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FORENSIC ELOQUENCE.

CHAPTER I.

ORATORY IN GENERAL.-ITS POWER AND INFLUENCE IN POPULAR GOVERNMENTS.GREEK AND ROMAN ORA

TORS.-DEMOSTHENES.-CICERO.

It is customary to speak of oratory or eloquence as an art or as a gift. To a certain extent it par

takes of the nature of each. It is an art because there are certain rules and principles the observance of which will promote excellence in oratory; and it is also a gift, because after learning the usual and well-known precepts of rhetoric and grammar, there seems to be something still lacking to make the speaker eloquent, something that must be supplied by nature, like plumage to the bird or voice to the singer.

A perfectly accurate definition of oratory, therefore, it may be difficult to find, but in view of the many attributes of eloquence which are well known and easily recognized, it is also quite unnecessary.

Cicero, who, with Demosthenes, shares supremacy in the art among the ancients, in various eloquent paraphrases describes the qualities of the true ora

tor with great clearness and elegance. Thus in one passage he lays it down that "the great object of an orator is to persuade;" in another he says that "the tendency of every speech is either to discuss some general question without specifying persons or times, or some point where particular times or persons are specified." Speaking of the same subject in another connection, he tells us that "eloquence is not the product of an art but that art is derived from eloquence," and again, that "it is the art of speaking with judgment, skill, and elegance, and has no determined limits within which it can be confined."

The conditions favorable to its cultivation first claim attention. What state of society is suited to its growth? The answer to this question affords a starting-point to our inquiries. All public speaking necessarily implies a person speaking, an audience to which the speech is addressed, and a subject or theme for discussion. Where one of these elements is wanting, there can be no field for oratory. Wherever, therefore, occasions are presented for the discussion of propositions of public interest, there we must look for excellence in speech.

These opportunities are to be found in what may be termed popular governments, that is, those in which public measures are submitted to the judgment of the people, or assemblies composed of individuals who represent them. Where the government is arbitrary, where it is regulated by the will

of one person who speaks by his interested agents, and whose mandates require immediate acquiescence, as in a military despotism, or where the governing power is confined to a certain class, as, for instance, a hierarchy, like the old Mosaic system, there will be found no field for the display and exercise of oratorical power.

Hence we find the highest development of the art in Greece, that is, the Greece of history, which, of all ancient nations, was most swayed by popular influences, where public opinion had its widest range. Then, too, in Rome during the time of the republic, we find its next highest development, because the nation, though founded on military power, had large and dignified bodies of men, the judges, the senate, and the forum, where questions of public concern were discussed before final action was taken upon them. In England, also, the nation with which we are most allied by language and descent, where the rights of person and property, the necessity of taxation, and questions of peace and war, are debated with freedom, we find it assuming importance; and, lastly, in our own country, which is principally founded on the will of the people, unbounded scope is presented to him who can excel in this great talent.

It should be noted, also, that whenever a country changes from one of these forms of government to another, the effect is immediately seen in its eloquence. For example, as soon as Philip of Macedon

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