which it is also hard to rise to eminence in the art, it is not easy to tell. Both matters open a very wide field for inquiry. All the great orators we have mentioned possessed good natural powers of mind, fair graces of person, excellent education, and great experience. But they acquired their education in various ways, or, rather, their education was of very different kinds. Chatham, Burke, Fox, Webster, Prentiss, and Randolph were college educated men, some of them showing their eloquence very conspicuously in their school life. Lincoln, Douglas, Patrick Henry, and Benton had no such advantages, but learned their art from actual intercourse with men, supplying their defects by increased powers of observation, and we might say absorption, from those with whom they came in contact.

But while special talents are necessary, is special education necessary to the speaker? We think it is; that is, there must be certain studies and exercises more adapted to his calling than others. Yet it is difficult to accept the theory of Quintilian as to the perfectibility of the orator. In educational

matters it would be hard to lay down any exact formula, while in that of morals the field is so broad that we never could know what moral endowments it would be necessary to possess before we could be satisfied that the oratorical model was complete.

If we confine our inquiries to general terms, and

not seek too diligently for particular qualifications, we can proceed without much hesitation.

To begin, therefore, the successful orator must be well educated, if not in learned seminaries, under eminent teachers, then in private study, or general observation; he must possess a good memory, be informed as to standard literature and well grounded in civil and political history, and be conversant with the laws of his own and other countries. These requirements are independent of the power of expression, to be noticed hereafter.

We cannot better illustrate the education of the orator than by giving the reader the accounts that two of our greatest orators gave of each other. They are valuable as throwing light upon the subject we are discussing, and are good examples of the manner in which a public speaker may interest his hearers by a slight detour when he feels that they may become weary at listening to an argumentative discussion without an opportunity of relieving the monotony of expounding intricate political problems.

Mr. Douglas, in his opening speech in the joint debate between himself and Mr. Lincoln at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, said:

"In the remarks I have made on this platform, and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we

first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a schoolteacher in the town of Winchester and he a flourishing grocery keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of these peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinetmaker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better at bureaus and secretaries than anything else; but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the uphill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits, or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or a fist fight excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties and so was I.”

On the other hand, Mr. Lincoln had this to say of himself and Mr. Douglas:

"The judge is wofully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a grocery keeper. I don't know as it would be a great sin if I had been; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world.

It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still house up at the head of a hollow. There is another disadvantage under which we labor, and to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the relative positions of the two persons who stand before the State as candidates for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party for years past have been looking upon him as certainly at no distant day to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with the greediest anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out."

From these extracts we can learn out of the mouths of these advocates themselves that defects of early opportunity as in the case of Douglas, and a want of personal grace in that of Lincoln, were more than counterbalanced by keen logic in the latter and strong personal magnetism and energy

of thought and expression in the former. So that the student need have no fear that because he is not a perfect man, mentally, morally, or physically, which, in fact, as we are constituted, is an almost impossible comb nation, he may not become an eminent orator, and even if he fail to become a great speaker, he can acquire the power to address a jury, a court, or a public meeting with ease and effect.

Recurring to the question of the speaker's education, we have laid it down that he should be well grounded in all those studies which pertain to the ordinary affairs of life and the conduct of civil government. Here again we come in contact with theoretical and practical oratory. In theory, the orator, as the poet, should have some knowledge of everything. But in turn this broad requirement should be clearly understood. It is hardly to be expected that he should understand mathematics like a Newton, astronomy like a Herschel, natural science like an Agassiz, or civil government like a Hamilton. It is sufficient for him to have correct general notions of these subjects, so as to be able to detect manifest crudities and absurdities that may crop out in an opponent who essays to discourse about or allude to them. For example, he need not be able to demonstrate the Nebular Hypothesis, but it might be of service to him to know what is meant by that term so as to explain it whenever brought to the surface in a forensic controversy. So, too, in government, while he may not be presumed to