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ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS.

To the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook the arsenal, and thundered over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.

MILTON

THE celebrity of the great classical writers | all that could be done by the resolving and is confined within no limits, except those combining powers of the understanding, seems which separate civilized from savage man. not to have possessed much of sensibility or Their works are the common property of every imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed polished nation. They have furnished sub-to the deficiency of materials. The great works jects for the painter, and models for the poet. of genius which then existed were not either In the minds of the educated classes through- sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to out Europe, their names are indissolubly asso- enable any man to form a perfect code of literaciated with the endearing recollections of ture. To require that a critic should conceive childhood, the old school-room,-the dog-classes of composition which had never exeared grammar,—the first prize,-the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So great is the veneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors and commentators, who perform the lowest menial offices to their memory, are considered, like the equerries and With all his deficiencies Aristotle was the chamberlains of sovereign princes, as entitled most enlightened and profound critic of antito a high rank in the table of literary prece-quity. Dionysius was far from possessing the dence. It is, therefore, somewhat singular that their productions should so rarely have been examined on just and philosophical principles

of criticism.

isted, and then investigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the demand of Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dream, and then to interpret it.

same exquisite subtlety, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access to a much greater number of specimens, and he had devoted himself, as it appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. His parti cular judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is only the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher.

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance. When they particularize, they are commonly trivial: when they would generalize, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made in favour of Aris- Quintilian applied to general literature the totle. Both in analysis and in combination, same principles by which he had been accus that great man was without a rival. No phi- tomed to judge of the declamations of his pu losopher has ever possessed, in an equal de- pils. He looks for nothing but rhetoric, and gree, the talent either of separating established rhetoric not of the highest order. He speaks systems into their primary elements, or of con- coldly of the incomparable works of Eschylus. necting detached phenomena in harmonicus He admires, beyond expression, those inexsystems. He was the great fashioner of the haustible mines of commonplaces, the plays of intellectual chaos: he changed its darkness Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on into light, and its discord into order. He the poetical character of Homer. He then brought to literary researches the same vigour proceeds to consider him merely as an ora and amplitude of mind, to which both physical tor. An orator Homer doubtless was, and a and metaphysical science are so greatly in- great orator. But surely nothing is more redebted. His fundamental principles of criti-markable, in his admirable works, than an art cism are excellent. To cite only a single instance; the doctrine which he established, that poetry is an imitative art, when justly understood is to the critic what the compass is to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of an occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into a science.

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the superstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This is partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though qualified to do

with which his oratorical powers are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as are many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we can perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate in a des pot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amuse ment for the travelled nobles and the blue stocking matrons of Rome. It is, therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war: it is a contest of foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of the attitude than of

the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and his example.

French Anas a ludicrous instance of this. 4 scholar, doubtless of great learning, recom mends the study of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the reli gion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For there," says he, “you will learn every thing of importance that is contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two such tedious books." Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentle

attached so much value was useful only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be as worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria or the vo

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility but little discrimination. He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from L'esprit des Lois to L'esprit sur les Lois. In the same man-man that all the knowledge to which he had ner the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not "Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus." The origin of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of in-cabulary of Otaheite. quiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. Of those scholars who have disdained tc In our own country it has been discussed with confine themselves to verbal criticism, few great ability, and, I think, with very little suc- have been successful. The ancient languages cess, by Burke and Dugald Stewart. Longinus have, generally, a magical influence on their dispenses himself from all investigations of faculties. They were "fools called into a cirthis nature, by telling his friend Terentianus cle by Greek invocations." The Iliad and that he already knows every thing that can be Eneid were to them not books, but curiosities, said upon the question. It is to be regretted or rather relics. They no more admired those that Terentianus did not impart some of his works for their merits, than a good Catholic knowledge to his instructor, for from Longi-venerates the house of the Virgin at Loretto nus we learn only that sublimity means height -or elevation. This name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the human body, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard, Longinus is right only by accident. He is rather a fancier than a critic.

for its architecture. Whatever was classical was good. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles of Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to questions of evidence, they fell into the same error. The authority of all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. It never crossed their minds that the Modern writers have been prevented by many lapse of five hundred years, or the distance of causes from supplying the deficiencies of their five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy classical predecessors. At the time of the re- of a narration, that Livy could be a less vera. vival of literature no man could, without great cious historian than Polybius,—or that Plu and painful labour, acquire an accurate and tarch could know less about the friends of Xeelegant knowledge of the ancient languages. nophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by And, unfortunately, those grammatical and the distance of time, they seem to consider alt philological studies, without which it was im- the classics as contemporaries; just as I have possible to understand the great works of known people in England, deceived by the disAthenian and Roman genius, have a tendency tance of place, take it for granted that all perto contract the views and deaden the sensibili-sons who live in India are neighbours, and ask ty of those who follow them with extreme as- an inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an siduity. A powerful mind which has been long acquaintance at Calcutta. It is to be hoped employed in such studies, may be compared that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass to the gigantic spirit in the Arabian tale, who over Europe. But should such a calamity hapwas persuaded to contract himself to small pen, it seems not improbable that some future dimensions in order to enter within the en-Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of Eng. chanted vessel, and, when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escape from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced his stature. When the means have long been the objects of application, they are naturally substituted for the end. It was said by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest generais have commonly been those who have been at once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best understood by those who have not had much practice in Arilling syllables and particles.

I remember to have observed among the

• 'Ακροτης και εξοχη τις λόγων εστι τα ύψη.

land from Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Memoirs.

It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in a different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itselt to the demand. The quantity may be dimi

zished by restrictions and multiplied by boun- | have improved our condition as much in reality es. The singular excellence to which elo- as in appearance. Rumford, it is said, pro quence attained at Athens is to be mainly at-posed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for tributed to the influence which it exerted there. feeding his soldiers at a much cheaper rate In turbulent times, under a constitution purely than formerly. His plan was simply to com democratic, among a people educated exactly pel them to masticate their food thoroughly. to that point at which men are most suscepti- A small quantity thus eaten would, according ble of strong and sudden impressions, acute, to that famous projector, afford more suste but not sound reasoners, warm in their feel-nance than a large meal hastily devoured. 1 ings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate | do not know how Rumford's proposition was admirers of fine composition, oratory received received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be such encouragement as it has never since ob- found more nutritious to digest a page than to tained. devour a volume.

The taste and knowledge of the Athenian Books, however, were the least part of the people was a favourite object of the contemptu-education of an Athenian citizen. Let us, fer ous derision of Samuel Johnson; a man who a moment, transport ourselves, in thought, to knew nothing of Greek literature beyond the that glorious city. Let us imagine that we are common school-books, and who seems to have entering its gates, in the time of its power and brought to what he had read scarcely more glory. A crowd is assembled round a portico. than the discernment of a common schoolboy. All are gazing with delight at the entablature, He used to assert, with that arrogant absurdity for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn which, in spite of his great abilities and vir- into another street; a rhapsodist is reciting tues, renders him perhaps the most ridiculous there; men, women, children, are thronging character in literary history, that Demosthenes round him; the tears are running down their spoke to a people of brutes,-to a barbarous cheeks; their eyes are fixed; their very breath people, that there could have been no civi- is still; for he is telling how Priam fell at the lization before the invention of printing. John- feet of Achilles, and kissed those hands,—the son was a keen but a very narrow-minded ob terrible, the murderous,-which had slain so server of mankind. He perpetually confound- many of his sons.* We enter the public ed their general nature with their particular place; there is a ring of youths, all leaning forcircumstances. He knew London intimately. ward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of exThe sagacity of his remarks on its society is pectation. Socrates is pitted against the faperfectly astonishing. But Fleet Street was mous Atheist, from Ionia, and has just brought the world to him. He saw that Londoners who him to a contradiction in terms. But we are did not read were profoundly ignorant, and he interrupted. The herald is crying-" Room inferred that a Greek who had few or no books for the Prytanes." The general assembly is must have been as uninformed as one of Mr. to meet. The people are swarming in on every Thrale's draymen. side. Proclamation is made-"Who wishes to speak." There is a shout, and a clapping of hands: Pericles is mounting the stand. Then for a play of Sophocles; and away to sup with Aspasia. I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system of education.

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe that in general intelligence the Athenian populace far surpassed the lower orders of any commnnity that has ever existed. must be considered that to be a citizen was to be a legislator-a soldier-a judge-one upon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealthiest tributary state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest offices, both of agriculture and of trade, were in common per formed by slaves. The commonwealth supplied its meanest members with the support of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the means of amusement. Books were, indeed, few, but they were excellent, and they were accurately known. It is not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intently contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ, in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have transcribed, six times, the History of Thucydides. If he had been a young politician of the present age, he might in the same space of time have skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that desultory mode of study which the state of things in our day renders a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changes on which the admiters of modern institutions delight to dwell

Knowledge thus acquired, and opinions thus formed, were, indeed, likely to be, in some respects, defective. Propositions, which are advanced in discourse, generally result from a partial view of the question, and cannot be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men of great conversational pow. ers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear a close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debating societies, and even in legislative or judicial assem blies. To the conversational education of the Athenians, I am inclined to attribute the great looseness of reasoning, which is remarkable in most of their scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would stand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge would stare at the political economy of Xenophon and the author of Soirées de Petersbourg wcuid be ashamed of some of the metaphysical argu

* και κυσε χειρας. δεινας, ανδροφόνους, αι οι πολεας κτανον μιας

ments of Plato. But the very circumstances was immediate conviction and persuasion which retarded the growth of science, were He, therefore, who would justly appreciate the peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of elo- merit of the Grecian orators, should place him quence. From the early habit of taking a harc self, as nearly as possible, in the situation of in animated discussion, the intelligent student their auditors: he should divest himself of his would derive that readiness of resource, that modern feelings and acquirements, and make copiousness of language, and that knowledge the prejudices and interests of the Athenian of the temper and understanding of an audi- citizens his own. He who studies their works ence, which are far more valuable to an orator in this spirit will find that many of those things than the greatest logical powers. which, to an English reader, appear to be blemishes,--the frequent violation of these excellent rules of evidence, by which our courts of law are regulated,-the introduction of extrancous matter,--the reference to con. siderations of political expediency in judicial investigations,--the assertions, without proof, --the passionate entreaties,--the furious in vectives,-are really proofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must not dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first impressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to works of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect, the most hasty judgment is likely to be best.

Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the effect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remark applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read with the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they must necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason; as the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was designed, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgctten by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure, pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that the hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect the fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression; that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, would have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister art, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and quarrel with a scene-painter because he does not give to his work the exquisite finish of Gérard Dow.

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early period great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistocles are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for debate. W learn, with more certainty, that Pericles wa distinguished by extraordinary oratorical pow ers. The substance of some of his speeches i transmitted to us by Thucydides, and that ex cellent writer has doubtless faithfully reported Oratory is to be estimated on principles dif- the general line of his arguments. But the ferent from those which are applied to other manner, which in oratory is of at least as productions. Truth is the object of philosophy much consequence as the matter, was of ne and history. Truth is the object even of those importance to his narration. It is evident tha works which are peculiarly called works of he has not attempted to preserve it. Through fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same rela-out his work, every speech on every subject, tion to history which algebra bears to arith-whatever may have been the character or the metic. The merit of poetry, in its wildest dialect of the speaker, is in exactly the same forms, still consists in its truth,-truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the multitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is different. A speaker, who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of composiion, but he is not an orator. If he miss the nark, it makes no difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low.

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a great measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us ittle of what I call Oratory Proper. Our lcgislators, our candidates, on great occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience than to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of the innumerable readers. At Athens, the case was different there the only object of the speaker

form. The grave King of Sparta, the furious demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging his army, the captive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakers in one unvaried style,-a style moreover wholly unfit for ora torical purposes. His mode of reasoning is singularly elliptical,-in reality most consecu tive, yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, in itself is sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possible words. His great fondness for antithetical expression has not a little conduced to this effect. Every one must have observed how much more the sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who never ventured to continue the same clause from couplet to couplet, than in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial division, which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which spontaneously rises to the mind, will often refuse to accommodate itself to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally the choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides.

I is scarcely necessary to say that such the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater genera speeches could never have been delivered. vigour and health than either. It is the same They are perhaps among the most difficult pas-with the mind. The superiority in technical sages in the Greek language, and would probably have been scarcely more intelligible to an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. T'heir obscurity was acknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature and language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who seems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. The difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in the reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them, than a clear head and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to the scholar, as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powers of the finest languages:-they are valuable to the philosopher, as illustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age;-they abound in just thought and energetic expresion. But they do not enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek orators.

skill is often more than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is peculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governed by men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rather a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of one. The union of the political and military departments in Greece contributed not a little to the splen dour of its early history. After their separation more skilful generals and greater speakers appeared;-but the breed of statesmen dwindled and became almost extinct. Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes in the assembly, or Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were incomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction of affairs.

able in their general character. Their skill had been obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views. Thus the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous conten:poraries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops, who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian republics,-perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise the charac

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the art of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. Though it cannot be doubted, that, before the They both advanced to perfection by contemPersian wars, Athens had produced eminent poraneous steps, and from similar causes. The speakers, yet the period during which elo- early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, quence most flourished among her citizens was were merely a militia. It was found, that in by no means that of her greatest power and both employments, practice and discipline gave glory. It commenced at the close of the Pelo- superiority. Each pursuit, therefore, became ponnesian war. In fact, the steps by which first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as Athenian oratory approached to its finished the professors of each became more expert in excellence, seem to have been almost contem-their particular craft, they became less respectporaneous with those by which the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At the time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories which twenty-five eventual centuries have left unequalled, eloquence was in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plough passed over the ruins of famous cities. The imperial republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Egospotami. She was at length reduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws. During these disastrous and gloomy years, oratory was advancing towards its highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, the military character of the people was most utterly degraded; it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that the world has ever known.

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign. The division of laSour operates on the productions of the orator as it does on those of the mechanic. It wa. remarked by the ancients, that the Pentathlete, who divided his attention between several exercises, though he could not vie with a boxer in the use of a cestus, or with one who had conLued his attention to running in the contest of

*It has often occurred to me, that to the circumstances mentioned in the text, is to be referred one of the most remarkable events in Grecian history, I mean the silent but rapid downfall of the Lacedæmonian power. Soon after the termination of the Peloponnesian military discipline, its social institutions were the same. war, the strength of Lacedæmon began to decline. Its Agesilaus, during whose reign the change took place, was the ablest of its kings. Yet the Spartan armies were frequently defeated in pitched battles,--an occurrence considered impossible in the earlier ages of Greece. They are allowed to have fought most bravely, yet they were no longer attended by the success to whick they had formerly been accustomed. No solution of these circumstances is offered, as far as I know, by any ancient author. The real cause, I conceive, was this. The Lacedæmonians, alone among the Greeks, formed a permanent standing army. While the citizens of other commonwealths were engaged in agriculture and trade, they had no employment whatever but the study of military discipline. Hence, during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, they had that advantage over their neighbours which regular troops always possess over militia. This advantage they lost when other states began, at a later period, to employ mercenary forces, who were probably as superior to them in the art of wai as they had hitherto been to their antagonists.

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