The First Chapter of British Eloquence and Literature, From the Birth of Christ to the Death of King Alfred, 901. Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense, JOHN DRYDEN. Literature consists of all the books-and they are not manywhere moral truth and human passion are touched with a certain largeness, sanity, and attraction of form."-JOHN MORLEY. "THE FIRST CHAPTER OF BRITISH ELOQUENCE AND LITERATURE." "When Britain first at heaven's command This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung the strain- JAMES THOMSON. "The Britons quite sundered from all the world."VIRGIL. Mr. Thos. Costley, on Thursday evening, February 6th, 1896, delivered the eighth of his series of lectures in the Pendleton Town Hall, the subject being "The First Chapter of British Eloquence and Literature, from the Birth of Christ to the Death of King Alfred, 901." Mr. Cyril Slater, Barrister-at-Law, presided. The CHAIRMAN said: I think Mr. Costley will be known to most of those present. But if I were to introduce him to those to whom he is not known, at the great length he deserves, I don't think there would be much time left for the lecture. I can only ask those who don't know him to read the syllabus of his lectures, and then I think they will come to the same conclusion that those who do know him have come to, namely, that he is omniscient. In his last three lectures Mr. Costley discussed subjects that are of the greatest importance to modern minds, and to the study of which he would require to devote the whole of his spare time. Mr. Costley is no ordinary man; time to him is of no importance. His mind soars out of the present into the obscurity of the past, and looks into the literature of our ancestors of nearly 2,000 years ago. (Applause.) Mr. COSTLEY said:-Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen, when I decided to give this series of lectures, a gentleman said to me that I had undertaken a greater task than a professor from Owens College would have done. I replied to this gentleman that a professor from Owens College had not had 12 months' experience as a guardian. I told him, also, what the poets have said about flowers, and remarked that it is just possible that a professional man cannot have spent as much time among the poets and among the flowers as I have done, I have spent a great deal of time amongst the works of those who have written so carefully, so beautifully, and so lovingly of the flowers of the byeways and hedgeways of Old England. The subject of to-night's lecture is a botherimg one. It is one of those subjects that are very difficult to fully explore, because there is very little that has been written and spoken by the ancient Briton that has been handed down to us. There is no doubt the ancient Britons and Saxons produced poets (though their themes were war and religion-never love) as well as philosophers and statesmen, though there is no record of them left, because in those days there were no historians to chronicle these facts. To-night I shall have to take you back to a very early period in English history. I find that the more difficulty a man experiences in doing a thing, the greater pleasure he derives from carrying out the work. Where you have a great deal to fall back upon, you have a difficulty with regard to choice, but in dealing with the subject of to-night's lecture I have had no such difficulty. I have had to take what I could get, and be thankful. It is a grand thing that we have high ideas to elevate and to strengthen. The more a mind searches after knowledge, the more do the words of Locke become true: "We are born with powers and faculties almost equal to anything, if we only exercise them aright.' I read that when I was young, and I have never forgotten it; and I find that the more I try to do, the more I can do. I do not claim for these lectures anything very great, but if I succeed in drawing the attention of a number of people to our beautiful literature, to our beautiful history, to the grand descriptive sketches that there are in English history, I shall consider I have performed a good work. It is not for anything I, myself, shall say or write, but what has been thought and written by those who have studied in the past. I have been extremely fortunate in having such good chairmen to preside at each of my lectures. They have been so good that, really, if I had broken down, they could have taken my place. (Laughter.) Before I commenced the series I was, in fact, informed by a certain person that I should "break down." I replied, "Well, if I do, others have broken down before me, and I shall not, therefore, be the first to have broken down." But I don't intend to break down. One gentleman said to me, "Mr. Costley, do you expect me to pay 6s. for a ticket for your series of lectures?" I said to him, "No, I don't expect you to pay 6s. for the lectures, but I do expect you to pay that amount for the quotation from Emerson, which you have not seen before. 66 None of those who own the land own the landscapeonly he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is the poet." My friend said, "If you are satisfied that this quotation on your syllabus is worth 63., here is the money." (Applause). But few remains exist of the literature and eloquence of the ancient Britons; indeed the whole of their writings and speeches that have been handed down to us would scarcely fill an octavo volume. For the speeches of Boadicea, Galgacus, Caractacus, and other_note-worthy Britons we are indebted to the great Roman historian, Tacitus, and few more masterly pieces of ancient or modern oratory are anywhere to be found than those reported by him. One feels after reading the speeches of Boadicea, Galgacus, and Caractacus that their utterances are those of the highest and purest patriotism. There was a nobility about those ancient Britons seldom met with in profane history. Their orations were wonderfully powerful, seeing that they came from such a savage nation. In the whole annals of oratory where can we find a finer specimen of didactic eloquence than that of Boadicea against the Romans? Every sentence is a direct home-thrust against tyranny and oppression. Women in the olden time, as well as in our own time, have greatly influenced many a good cause, but Boadicea had perhaps the noblest cause of them all. She has inspired more than one of our English poets, but there is enough in her history to inspire a greater poet than even Cowper to write on so stirring a theme. What an inspiration she has been to the liberty-loving subject for nearly two thousand years. The history of Boadicea, and of other queens, goes to prove that they have been more patriotic and less selfish than kings and princes. She was one of a gallant band of heroes and heroines that fought determinedly against the Romans for the "ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods, and for the tender mothers who dandled them to rest, and for the wives who nourished the babies at the breast." In every untry, and in every age of the world, similar characters have come to the front when it seemed that the destiny of their country required them to sacrifice their lives. It has been truly said that eloquence to produce her full effect should start from the head of the orator, as "Pallas, from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped." Surely there never was a better definition of eloquence than the following by Hume, although you will agree with me that some fine specimens can be culled and collected from the speeches of Boadicea, Galgacus, and Caractacus. 'Eloquence at its highest pitch leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding." 66 |