Nothing can be finer, nor better conducted than this passage. The circumstances are well chosen for exciting both the compassion of his hearers for Gavius, and their indignation against Verres. The style is simple; and the passionate exclamation, the address to liberty and the laws, is well timed, and in the proper style of passion. The orator goes on to exaggerate Verres's cruelty still farther, by another very striking circumstance. He ordered a gibbet to be erected for Gavius, not in the common place of execution, but just by the sea-shore, over against the coast of Italy. "Let him," said he "who boasts so much of his being a Roman citizen, take a view from his gibbet of his own country. This base insult over a dying man is the least part of his guilt. It was not Gavius alone that Verres meant to insult; but it was you, O Romans! it was every citizen who now hears me; in the person of Gavius, he scoffed at your rights, and showed in what contempt he held the Roman name, and Roman liberties."

Hitherto all is beautiful, animated, pathetic; and the model would have been perfect, if Cicero had stopped at this point. But his redundant and florid genius carried him further. He must needs interest, not hearers only, but the beasts, the mountains, and the stones, against Verres: "Si hæc non ad ci ves Romanos, non ad amicos nostræ civitatis, non ad eos qui populi Romani nomen audissent; denique si non ad homines, verum ad bestias; atque ut longius progrediar, si in aliqua desertissima solitudine, ad saxa et ad scopulos, hæc conqueri et deplorare vellem, tamen omnia muta atque inanima, tantâ et tam indignâ rerum atrocitate commoverentur."* This, with all the deference due to so eloquent an orator, we must pronounce to be declamatory, not pathetic. This is straining the language of passion too far. Every hearer sees this immediately to be a studied figure of rhetoric; it may amuse him, but instead of inflaming him more, it, in truth, cools his passion. So dangerous it

"Were I employed in lamenting those instances of an attrocious oppression and cruelty, not among an assembly of Roman citizens, not among the allies of our state, nor among those who had ever heard the name of the Roman people, not even among human creatures, but in the midst of the brute creation; and to go farther, were I pouring forth my lamentations to the ftones, and to the rocks, in some remote and desert wilderness, even those mute and inanimate beings would, at the recital of such shocking indignities, be thrown into commotion."

is to give scope to a flowery imagination, when one intends to make a strong and passionate impression.

No other part of discourse remains now to be treated of, except the Peroration, or Conclusion. Concerning this, it is needless to say much, because it must vary considerably, according to the strain of the preceding discourse. Sometimes, when the discourse has been entirely argumentative, it is fit to conclude with summing up the arguments, placing them in one view, and leaving the impression of them, full and strong, on the mind of the audience. For the great rule of a conclusion, and what nature obviously suggests, is, to place that last on which we choose that the strength of our cause should rest.

In sermons, inferences from what has been said, make a common conclusion. With regard to these, care should be taken not only that they rise naturally, but, (what is less commonly attended to) that they should so much agree with the strain of sentiment throughout the discourse, as not to break the unity of the sermon. For inferences, how justly soever they may be deduced from the doctrine of the text, yet have a bad effect, if, at the conclusion of a discourse, they introduce some subject altogether new, and turn off our attention from the main object to which the preacher had directed our thoughts. They appear, in this case, like excrescences jutting out from the body, which had better have been wanted; and tend to enfeeble the impression, which the composition, as a whole, is calculated to make.

The most eloquent of the French, perhaps, indeed, of all modern orators, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, terminates in a very moving manner, his funeral oration on the great prince of Condé, with this return upon himself, and his old age:

Accept, O prince! these last efforts of a voice which you once well knew. With you, all my funeral discourses are now to end. Instead of deploring the death of others, henceforth, it shall be my study to learn from you, how my own may be blessed. Happy, if warned by those grey hairs, of the account which I must soon give of my ministry, I reserve, solely, for that flock whom I ought to feed with the word

of life, the feeble remains of a voice which now trembles, and of an ardor, which is now on the point of being extinct-"*

In all discourses, it is a matter of importance to hit the precise time of concluding, so as to bring our discourse just to a point; neither by ending abruptly and unexpectedly; nor disappointing the expectation of the hearers, when they look for our being done; and continuing to hover round and round the conclusion till they become heartily tired of us. We should endeavour to go off with a good grace; not to end with a a languishing and a drawling sentence; but to close with dignity and spirit, that we may leave the minds of the hearers warm ; and dismiss them with a favourable impression of the subject, and of the speaker.

* "Agréez ces derniers efforts d'une voix qui vous fut connue. Vous mettrez fin à tous ces discours. Au lieu de déplorer la mort des autres, grand prince! dorénavant je veux apprendre de vous, à rendre la mienne sainte. Heureux, si averti par ces cheveux blancs du compte que je dois rendre de mon administration, je réserve au troupeau que je dois nourrir de la parole de vie, les restes d'une voix qui tombe, & d'une ardeur qui s'éteint." These are the last sentences of that oration; but the whole of the peroration from that passage, "Venez peuples, maintenant," &c. though it is too long for insertion, is a great masterpiece of pathetic eloquence,

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119

LECTURE. XXXIIL

PRONUNCIATION, OR DELIVERY,

HAVING treated of several general heads relating to eloquence, or public speaking, I now proceed to another very important part of the subject yet remaining, that is, Pronunciation or Delivery of a Discourse. How much stress was laid upon this by the most eloquent of all orators, Demosthenes, appears from a noted saying of his, related both by Cicero and Quintilian; when being asked what was the first point in oratory? he answered, delivery; and being asked what was the second? and afterwards, what was the third? he still answered, delivery. There is no wonder, that he should have rated this so high, and that for improving himself in it, he should have employed those assiduous and painful labours, which alf the ancients take so much notice of; for, beyond doubt, nothing is of more importance. To superficial thinkers, the management of the voice and gesture, in public speaking, may appear to relate to decoration only, and to be one of the inferior arts of catching an audience. But this is far from being the case. It is intimately connected with what is, or ought to be, the end of all public speaking, persuasion; and therefore deserves the study of the most grave and serious speakers, as much as of those, whose only aim it is to please.

For, let it be considered, whenever we address ourselves to others by words, our intention certainly is to make some ïmpression on those to whom we speak it is to convey to them our own ideas and emotions. Now the tone of our voice, our looks, and gestures, interpret our ideas and emotions no less than words do; nay, the impression they make on others, is frequently much stronger than any that words can make. We often see that an expressive look, or a passionate cry, unaccom

panied by words, convey to others more forcible ideas, and rouse within them stronger passions, than can be communicated by the most eloquent discourse. The signification of our sentiments, made by tones and gestures, has this advantage above that made by words, that it is the language of nature. It is that method of interpreting our mind, which nature has dictated to all, and which is understood by all; whereas, words are only arbitrary, conventional symbols of our ideas, and, by consequence, must make a more feeble impression. So true is this, that to render words fully significant, they must, almost in every case, receive some aid from the manner of pronunciation and delivery; and he who, in speaking, should employ bare words, without enforcing them by proper tones and accents, would leave us with a faint and indistinct impression, often with a doubtful and ambiguous conception, of what he had delivered. Nay, so close is the connexion between certain sentiments and the proper manner of pronouncing them, that he who does not pronounce them after that manner, can never persuade us, that he believes, or feels, the sentiments themselves. His delivery may be such, as to give the lie to all that he asserts. When Marcus Callidius accused one of an attempt to poison him, but enforced his accusation in a languid manner, and without any warmth or earnestness of delivery, Cicero, who pleaded for the accused person, improved this into an argument of the falsity of the charge, " An tu, M. Callidi, nisi fingeres, sic age res?" In Shakespeare's Richard II. the Dutchess of York thus impeaches the sincerity of her husband:

Pleads he in earnest ?-Look upon his face,

His eyes do drop no tears; his prayers are jest ;

His words come from his mouth; ours, from our breast;

He prays but faintly, and would be denied;

We pray with heart and soul.

But, I believe it is needless to say any more, in order to shew the high importance of a good delivery. I proceed, therefore, to such observations as appear to me most useful to be made on this head.

The great objects which every public speaker will naturally have in his eye in forming his delivery, are, first, to speak so as to be fully and easily understood by all who hear him ; and next