"The third, of those between thirty and forty years, consisting of three hundred and fortyfive "The fourth, of those from forty to fifty years, 345 255 160 70 1800 "According to the computation of those who have applied themselves to such sort of inquiries, each of these classes will furnish death a yearly tribute of ten persons; and upon this principle there must die this year sixty of my hearers; upon the same principle, in ten years there will remain no more of these eighteen hundred persons than "In twenty years no more than "In thirty years "In forty years "In fifty years 66 1270 830 480 230 70 Thus, my brethren, you perceive that society is in one continual fluctuation." Yes, I shall be able, without doubt, to comprehend this scale of mortality while testing the combinations of Saurin at leisure in a book, wherein I can trace them at sight: but how shall I lay hold of these arithmetical deductions in a pulpit, where the rapidity of the delivery admits of no abstract mental operations ? This singular calculation ought not, therefore, to find room in a sermon solely intended to be preached in a church. Besides, the strength which this reasoning appears to have at first sight is not sufficiently forcible to intimidate hardened sinners. Saurin acknowledges, that fifty years after the day wherein he speaks, there will still remain upon the earth seventy of his hearers: now, however little we may know of the human heart, we apprehend that there was not, perhaps, one individual of these eighteen hundred persons who did not flatter himself with being of this small number, and, consequently, who did not regard death as still at too great a distance to hasten his conversion. SECTION XLVI. OF ENGLISH ELOQUENCE. INFERIOR as Saurin is to our great masters, he is in the same proportion superior to English preachers.* *From the admission of our author in the beginning of the next chapter, that he was acquainted with Tillotson only through a translation, we must infer that he was ignorant of the English language. Remembering this fact, the reader will be amused at the freedom and self-complacence with which the good abbé decides upon the respective merits of writers in a language which he could Mr. Hume expressly acknowledges that England hath made less improvement in this kind of eloquence than in the other branches of literature. In fact, although this nation hath produced some eloquent writers, at the head of whom we ought to reckon RICHARDSON,* she hath not, as yet, one single orator who can do honour to his country in Europe.t not read, as well as the positiveness with which he asserts their inferiority to those of his own country. What would be thought of an English critic who, confessing himself unacquainted with the French tongue, should yet proceed to decide with confidence not only that the orators, poets, and dramatic writers of England are superior to those of France, but also what rank should be assigned to each of the last when compared among themselves. The competency of the author to graduate the claims of English writers and speakers may be inferred from the fact that he pronounces Richardson the most eloquent of them all. This from a contemporary of Burke, and one who professes, too, not to be ignorant of Dryden, Addison, and Milton, and who, on a question of general criticism, is descriminating and judicious, is conclusive. It shows at once his ignorance and the force of his prejudices.—Am. Ed. "The most moral of all our novel writers is RICHARDson; a writer of excellent intentions, and of very considerable capacity and genius."-BLAIR'S Lectures, vol. ii., p. 309. † Mr. HUME, in his Essays (to which M. Maury probably refers), remarks, that "if our nation be superior to the In this celebrated island we sometimes discover among its inhabitants rhetorical strokes; but they ancients in philosophy, we are still, notwithstanding all our refinements, much inferior in eloquence. In ancient times, no work of genius was thought to require so great parts and capacity as the speaking in public; and some eminent writers have pronounced the talents even of a great poet or philosopher to be of an inferior nature to those requisite for such an undertaking. Rome produced each of them but one accomplished orator; and, whatever praises the other celebrated speakers might merit, they were still esteemed much inferior to these great models of eloquence. Greece and "Of all the polite and learned nations, Britain alone possesses a popular government, or admits into the Legislature such numerous assemblies as can be supposed to lie under the dominion of eloquence. But what has Britain to boast in this particular? "In enumerating the great men who have done honour to our country, we exult in our poets and philosophers; but what orators are ever mentioned? or where are the monuments of their genius to be met with? There are found, indeed, in our history, the names of several who directed the resolutions of our Parliament; but neither themselves nor others have taken the pains to preserve their speeches; and the authority which they possessed seems to have been owing to their experience, wisdom, or power more than to their talents for oratory. At present [Mr. Hume first published his Essays about the year 1742] there are above half a dozen speakers in the two houses who, in the judgment of the public, have reached very near know not the art, properly so called, of eloquence ;* the same pitch of eloquence; and no one pretends to give any one the preference to the rest. This seems to me a certain proof that none of them have attained much beyond a mediocrity in their art, and that the species of eloquence which they aspire to gives no exercise to the sublimer faculties of the mind, but may be reached by ordinary talents and a slight application. A hundred cabinet-makers in London can work a table or a chair equally well, but no one poet can write verses with such spirit and elegance as Mr. Pope."-HUME's Essays, vol. i., Ess. xii., p. 110-120. By the last note it appears that in 1742 Hume held the same opinion in regard to the state of English eloquence as the Abbé Maury. Had he written a few years later, when the genius of Chatham reached its zenith, he would probably have pronounced a different judgment. It would certainly not be easy to mention any one in modern times better versed "in the art, properly so called, of eloquence" than this great man, We subjoin in part the description of his eloquence given by Lord Brougham: "If we turn from the statesman to survey the orator, our examination must be far less satisfactory, because our materials are extremely imperfect, from the circumstances already adverted to.* There is, indeed, hardly any eloquence, of ancient or of modern times, of which so little that can be relied on as authentic has been preserved, unless perhaps that of Pericles, Julius Cæsar, and Lord Bolingbroke. Of the actions of the two first we have sufficient records, as we have of Lord Chatham's; of their speeches * In Chatham's time, the practice of reporting parliamentary speeches in full had not been introduced. |