CHAPTER V.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

I SHOULD expect, that, after the peculiar advantages he has had, in his education, from infancy upwards, the young orator whom I strive to form, can be at no loss for words, nor should he be at a loss for matter, half nonsense with some glimmerings of sense. His studies of the MORNING POST and other daily newspapers, may have given him an ample supply of all that. These studies he must continue still: they are the only studies with which he shall need to trouble him

self. He must read his own speeches, that he may have the pleasure to admire, how much wiser a man he is, than he could have supposed himself. He will, of course, read the speeches of others, in order to mark how very much they fall, in wit and eloquence, short of his own. He must still dwell upon the remarks and reflexions of the newspaper editors, as the very school of political wisdom. He must still drink up their puns, and points, and witticisms, with the most attentive eagerness. These are to be, by him, again produced, from time to time, as the flowers and the nose-jewels of his eloquence. In this study of the newspapers, he must be constant through life: but, it is almost the only toil in book-learning to which he is to be confined.

Learned quotations are so much affected in the eloquence of parliament, that our young adventurer cannot forego their use. But, let him beware of Greek quotations: these would make his brother-members prick up their ears, and stare somewhat too

wildly. Quotations from the wits and philosophers of France, are not just now high in vogue. The Latin is the favourite language for parliamentary quotations. It at once evinces learning and is not too remote from the familiar: Latin let him, then, quote in profusion. But, whence derive an adequate store of lines, sentences, and apophthegms? From the small remains of his school Latin-from those collection of lines and sentences, the common subterfuges of school-boys poaching for their themes-from even honest Lilly's rules and examples in grammar, if better aid may not be obtained. The parson who, for want of other Latin, retailed Lilly's rules in his sermons, soon won the esteem of an audience which, if he had not thought of this expedient, he must have entirely lost.-Let the orator beware of of quoting from the Latin, any of those distinct sentences which are pregnant with golden maxims of wisdom, and have been, therefore, quoted so often as to be in almost every scholar's memory, and to meet us in al

most every book we open. He would give no proof of recondite learning who should quote in this fashion. No! let him give such fragments of lines and periods as were never before exhibited separately, and cannot by themselves be explained into clear sense. This will shew a deep acquaintance with the classics, infinitely above quoting their mere common-place beauties. It will seem as if his quotations came because he has more Latin than his head can hold. This expedient to gain a renown for deep classical erudition, has been employed with success, by so many parliamentary orators, that to adopt it, will be only following an approved and laudable precedent.

Minute attention to the forms of the house, is not essentially necessary. That petty care may well be left to the speaker, to the clerks, and to such old members whose minds are too puny and feeble to have been ever fit for any of the more exalted tasks of intellect. The most eminent orators will, without a blush, blunder the most egregiously, and

after very long parliamentary experience, in matters of form. Scorn, then, the solicitous study of the forms of the house, as other great orators have been accustomed to scorn it. The knowledge of them could never give any thing of dashing consequence and fame to your character.

In a house of parliament, as elsewhere, it may be much less difficult to speak with force and fluency, than to obtain a patient hearing. The senior speakers are not always pleased to see juniors start up to rival them in the claim upon the time and attention of the house. They are apt to deride the briskness of the young orator; they will turn his serious harangues to ridicule with a few smart words; and disappoint his attempts at wit,, by wearing a cold serious face when he fancies that he is irresistibly to provoke all that hear him to split their sides with laughter. Although themselves in perpetual blunders respecting the forms of the house, they are malicious enough to watch and expose his blunders. When he is, at any time, in the