later times, with Michael Angelo, the Homer of sculpture; with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, and others, masters of the pencil. They doubtless studied the existing rules of art; but they drew on nature and the profound depths of their own genius for newer and better rules, than any that dogmatic teaching could afford.

With Demosthenes and Cicero, it was not otherwise. Cicero assures us, that he was always striving after an ideal excellence, not known in any living model, nor even inculcated in the schools; and he accords to his renowned Grecian rival the great praise of all but reaching a perfection which he had himself always longed for, but had never been able to attain. Of Demosthenes, an eminent critic* among his own countrymen thus writes: "Demosthenes, then, finding the art of public speaking in this state-so skilfully improved, and coming, as he did, after men of such excellence-did not condescend to become an imitator of any one style or person, conceiving them all to be half artists and incomplete; but, selecting from all whatever was the best and most useful in each, he combined, and out of the many he made up a species of composition, sublime yet simple; redundant yet concise; refined yet idiomatic; * Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

declamatory yet natural; austere yet lively; nervous yet flowing; soft yet pungent; temperate yet passionate-differing in no respect from Proteus, celebrated by the poets of old for being able to assume, without effort, every kind of shape; whether he was some god or demon who deceived the vision of mankind, or, as one would rather guess, some gifted person accomplished in the power of speech, by which he imposed upon the senses of every hearer. Some such notion have I of the oratory of Demosthenes; and this description I give of it, that it is composed of every other."

Besides rhetorical training, then-itself, no doubt, most useful and necessary-other agencies are required in order to develop the highest eloquence. In his Oration on the Crown, Demosthenes tells us that "his experience had convinced him, that what is called the power of eloquence depends for the most part upon the hearers, and that the characters of public speakers are determined by that degree of favour and attention which is vouchsafed to each." To a great extent this is doubtless true. Where the audience is at once qualified to appreciate, and impatient to honour excellence, the incentive to effort and improvement is indeed most powerful. Yet something more is needed. Both

speaker and hearer must feel, that great issues are pending, and that it is eloquence, alone or chiefly, which will decide those issues. And, what is not less necessary, the electric influence of such an auditory, and the deep conviction that great interests are suspended on his single voice, must combine to awaken one of those rare spirits; who appear but at distant intervals, and who seem formed to triumph over obstacles that appal and paralyze ordinary men. Athens, though she hung for ages on the lips of her orators, and yielded herself without resistance to their sway, formed but one Demosthenes, as Rome trained up but one Cicero.

These rare endowments, however, are dispensed according to no rule that human sagacity can discover; and it only remains, therefore, to inquire what there was in the condition and character of a Roman or Athenian audience, in the days of their greatest orators, to develop a perfection in the art, which after ages have hardly ventured to rival, and which they seem ambitious now, only to comprehend and enjoy.

1. The times were eventful. Oratory does not unfold all its powers, in the midst of peace, and general prosperity. Great questions must agitate men's minds; deep passions must be

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awakened; vast expectations excited. It was so, with the two great orators of antiquity. They did not live in the palmy state of their respective republics. Liberty was about to make her last struggle, and these men appeared as her chosen champions. They triumphed in her triumphs. Their most heroic efforts were made to avert her fall, and their sublimest strains poured out at her bier. They lived with the daily consciousness that on their single arm hung interests, often too mighty for computation. The same Providence, which raised them up to give the world assurance of the power and perfection of oratory, poured into their hearts the fire, the enthusiasm, the unyielding devotion to their purpose which compels success. Liberty they might not save, but they could immortalize her ruin. The resistless progress of an invader or a tyrant they might not be able to stay; but they could mingle the withering and undying flames of their eloquence even with his triumphs, and thus consign him, at the very moment of his proudest success, scathed and blackened, to the scorn and execration of mankind.

2. But in later days not even the most eventful scenes produce such orators. The French

Revolution, indeed, had its Mirabeau; and every great civil or political convulsion has cast up men, who, like our own Patrick Henry, have swayed the hearts of their countrymen with sur passing power. But, through all the lapse of two thousand years, including the stormy history of the Italian Republics, and the mighty battles which have been fought by freedom and civiliza tion in every clime; during periods, too, when, in painting, sculpture, and kindred arts, the noblest productions of antiquity have been equal. led, if not surpassed, we look in vain for an ora tory at once transcendent in power and faultless in style, like that of Greece. We meet with no modern orators who seem contented with nothing short of perfection; who shrink from no toil; and who at length, after incredible pains, have succeeded in enshrining their conceptions in forms so exquisite, that criticism is disarmed, and universal admiration compelled. For the true secret of this, we must look beyond the political emergencies of any period; and the great reason for the signal superiority of ancient eloquence will be found, we suspect, in the genius of the people, their mode of life, and the nature of their civil institutions.

The people that dwell on the northern shores of the Mediterranean, especially those of Greece