sidering, though of great efficacy in moving the minds of an audience toward the line of thought of the speaker, nevertheless demand great care, judgment, and discretion in their use. Wit should not be too pointed; it should not leave too deep a wound to rankle in your opponent's breast; ridicule, should never descend to burlesque nor be allowed to play too freely on the infirmities of nature; sarcasm should not be too severe, irony too bitter, nor invective too strong unless the object be thoroughly disgusting. Good taste and kindly feeling should pervade all these qualities so as not to arouse a feeling of antagonism in either your opponent or your audience.

In the vortex of political agitation there is no telling where the strong denunciation will return to confront the orator and make him feel that a milder and sweeter phrase could have answered his purpose as well as the stinging rebuke or unmeasured declamation. He will not infrequently experience the truth of the lines:

"Full many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant,
And many a word at random spoken

May soothe or wound a heart that's broken."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PERORATION.

AT the close of a speech, it is customary for an orator to give expression to some choice sentiment which he clothes in a better dress and animates with a loftier feeling than that which pervades the main body of the effort. This closing passage is termed the peroration; it may be regarded as the climax of the speech itself. The evident object of the more thrilling and finished language at the end of the argument, is to leave the best possible impression on the minds of the audience. It may be likened to the final breeze that wafts the oratorical craft to a safe and secure haven when it has successfully withstood and battled with the rude waves and winds on the high seas of debate. It is alike pleasing to the ear, satisfying to the mind, and gratifying to the heart. While a faulty beginning may often be counterbalanced by the eloquence of the advocate after he has become warmed up to his subject, yet there are no cases where the bad effect of an abrupt, unfinished, and disconnected ending can be adequately offset.

The peroration may answer a variety of purposes. It may seem to emphasize the leading sentiment the ( 200 )

orator has endeavored to advance in the course of his argument, as when Daniel Webster, in the Hayne contest, spoke of his devotion to the Union and reflected upon its blessings and the dangers which threatened its existence; it may be utilized in reviewing the general nature and circumstances of the occasion, as when Edmund Burke closed his speech at the trial of Warren Hastings; it may be useful in extolling and applauding some abstract principle or idea on which the speaker has devoted much thought and study, as when Henry Grattan eulogized Liberty at the close of his speech in moving the Declaration of Right; or it may be employed in expressing faith and confidence in the body addressed so as to secure their good-will, as in most addresses to a jury.

We can best judge what a peroration should be from what it usually is. It is generally more ornate, condensed and inflammatory than the body of the argument. If the main work is well done, the finishing up will be proportionately easy, graceful, natural, appropriate and effective. If the principal treatment be irregular, wanting in power, method and earnestness, the end will be unnatural, flat and unsatisfactory. It is the golden spike that makes the successful completion of a work of labor and difficulty, but eventual triumph. Solid masonry, skillful engineering, cold steel and iron, hold the main structure together, but the crowning finish may well be of material that will suggest more of

show than of strength, that will resist decay but still glisten in the sun.

It should not, on the other hand, be imagined that finished and telling language and exalted sentiments should be kept till the close of the speech. The e should be interwoven in and pervade the entire production, like blood in the system, extending to and nourishing the entire body. The eulogiums on South Carolina and Massachusetts appear in their appropriate places in the Hayne and Webster debate, and are as fine if not finer than the perorations of either disputant. The speaker should be on the lookout constantly for every opportunity to give vent to a choice and elevated thought. The best passages of Burke, Pitt, Erskine and other eminent orators are to be found scattered throughout the body of their best speeches.

The following is the well-known peroration of Daniel Webster, to his speech in reply to Robert Y. Hayne. It will be seen that its object is to concentrate the leading sentiment of the orator in his speech and in his political career. It is measured, lofty and intense in its scope and purpose, single in its aim and triumphant in its bearing.

"I profess, sir, in my career hitherto to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the presentation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the

severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might be hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in affairs of this government, where thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on

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