ployed in unfolding the principles on which the discourse is established, it spreads over it an inevitable obscurity, and a species of declamation which disIt is after a clear exgusts persons of good taste. planation of the obligations of the Christian religion that particular details of its moral injunctions, enlivened by this impetuous movement, forcibly strike the hearers, add remorse to conviction, and, if I may so speak, arm law against conscience. It is by earnest and repeated interrogations that the orator proves and attacks, accuses and answers, doubts and affirms, affects and instructs. Is there, in eloquence, a surer way to agitate the human heart than by such questions following one another in rapid succession, to which there is no need of waiting for an answer, because that is unavoidable and uniform? Can we better manage the pride of the guilty than by sparing him the disgrace of a direct reproach, at the very time we are informing him of his foibles or his vices? Or, say, how can we impart more force to truth, more weight to reason, than by confining ourselves to the simple privilege of interrogating the wicked? By what means can such a one elude the orator, who shuts up all the avenues by which he endeavours to escape from himself? an orator who makes choice of him as judge, as sole judge, as the private judge, of the recesses of his own heart only, which he cannot mistake? What answer will he return if the general questions, which he himself converts into so many personal accusations, rush upon him and gather strength; if to

these evidences, overwhelming to the sinner, there follows a sublime and striking representation, which terrifies his imagination, and causes his thoughts to be greatly confused? Thus resembling a solemn sentence, which the judge proceeds to pronounce upon the guilty after having first confounded him.

Such is that sublime and famous apostrophe which Massillon addresses to the Supreme Being in his sermon "On the Small Number of the Elect." "O God! where are thine elect?" These words, so plain, spread consternation. Each hearer places himself in that list of reprobates which had preceded this passage. He dares no more reply to the orator, who had again and again demanded of him if he were of the number of the righteous, whose names alone shall be written in the book of life; but, entering with consternation into his own heart, which speaks sufficiently plain by its compunctions, he then imagines that he hears the irrevocable decree of his reprobation.

The eloquent Racine almost always proceeds by interrogations in impassioned scenes; and this figure, which gives such an ardent rapidity to his style, animates and warms all his arguments, none of which are ever cold, flat, or abstracted.

The success of this oratorical figure is infallible in eloquence when it is properly employed. It is the natural language of a soul deeply affected. If you wish to see an example of it, a famous one now

occurs to me.

Every one knows that fine introduction of Cicero, when, unable to express the lively indignation of his patriotic zeal, he rushes abruptly upon Catiline, and instantly overwhelms him by the vehemence of his interrogations. "How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shall we continue to be the objects of thy fury? Whither will thy headstrong audacity impel thee? Perceivest thou not the constant watch in the city, the apprehensions of the people, the enraged countenances of the senators, who have discovered thy pernicious designs? Thinkest thou that I know not what passed the last night in the house of Lecca? Hast thou not made a distribution of employments, and parcelled out all Italy with thy accomplices ?"*+

* Quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiâ nostrâ? quamdiù etiam, furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata jactabit audacia? nihil-ne te nocturnum præsidiùm palatü, nihil urbis vigiliæ, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatûs locus, nihil horum ora vultusque moverunt? Patere tua consilia non sentis? quid proximâ nocte egeris, ubi fueris, quos convocaveris, quem nostrûm ignorare arbitraris? &c.-In Catil., Orat. 1.

+ The intelligent reader will perceive that the above translation is from the French of our author, though not exactly corresponding with the Latin of Cicero. The following is subjoined as a more full and faithful translation of the Roman orator :

"How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long also shall thy madness elude us? Whither will

Here is eloquence! here is nature! It is by his making use of such language that the orator dives to the very bottom of the human heart.*

thy ungovernable audacity impel thee? Could neither the nightly garrison of the citadel, nor the watch of the city, nor the general consternation, nor the congress of all good men, nor this strongly-fortified place where the senate is held, nor the enraged countenances of those senators, deter thee from thy impious designs? Dost thou not perceive that thy counsels are all discovered? Thinkest thou that there are any of us ignorant of thy transactions the past night, the place of rendezvous, thy collected associates?" &c.

* "INTERROGATIONS," says Dr. Blair, "are passionate figures. They are, indeed, on so many occasions the native language of passion, that their use is extremely frequent; and in ordinary conversation, when men are heated, they prevail as much as in the most sublime oratory. The unfigured, literal use of interrogation is to ask a question; but when men are prompted by passion, whatever they would affirm or deny with great vehemence, they naturally put in the form of a question; expressing thereby the strongest confidence of the truth of their own sentiment, and appealing to their hearers for the impossibility of the contrary. Thus, in Scripture: GoD is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?'-(Numbers, xxiii., 19.) So Demosthenes, addressing himself to the Athenians: 'Tell me, will you still go about and ask one another what news? What can be more astonishing news than this, that the man of Macedon makes war upon

3

SECTION XVIII.

OF THE ELOQUENCE OF M. BRIDAINE.

Ir there be extant among us any traces of this ancient and energetic éloquence, which is nothing else

the Athenians, and disposes of the affairs of Greece? Is Philip dead? No, but he is sick. What signifies it to you whether he be dead or alive? for, if anything happen to this Philip, you will immediately raise up another.' All this, delivered without interrogation, had been faint and ineffectual; but the warmth and eagerness which this questioning method expresses, awaken the hearers, and strike them with much greater force."-BLAIR's Lectures, vol. i., p. 355, 356.

"Much to the same purpose, we may add those sublime interrogations in the book of Job where the Almighty is himself the speaker, and that in the eleventh chapter of the same poem: Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?' All the energy of this passage would be lost if once divested of the interrogations; should it be said, Thou canst not by searching find out GOD; thou canst not find out the Almighty unto perfection: it is as high as heaven, and thou canst do nothing; and it is deep as hell, and thou canst know nothing."

"Another very happy illustration of the force of this figure may be brought from the speech of ST. PAUL, Acts, xxvi., where, with astonishing effect, he transfers his discourse from Augustus to Agrippa. In verse 26 he speaks of him in the third person: The king,' says he, 'knows of those things, before whom also I speak freely.' He