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translation made in England soon after the work was first published, by John Neal Lake, Esquire. The copious notes appended to that edition by the translator have in most instances been retained, and others have been added by the American editor.

INTRODUCTION.

settled.

1. WHAT IS ELOQUENCE?

THE various answers which have been given to this question by rhetoricians, indicate either that the term is ambiguous, or that their own notions of the subject have been vague and unAccording to Blair, "Eloquence is speaking in such a manner as to attain the end for which we speak ;" and, since that end most commonly is to persuade, he afterward restricts his definition, after the manner of several ancient writers, and makes eloquence the art of persuasion. It can hardly be necessary to show that each of these definitions fails to give a precise account of the art in question. We often speak, not only in private, but also in public, "in such a manner as to obtain our end,” and yet use no eloquence. Indeed, on some occasions of public speaking, eloquence is not only unnecessary as a means of success, but might prove a positive hinderance, as well as an offence against good taste. There are, on the other hand, occasions not a few, where the

highest powers of oratory would find full scope, and be exerted in a worthy cause, and yet fail of success.

A similar objection lies against the definition which represents eloquence as the art of persuasion. There may, on the one hand, be eloquence without persuasion; and, on the other, persuasion without eloquence. In one important and much cultivated branch of ancient oratory (the demonstrative or panegyrical), the speaker could hardly be said to aim at persuasion at all. His single object was to adorn the dead or living with his praises, or to stigmatize the guilty with his reproaches. If, on the other hand, our end be persuasion, it may be attained in some instances not only without eloquence, but even without speaking. "Does not money," says Quintilian, animadverting on this definition (lib. ii., 16), "does not money persuade? Is not credit, the authority of the speaker, the dignity of a respectable person, attended with the same effect?"* And when it

* Pliny the younger goes even farther, recommending in some cases silence as the best means of persuasion: "For I have learned," says he (Epist., lib. vii., 6), "that upon some occasions there is as much rhetoric in taciturnity as in all the pomps of the most studied eloquence; and I remember in some causes to have done even more service to my clients by a judicious si

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