tion of Burke, with his great wealth of illustration and metaphor, and the keen foresight of both, which unerringly pointed to ultimate disaster and disgrace, we have models of eloquence and wisdom worthy of never-ceasing admiration and applause.

One of the best examples of the skillful management of popular prejudice is found in one of the speeches of Lord Chatham. It is well known that the military art has a strong hold on our prejudices. The soldier, the man who bares his breast to the hazards of war, leaving behind those nearest and dearest to him, to defend against an invading foe, or to go into foreign lands to maintain the honor of his country abroad, is an object of general admiration, and even though the war be not a popular or even a just one, no one thinks of visiting the blame on him; it is something for which he is in no way responsible. But it is difficult, nay, almost impossible, to oppose a war with that vigor and earnestness with which most public and party measures are opposed, without reflecting more or less upon the unwilling, as well as the willing and active, instruments of the measure.

The American war is a case in point. Chatham was too sincere a patriot to cast any reflection upon British valor, and too good a statesman not to see the error of so doing, and at the same time he saw and predicted the failure of the undertaking. How to reconcile, therefore, the prowess of the British soldiery with their inevitable defeat in America without saying anything that

could be tortured into an excuse for his enemies to say that "the wish was father to the thought," was the problem; he said: "No man more highly esteems and honors the British troops than I do. I know their virtues and their valor; I know that they can. achieve anything but impossibilities, and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility." This was the work of genius. On the other hand, we find a similar case, similar in its opportunities only, in the war between the United States and the Republic of Mexico. This measure was strongly opposed by some of the ablest and most patriotic statesmen the country has produced. One of this opposing party became so heated by party feeling that he quite lost his equilibrium in his denunciations of the measure, and endeavored to say something like the words of Chatham. Instead, however, he said in effect that if he were a Mexican he would welcome the American, troops to inhospitable graves. The remark proved unfortunate for the speaker and his party. It violated a common and deep-seated prejudice in favor of the soldier who follows his country's flag in a foreign, though, perhaps, unjust contest. As to him all clamor should be hushed.

A few remarks might be made here in regard to the use of prejudice in public discourse if it is to be conceded that there is any place for it in any event. Yet as the speaker, like the soldier, sometimes has to avail himself of any and every weapon within

his reach for defense if not for attack, to use a club when he has lost his firearms, and as, like the soldier, he may not always have the choice of his weapons, it is well to take some notice of the question in this point of view. It may sometimes be useful to combat prejudice with prejudice. For this purpose it is well to understand the leading strings of strong popular feelings and passions, so that, though we may not wish to arouse them, we may not have them brought down on our own heads or that of our party. Little direction can be given on the subject. We can well agree with Cicero that it should be banished from all calm and deliberate councils.

Returning from this digression, let us now resume the consideration of the appropriate opening of a speech.

One of the most natural and effective things to do in this connection is to show that the orator has a due appreciation of the solemnity of the occasion or the importance of the subject.

It would manifestly be out of taste to enter upon the trial of a Hastings, for years an absolute ruler over one of the most ancient people of the earth, the cradle, in fact, of the human family, with no more feelings of awe and responsibility than we would approach the trial of an ordinary malefactor. Hence Mr. Burke, in the trial of Hastings, draws a powerful picture of the scene he was engaged in, of the audience to be moved, the crime charged, and the criminal; of the latter he said:

"We have not brought before you an obscure offender, who, when his insignificance and weakness are weighed against the power of the prosecution, gives even to public justice something of the appearance of oppression. No, my lords, we have brought before you the first man of India, in rank, authority and station; we have brought before you the first man of the tribe, the head of the whole body of Eastern offenders, a captain-general of iniquity, under whom all the fraud, all the speculation, all the tyranny in India are embodied, disciplined, arrayed and paid. This is the person, my lords, that we bring before you. We have brought before you such a person that, if you strike at him with the firm arm of justice, you will not have need of a great many more examples. You strike at the whole corps if you strike at the head."

Daniel Webster also makes a telling point when he alludes to the place of the debate and the appropriate conduct suited to the occasion. Mr. Hayne had taunted him with declining combat with Mr. Benton, of Missouri, who had also spoken on the same subject, and selecting him, Hayne, as the object of his attack as being a feebler adversary. He evidently did this for a twofold reason, first, to show, if possible, that Mr. Webster did make such a choice from fear, and most of all to arouse a feeling of sympathy in his audience, or at least to break, in some slight measure, the force of Mr. Webster's attack.

We will let Mr. Hayne speak for himself, however, and this was his language:

"The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into

this chamber to vindicate New England, and instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri on the charges which he had preferred, chose to consider me as the author of these charges, and, losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as an adversary and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there; he goes on to assail the institutions and policy of the South, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the state which I have the honor to represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience, of acknowledged talents and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, declining the contest offered from the West, and making war upon the unoffending South, I must believe, I am bound to believe, he has some object in view which he has not ventured to disclose.

"Mr. President, why is this? Has the gentleman discovered in former controversies with the gentleman from Missouri that he is overmatched by that senator? and does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman's distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of new 'alliances to be formed' at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered coalition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to 'sear the eyeballs of the gentleman?' and will it not down at his bidding-the dark visions of broken hopes and honors lost forever still floating before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from Missouri and himself in order to rescue the East from the contest it has provoked with the West, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defense of my friend from

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