ing the speech he had just made) we might as well hope to preserve the grandeur and sublimity of the torrent of Niagara, by letting the waters of the Erie fall drop by drop. The difficulty of exhibiting in this manner the extraordinary power and energy of Mr Pitt's eloquence is increased by another circumstance, viz. that his speeches were never composed; they were intended solely for the ear, and these lengthened periods, which, when supported by the voice and gesture of the speaker, were not only perfectly intelligible, but produced great effects, seem sometimes heavy and involved when they are read; those lofty magnificent amplifications which, in a popular assembly, have often the effect of impressing the subject more deeply on the mind, are felt in print to be want ing in precision and force. The following may, perhaps, be considered as no unfair specimen of the eloquence of Mr Pitt; though we shall have occasion to exclaim with Eschines, when he read to his admiring pupils a speech of Demosthenes, "And what would you have said, if you had heard himself!" Mr Pitt, in a short speech, had moved, "that the sum of 825,000l. be granted to his majesty, to enable his majesty to fulfil his engagements with Russia, in such a manner as may be best adapted to the exigencies of the case." Mr Tierney opposed the motion on the ground of its object being undefined, and contending, amongst other things, that we were called upon by ministers to prosecute the war, until the existing government of France should be overthrown. Mr Pitt rose in reply. "Sir, I cannot agree to the interpretation the honourable gentleman has thought proper to give to parts of my speech. He has supposed that I said, we persevere in the war, and increase our activity, and extend our alliances, to impose a government on another country, and to restore mo

narchy to France. I never once uttered any such intention. What I said was, and the house must be in the recollection of it, that the France which now exists affords no promise of security against aggression and injustice in peace, and is destitute of all justice and integrity in war. I obs served also, and I think the honourable gentleman must agree with me when I repeat it, that the charac ter and conduct of that government must enter into the calculation of se curity to other governments against wrong, and for the due and liberal observance of political engagements. The honourable gentleman says, that he has too much good sense, and that every man must have too much good sense, to suppose that territorial limits can of themselves be made to constitute the security of states. He does well to add his sanction to a doctrine that is as old as political society itself. In the civilized and regular community, states find their mutual security against wrong, not in territory only, they have the guarantee of fleets, of armies, of acknowledged in tegrity and tried good faith; it is to be judged of by the character, the ta lents, and the virtues of the men who guide the councils of states, who are the advisers of princes: but 'what is there in the situation of the French republic on which can be founded a confidence which is to be in itself some proof, that she can afford security against wrong? She has territory, she has the remains of a navy, she has armies; but what is her character as a moral being? Who is there to testify her integrity? The Swiss nation!

Who bears testimony to her good faith? The states she has plundered under the delusive but captivating masks of deliverers from tyranny ! What is the character of her advisers? What the aspect of her counsels? They are the authors of all that mise

ry, the fountain head of all those calamities, which, marching by the side of an unblushing tyranny, have saddened and obscured the fairest and the gayest portions of Europe; which have deformed the face of na ture wherever their pestiferous_genius has acquired any ascendancy. In fine, we are to look for security from a government which is constantly making professions of different kinds of sentiments, and is constantly receding from every thing it professes;-a government that has professed, and its conduct still manifests, enmity to every institution and state in Europe, and particularly to this country, the best regulated in its government, the happiest in itself, of all the empires that form that great community. Having said so much on these matters, I shall now shortly notice a continued confusion in the honourable gentleman's ideas. On another occasion, he could not understand what I meant by the deliverance of Europe; and in the second effort of his inquisitive mind he is not more happy. He tells us, he cannot see any thing in the present principles of France but mere abstract metaphysical dogmas. What are those principles that guided the arms of France in their unprincipled attack on the independence of Switzerland, which the honourable gentleman has reprobated? Was the degradation without trial of the members of the assemblies of France, were, in short, those excessess and that wickedness, in the contemplation of which the honourable gentleman says, he first learnt to regard France as an odious tyranny will he class the principles which could lead to all these things with the mere metaphysical abstractions of heated over-zealous theorists? He will still persist, at least he has given the promise of considerable resistance to all arguments to the contrary, in saying that we have an intention to wage VOL. IV. PART II.

war against opinion. It is not so. We are not in arms against the opinions of the closet, nor the speculations of the school; we are at war with armed opinions; we are at war with those opinions which the sword of audacious, unprincipled, and impious inno⚫ vation seeks to propagate amidst the ruin of empires, the demolition of the altars of all religion, the destruc tion of every venerable, and good, and liberal institution, under whatever form of polity they have been raised; and this in spite of the dissenting reason of men, in contempt of that lawful authority which, in established society, superior talents and superior virtues attain, crying out to them not to enter upon holy ground, nor to pollute the stream of eternal justice; admonishing them of their danger;-whilst, like the genius of evil, they mimic their voice, and, having succeeded in drawing upon them the ridicule of the vulgar, close their day of wickedness and savage triumph with the massacre and waste of whatever is amiable, learned, and pious, in the districts they have overrun. Whilst the principles avowed by France, and acted upon so wildly, held their legitimate place, confined to the circles of a few ingenious and learned men,-whilst these men. continued to occupy those heights which vulgar minds could not mount,

whilst they contented themselves with abstract enquiries concerning the laws of matter or the progress of mind, it was pleasing to regard them with respect; for while the simplicity of the man of genius is preserved un touched, if we will not pay homage to his eccentricities, there is, at least, much in it to be admired. Whilst these principles were confined in that way, and had not yet bounded over the common sense and reason of mankind, we saw nothing in them to alarm, nothing to terrify; but their appearance in arms changed their character. We

will not leave the monster to prowl the world unopposed. He must cease to annoy the abode of peaceful men. If he retire into the cell, whether of solitude or repentance, thither we will not pursue him; but we cannot leave him in the throne of power."

The following example will convey some idea of the power with which he recapitulated and accumulated his reasonings upon the House at the close of an oration, contriving at the same time to escape from any thing like a specific pledge, and skilfully reserving to himself a discretion, as to the course which in future circumstances he might find it expedient to select. This peroration is from the speech which call ed forth the foregoing example of Mr Fox's eloquence.

"If we compare this view of our situation with every thing we can ob. serve of the state and condition of our enemy; if we can trace him labouring under equal difficulty in finding men to recruit his army, or money to pay it; if we know that in the course of the last year the most vigorous efforts of military conscription were scarcely sufficient to replace to the French armies, at the end of the campaign, the numbers which they had lost in the course of it; if we have seen that this force, then in possession of advantages which it has since lost, was unable to contend with the efforts of the combined armies; if we know that even while supported by the plunder of all the countries which they had overrun, their troops were reduced, by the confession of their commanders, to the extremity of distress, and destitute, not only of the principal articles of military supply, but almost of the necessaries of life; if we see them now driven back within their own frontiers, and confined within a country, whose own resources have long since been proclaimed by their successive governments to be unequal either to paying

or maintaining them; if we observe, that since the last revolution, no one substantial or effectual measure has been adopted to remedy the intolerable disorder of their finances, and to supply the deficiency of their credit and resources; if we see through large and populous districts of France, either open war levied against the pre sent usurpation, or evident marks of disunion and distraction which the first occasion may call forth into a flame; if, I say, sir, this comparison be just, I feel myself authorised to conclude from it, not that we are entitled to consider ourselves certain of ultimate success, nor that we are to suppose ourselves exempted from the unfore seen vicissitudes of war; but that, considering the value of the object for which we are contending, the means for supporting the contest, and the probable course of human events, we should be inexcusable, if at this moment we were to relinquish the strug. gle on any grounds short of entire and complete security; that from perseve rance in our efforts under such circum stances, we have the fairest reason to expect the full attainment of our ob ject; but that at all events, even if we are disappointed in our more sanguine hopes, we are more likely to gain than to lose by the continuation of the contest; that every month to which it is continued, even if it should not in its effects lead to the final destruction of the Jacobin system, must tend so far to weaken and exhaust it, as to give us at least a greater comparative security in any termination of the war; that, on these, grounds, this is not the moment at which it is consistent with our interest or our duty to listen to any proposals of negociation with the present ruler of France; but that we are not therefore pledged to any unalterable determination as to our future conduct; that in this we must be regulated by the course of events;

and

that it will be the duty of his majesty's ministers, from time to time, to adapt their measures to any variation of circumstances; to consider how far the ef. fects of the military operations of the allies, or of the internal disposition of France, correspond with our present expectations; and, on a view of the whole, to compare the difficulties or risks which may arise in the prosecution of the contest, with the prospect of ultimate success, or of the degree of advantage to be derived from its further continuance, and to be governed by the result of all these considerations, in the opinion and advice which they may offer to their sovereign."

The eloquence of Mr Sheridan differed from that of Mr Pitt, as well as from that of his friend and partisan Mr Fox; but, though dissimilar to both, was perhaps inferior to neither. Mr Sheridan was rather a great orator, than a great debater. We are sorry to speak of him in the past tense: but, unfortunately for his country, and for the honour of eloquence and pure taste, he is now no longer in parliament. He was, we repeat it, a great orator, rather than a great debater. Unlike the generality of those who have enjoyed a distinction in the House of Commons, he seemed to consider parliamentary eloquence more as a pursuit of pleasure, than as a matter of business. Not that he arrived, with out long and severe toil, at the excellence which he ultimately reached; but it was like the toil of the sportsman, a favourite exercise. The chief characteristic of his genius was imagination; and he possessed it in every variety of brilliant metaphor and playful wit. But he never permitted it to wander beyond the bounds which sound judgment prescribes to the display of such qualities in public speaking. He never swelled his solemnity into bombast, nor degraded his humour into buffoonery. He never overlaid his ar.

gument with ponderous words or taw, dry conceits. All was forcible, graceful, and chaste: nervous without impetuosity, natural without carelessness, and correct without pedantry. His chef d'œuvre as an orator is generally considered to be the speech which he delivered in the House of Commons on the charge against Mr Hastings, respecting the Begum Princesses; a speech of such transcendent ability, that, when he concluded it, the members are said to have risen with one accord from their seats, and crowded into the middle of the floor, as though some supernatural fury had seized and scattered them; and Mr Pitt moved an immediate adjournment, on the ground that it would be improper to allow a division, while the minds of all present were under the influence of the fever, excited by the unparalleled elos quence which they had just heard.

These were the principal speakers in the English House of Commons, when the union of Great Britain and Ireland brought a kindred race of ora tors to the parliament of the empire. Among those who have thus transfer red themselves, there is one who stands proudly eminent, not only from the reputation which he acquired during his long and active services in the Irish legislature, but likewise from the stri king exhibitions of talent which, since his accession to the united parliament, he has made on behalf of the catholics of his native country. We need not add, that we are speaking of Mr Grattan.

Of that species of eloquence which has been denominated, xroxy, Irish, the speeches of Mr Grattan have al ways seemed to us to furnish the most perfect examples. By Irish eloquence, we mean that perpetual flow of bright thoughts and appeals to the passions of the hearer, by which the orators of the sister kingdom have principally distinguished themselves. It must be allowed, that, in all which associates