeds it. As in families the last slave purchased
is often a laughing-stock to the rest, so we, the last whom they
have reduced to slavery, are the first to be agonised by their
contumely, and reserved for destruction. We have neither fields,
nor minerals, nor harbours, in working which we can be employed:
the valour and fierceness of the vanquished are obnoxious to the
victors: our very distance and obscurity, as they render us the
safer, make us the more suspected. Laying aside, therefore, all
hope of pardon, assume the courage of men to whom salvation and
glory are alike dear. The Trinobantes, under a female leader, had
courage to burn a colony and storm castles, and, had not their
success rendered them negligent, they would have cast off the
yoke. We, untouched and unconquered, nursed in freedom, shall we
not show, on the first onset, what men Caledonia has nursed in her
bosom?

"Do not believe the Romans have the same prowess in war as lust
in peace. They have grown great on our divisions: they know how
to turn the vices of men to the glory of their own army. As it
has been drawn together by success, so disaster will dissolve
it, unless you suppose that the Gauls and the Germans, and, I am
ashamed to say, many of the Britons, who now lend their blood to
a foreign usurpation, and in their hearts are rather enemies than
slaves, can be retained by faith and affection. Fear and terror
are but slender bonds of attachment; when you remove them, as fear
ceases terror begins. All the incitements of victory are on our
side: no wives inflame the Romans; no parents are there, to call
shame on their flight; they have no country, or it is elsewhere.
Few in number, fearful from ignorance, gazing on unknown woods
and seas, the gods have delivered them shut in and bound into
your hands. Let not their vain aspect, the glitter of silver and
gold, which neither covers nor wounds, alarm you. In the very
line of the enemy we shall find our friends: the Britons will
recognise their own cause; the Gauls will recollect their former
freedom; the other Germans will desert them, as lately the Usipii
have done. No objects of terror are behind them; naught but empty
castles, age-ridden colonies; dissension between cruel masters and
unwilling slaves, sick and discordant cities. Here is a leader,
an army; there are tributes, and payments, and the badges of
servitude, which to bear for ever, or instantly to avenge, lies
in your arms. Go forth then into the field, and think of your
ancestors and your descendants."[9]

It is scarcely necessary to say that this speech was written by Tacitus: most certainly nothing half so perfect was ever conceived by Caledonian chief or Caledonian orator, from that day to this. But as the great speeches in antiquity were all written, this gives a specimen, doubtless of the most favourable kind, of the style of oratory which prevailed amongst them. No modern historian has either ventured or been able to put anything so nervous and forcible into the mouth of any orator, how great soever. If he did, it would at once be known that it had not been spoken, but was the fruit of the composition of the closet.

Catiline, who, like many other revolutionists, possessed abilities commensurate to his wickedness, thus addressed the conspirators who were associated to overturn the sway of the Roman patricians:--

"Had not your valour and fidelity been well known to me, fruitless
would have been the smiles of Fortune: the prospect of as mighty
domination would in vain have opened upon us; nor would I have
mistaken illusive hopes for realities, uncertain things for
certain. But since, on many and great occasions, I have known
you to be brave and faithful, I have ventured to engage in the
greatest and noblest undertaking; for I well know that good and
evil are common to you and me. That friendship at length is
secure which is founded on wishing and dreading the same things.
You all know what designs I have long revolved in my mind; but
my confidence in them daily increases, when I reflect what our
fate is likely to be, if we do not vindicate our freedom by our
own hands. For, since the republic has fallen under the power
and dominion of a few, kings yield their tributes, governorships
their profits to them: all the rest, whether strenuous, good,
noble or ignoble, are the mere vulgar: without influence, without
authority, we are obnoxious to those to whom, if the commonwealth
existed, we should be a terror. All honour, favour, power, wealth,
is centred in them, or those whom they favour: to us are left
dangers, repulses, lawsuits, poverty. How long will you endure
them, O ye bravest of men? Is it not better to die bravely, than
drag out a miserable and dishonoured life, the sport of pride, the
victims of disgrace? But by the faith of gods and men, victory is
in our own hands: our strength is unimpaired; our minds energetic:
theirs is enfeebled by age, extinguished by riches. All that is
required is to begin boldly; the rest follows of course. Where
is the man of a manly spirit, who can tolerate that they should
overflow with riches, which they squander in ransacking the sea,
in levelling mountains, while to us the common necessaries of
life are awanting? They have two or more superb palaces each; we
not wherein to lay our heads. When they buy pictures, statues,
basso-relievos, they destroy the old to make way for the new: in
every possible way they squander away their money; but all their
desires are unable to exhaust their riches. At home, we have only
poverty; abroad, debts; present adversity; worse prospects. What,
in fine, is left us, but our woe-stricken souls? What, then, shall
we do? That, that which you have ever most desired. Liberty is
before your eyes; and it will soon bring riches, renown, glory:
Fortune holds out these rewards to the victors. The time, the
place, our dangers, our wants, the splendid spoils of war, exhort
you more than my words. Make use of me either as a commander or
a private soldier. Neither in soul or body will I be absent from
your side. These deeds I hope I shall perform as Consul with you,
unless my hopes deceive me, and you are prepared rather to obey as
slaves, than to command as rulers."[10]

The topics here handled are the same which in every age have been the staple of the conspirator and the revolutionist; but it may be doubted whether they ever were put together with such force and address. The same desperate chief, on the eve of their last conflict with the consular legions:--