the orator with the poet, they have greatly excelled the natives of Great Britain. They have addressed the fancy, rather than the reason; and they have succeeded to admiration.

But while we are perfectly ready to pay this tribute of our applause to the poetical genius of oratory, we cannot help intimating a belief, that this kind of genius, unless it be very carefully restrained, will be found, for the most part, an impediment to the progress of the orator himself, not only before the rigid tribunals of legal wisdom, but even in the debates of parliament. Men go to the House of Commons to do business, and to do it as quickly as may be. The nature of that business at this day is totally different from the nature of the business two hundred years ago. The multiplication of details upon almost every political subject, collected on both sides with the most assiduous partiality, the wide extent of our foreign relations, the immense expansion of our commerce and manufactures, the perpetual irritations of meddling reformers in every department, all concur to increase, in an incalculable proportion, the weight of the business which devolves upon a member of parliament. Pressed by so many demands, he seeks only to get the more important facts accurately stated, and the more material arguments clearly deduced from them. A case is set up on one side, and controverted on the other; and scarcely any thing, which does not directly tend either to confirm or to confute the chief advocates on one of those sides, is deemed germane to the pur. pose for which the house considers itself to be convened.

It is among those nations, with whom civilization is yet but in its dawn, that poetical eloquence principally flourishes. The natives of the East express themselves in parables; and the celebrated speech of Logan,

the American Indian, is a specimen of the same taste among the inhabitants of an opposite hemisphere. The reader, who takes the pains to travel through those imperfect reports which remain to us of the parliamentary debates in early times, will find that almost all the effusions of the older ora

tors were mere declamations; till, as the transference of the substantial power from kings to parliaments gradually increased the business of the two houses, oratory became more dry and grave. And we are not afraid to affirm, that many of the speeches which, a hundred years ago, were received with rapturous acclaim, would at this hour be obstructed by innumerable coughs, cries of question, and others of those salutary correctives, by which the house is accustomed to cool the ambition of an over zealous aspirant.

The Irish people, who have not yet advanced so far as some of their more sedate contemporaries in the path of civilization, are accordingly more tolerant of showy rhetoric. Add to this, that they are naturally of warmer temperaments than their eastern and northern neighbours: and when these circumstances are taken into account, it will be matter of little surprise that extensive allowances are made among them even for deficiency or fallacy of argument, where the failure appears to be redeemed by any brilliant or pathetic effusion of fancy or of sentiment.

The two great Irish orators, however, who preceded Mr Grattan-we mean Mr Burke and Mr Sheridan,had lived so long among the English, even before they had seats in the House of Commons, that they had, perhaps, acquired something of the English character, and were enabled to prune whatever may have been naturally efflorescent in the fertility of their imaginations. Their eloquence, in truth, was on the English model, only a little

heightened and adorned by occasional touches of Irish pathos or fancy. And Mr Grattan, though he made his appearance in the united parliament without having possessed exactly the same advantage, had enjoyed the benefit of a long service as the leader of opposition in Ireland, and must necessarily have learnt, from the experience of that troublesome honour, how much more powerfully divisions are influenced by argument than by poetry. After such a probation, and with the clear-sighted understanding which he possessed from nature, it was not to be supposed, that he would rush into idle and speculative declamation, to the neglect of the main business in hand. Nor, in point of fact, do we remember to have detected him in such aberrations. But still his eloquence differed from that of Burke and of Sheridan, in that it was not, like theirs, an English style adorned and heightened with poetical ornaments; but a style naturally Irish, reduced and chastened to purposes of practical utility. We seldom remember to have witnessed a more universal sentiment of admiration in an audience, than that which manifested itself on the night of his first speech in the English House of Commons. This sentiment, if possible, he has heightened rather than diminished by his subsequent exertions.

If we were to point out any one characteristic of his style, as distinguishing it more particularly than the rest, we should select his propensity to antiWhatever may be the objections to this seductive vice in writing, its use and effect in speaking are, we apprehend, too obvious to be questioned. A reader may be cloyed by it in a long treatise, and then it must alienate instead of securing him, but in speaking, where it is so extremely difficult to fix the hearer, the most useful arts are those which lay the strongest temporary hold upon his attention. Mr

Grattan's employment of antithesis is singularly striking and brilliant, and arms his sentences with a point which penetrates wherever it is aimed. These polished and epigrammatic passages are, however, often interspersed with others of a loftier and more interesting character; for it is one of the greatest charms of his eloquence, that it displays a heart of rare and genuine benevolence. There is, in his speeches, an impassioned earnestness of virtue, a noble simplicity of feeling and principle, which all the flimsy romancers of a whole century would never reach, in their fullest flow of sensitive commonplace. With such an honesty of nature, with such a warmth of heart,— with a judgment thus matured by practice,-with an imagination so lively,and with so exquisite a polish of diction,-Mr Grattan has occupied an eminence in the united parliament, scarcely less distinguished than that which he possessed in the legislature of his native island.

The last risen of the luminaries in that great constellation, of which we have been thus endeavouring to furnish some account, is Mr Canning.

Having neither acquaintance nor connexion, direct nor indirect, with this eminent statesman, we shall not fear to be convicted of partiality, when we declare it as our firm opinion,—an opinion, not made up hastily, nor without careful observation, that of all the speakers whom it has ever been our good fortune to hear, Mr Canning possesses, in the highest perfection, the greatest number of those qualifications which constitute a first-rate orator. With the argumentative wit, the classical polish, and the lively feeling peculiar to himself, he unites the analytical logic of Mr Fox, and the comprehensive scope, lucid arrangement, and splendid potentiality of phrase, which distinguished the style of Mr Pitt. Nullum fere eloquentia

All this is the more extraordinary, because we remember Mr Canning, after he had been several years in parliament, not only not a first, but scarcely even a second-rate speaker. We remember him, injudicious in his argument, and intemperate in his declamation; and scarcely even able to attain the animation necessary to fix the attention of the house, without lashing and spurring himself into an artificial heat. We certainly little expect ed, at that time, to see him, what we conceive him at present to be, the most consummate orator of the cultivated age in which he flourishes.

A great command of language is apt to betray the speaker into one of these two vicious habits, either a measured melody, so regularly recurring as to become unpleasing by its monotony; or a rush of language without modulation, degenerating into familiar and conversational solecism. But Mr Canning's fluency is free from both these defects. It is harmonious without monotony, and easy without negligence. Sometimes, for a few successive sentences, the roundness and fulness of the melody remind us of Mr Pitt's sonorous majesty: then, as the tenour of the argument demands a simpler or lighter treatment, the unstudied happinesses, or the terse humour, of the "elder time," interweave themselves in the phraseology; and the charms of each style are relieved, not by a contrast of barrenness and poverty, but by a change of excellence. To those who are not experimentally acquainted with the almost magical effect of Mr Canning's oratory, this praise may appear excessive. We have but one apology to offer our conviction of its strict justice. In an advocate, it might be more prudent to be less panegyrical; but we have here no duty to perform, except to our read

we believe to be truth, without modifi❤ cation or reserve.

We have thus presented, as we flat ter ourselves, a tolerably faithful, though a brief, account of the state of oratory in the British House of Commons, during the zenith of Mr Windham's fame. The powers of those minds, which death has now snatched from the world, we have endeavoured to illustrate by characteris tic quotations, as well as by general analyses of style: and we have described with the strictest impartiality, the speakers who still remain to their coun try, although we have thought it premature to present particular specimens of their matter or manner. We shall conclude with a review of the oratorical talents of Mr Windham himself, and with such selections from authenticated copies of his speeches, as appear to us the best calculated to con vey to our readers a just conception of his style, both in thinking and in expressing himself.

That great and leading principle of his politics, his jealousy of the honour and virtue of his country, was perpe tually displaying itself in the strain of his eloquence, to which it imparted a lofty and sustained animation. Thus, in his speech on the peace of Amiens, after a few general reasonings upon the gain and loss of wars, he exclaims,

"We are not, according to the pre sent fashion, to fall to calculating, and to ask ourselves, what is the value at market of such and such an object, and how much it will cost us to obtain it. If these objects alone were at stake, I should admit the principle in its full force; and should be among the first to declare, that no object of mere pecuniary value could ever be worth obtaining at the price of a war; but when particular points of honour are at stake, as at Nootka or the Falkland Islands, (without enquiring whe

ther, in those cases, the point of ho nour was either well chosen or rightly estimated ;) and still more where general impression, where universal estimation, where the conception to be formed of the feelings, temper, power, policy, and views of a great nation, are in question, there, to talk of calculating the loss or profit of possessions, to which these considerations may be attached, by their price at market, or the value of their fee simple, is like the idea of Dr Swift, when he is comparing the grants to the Duke of Marlborough with the rewards of a Roman conqueror, and estimates the crown of laurel at two-pence."

Again, in the same speech, we have a fine specimen of spirited morality: "However true it may be, that the example of France ought to serve as the strongest antidote to its poison, and that it does so in fact in the minds of many, yet it is equally true, that, in another view, and to many other persons, it operates in a directly contrary way, not as a warning, but as an incitement. What I am now speak ing of is, however, not the danger of the political principles of France, but the still surer and more dreadful danger of her morals. What are we to, think of a country that, having struck out of men's minds, as far as it has the power to do so, all sense of religion, and all belief of a future life, has struck out of its system of civil policy, the institution of marriage? That has formally, professedly, and by law, established the connexion of the sexes upon the footing of an unrestrained concubinage? That has turned the whole country into one universal brothel? That leaves to every man to take, and to get rid of a wife, (the fact, I believe, continues to be so) and a wife, in like manner, to get rid of her husband, upon less notice than you can, in this country, of a ready-furnished lodging?

"Do we suppose it possible, that with an intercourse subsisting, such as, we know, will take place between Great Britain and France, the morals of this country shall continue what they have been? Do we suppose that when this " when this "Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes," when that " revolutionary stream," the Seine, charged with all the colluvies of Paris, with all the filth and blood of that polluted city, shall have turned its current into the Thames, that the waters of our fair domestic flood can remain pure and wholesome as before? Do we suppose these things can happen? Or is it, that we are indifferent whether they happen or not; and that the morals of the country are no longer an object of our concern ?"

The quality of Mr Windham's eloquence, which we regard as the next in value, is the logical connection and judicious disposition of his arguments. of that excellence, however, it would obviously be impossible to comprise a specimen in these pages, inasmuch as such merits are, in their very nature, diffused through an entire speech, and perceptible only by observation of its tenour as a whole.

Perhaps, for a popular assembly, the style of Mr Windham was sometimes too metaphysical; but on many occasions his philosophy was usefully exercised, in clearing the way for his argument, and raising the curiosity of the house.

"The great division of mankind," says he in his speech on the peace of Amiens, " into those who were formed to govern, and those who were born only to obey, was never more strongly exemplified than by the French nation, and those who have sunk, or are sinking, under their yoke. Let us not suppose, therefore, that, while these qua, lities, combined with these purposes, shall continue to exist, they will ever cease, by night or by day, in peace or

in war, to work their natural effect, to gravitate towards their proper centre ;-or that the bold, the proud, the dignified, the determined, those who will great things, and will stake their existence upon the accomplishment of what they have willed, shall not finally prevail over those, who act upon the very opposite feelings; who will “never push their resistance beyond their convenience;" who ask for nothing but ease and safety; who look only to stave off the evil for the present day, and will take no heed of what befal them on the morrow. We are therefore, in effect, at war at this moment; and the only question is, whether the war, that will henceforward proceed under the name of peace, is likely to prove less operative and fatal, than that which has hitherto appeared in its natural and ordinary shape."

may

It has become a fashion to say, that the eloquence of the House of Commons is rapidly waning,-that a dark age is come upon us, and that no rays of early genius are dawning to revive the glories that are gone. If

it entered into the plan of the present article to analyse and pourtray the powers of the leading speakers of the present day, we should have little dif ficulty in refuting this prejudice. We would solicit the "laudatores temporis acti" to reflect, that orators, who, in the time of Mr Pitt and Mr Fox, had not enjoyed the opportunity and practice essential to excellence, and who were therefore, at that period, inferior and inconsiderable men, have since improved and ripened their fa culties. We could illustrate from various instances, and especially from the last two years of Mr Perceval's life, the satisfactory axiom, that great oc casions are sure to kindle great talents. And we might finally console the ap prehensions of our readers, by specifi cally reminding them, that the voice of Mr Grattan is not yet mute; that Mr Canning is in the full maturity of his genius; and that the early and bril liant eloquence of Mr Ward affords additional assurance of a legitimate succession to the honours of the departed great.