BOOKS.

ORATORY, BRITISH AND IRISH.*

NOT only the general reader, but serious students of English eloquence and of English prose, are indebted to Mr. Godfrey Locker Lampson for his well-selected and well-edited book of great speeches. We might criticize, or even quarrel with, Mr. Locker Lampoon's definitions of " Oratory " and of " the Great Age," but, after all, in a subject so wide there must be limits, and given Mr. Locker Lampson's definition, and the limits he has thereby imposed on himself, we fully admit the value and judicious character of his anthology.

Mr. Locker Lampoon begins with Chatham, and the re-reading of the best portions of the great speeches that have come down to us, as they are set forth in the present volume, tends to show that there has been something of exaggeration in the lamentations over the loss of Chatham's oratory through bad reporting or no reporting. It is at any rate plain that a great deal of what we have got is the seal thing, so original is it and so instinct with the feeling of individuality. We shall not attempt to discuss any of the master passages in the American speeches, but shall confine ourselves to the more technical aspects of Chatham's oratory—to the style and the phraseology.

It is curious to find that Chatham when he speaks of the Mediaeval Barons who extorted and maintained "Magna Marta "--Chatham always used the time-honoured solecism—calls them " Iron Barons," and contrasts them with the " Silken Baron " of modem days. An historical pedant might find here an interesting point for research. When was " Silken " first used as an epithet of satiric discrimina- tion ? Lilbume used it very effectively in one of his pamphlets In which he speaks of the " Silken Independants," meaning Cromwell's more aristocratic supporters, and we have all heard of " Silken Thomas " ; but when did the phrase begin ? Again, can one suppose that Chatham had ever read Lilbume's admirable and biting pamphlets ? If he had access to any of them, he certainly would have found them congenial ground for raising those flowers of fierce invective which, when occasion offered, he knew so well how to employ. Another point is worth noting. A great many of Chatham's most ardent admirers of to-day are detractors of the Whigs and of what they call " Whiggism." Yet we find their hero, Chatham, not only speaking of himself as a Whig, but praising " Whiggism

" This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions in

• Oratory, British and Irish : the Great Age. Edited with Notes by Godfrey

Locker Laiopeou. Loudon ; Arthur I., Humphreys. 112e. dd. net.) • -

America, who prefer poverty with liberty to gilded chains and sordid affluence ; and who will die in defence of their rights as men, as freemen. What shall oppose this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breasts of every Whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers . To maintain this principle is the common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic and on this. "Tie liberty to liberty engaged,' that they will defend themselves, their families, and their country. In this great cause they are immovably allied ; it is the alliance of God and Nature—immutable, eternal—fixed as the firmament of heaven."

It is interesting to remember that it was in the speech which contains this panegyric of " Whiggism " that Chatham, not without good warrant, praised the great and able men who drew up the original Articles of Confederation for the American States. The passage runs as follows :- "When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America ; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself I must declare and avow that in all my reading and observation—and it has been my favourite study— I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master- states of the world—that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation, or body of men, can stand in preference to the General Congress of Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your Lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal."

The selection from Burke was easy, and the same may be said of Grattan and Fox. We are specially grateful to Mr. Locker Lampson, however, for having included some characteristic speeches of " the generous, the ingenuous, the high.souled William Windham." With Erskine, again, the selection is very happy, though we think that the excellent prefatory note on Erskine— all the prefatory notes arc good—should have inoluded a quotation from the admirable parody of Erskine's oratorical style contained in the Anti-Jacobin. It was one of Canning's or Frero's finest efforts. The selections from Canning, too, are very good indeed, but we must reserve our chief praise for those from the wordy but passionate oratory of Richard Lalor Sheil. Sheil's best-known speech, however, was made after, not before, 1832, Mr. Locker Lampoon's definitive year ; but happily he gets over this difficulty by quoting it in the Preface. The speech we allude to contains the magnificent outburst of invective occasioned by the fact that the Duke of WeHington had hoard the Irish soldiers spoken of in the House of Lords as " aliens," and had not sprung to his feet to defend them. This is tho passage :— ." Aliens ! good God ! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, ' Hold ! I have seen the aliens do their duty ? ' The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved ; but, not his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply—I cannot help thinking that ho ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. ' The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed,' ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable—from Assaye to Waterloo—the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before ? What desperate valour climbed the steeps and filled the moats at BeAlajos ? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory- Vimiera, l3adajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and, last of all, the greatest. Tell me, for you were there-I appeal to the gallant soldier before me (Sir Henry Hardingc), from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast ;—tell me, for you must needs remember—on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance— while death fell in showers—when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science—when her legions, incited by the voice, and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset—tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the

• aliens' blenched ? And when at length the moment for the last and decisive movement had arrived, and the valour which had so long been wisely checked, was at last let loose—when, with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault—tell me, if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valour than the natives of this your own glorious country, precipitated herself upon the foe ? The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together ;—in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited—

the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust—the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril—in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate ; and shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out 1 "

that is a noble example of real eloquence. Nothing could illustrate better the fact that oratory is an art like poetry, and that art cannot live without passion. Oratory might indeed be said to fulfil the whole of Milton's definition of poetry—" simple, sensuous, and passionate." It never is effective unless it is directed to one plain issue, not involving refinements and discriminations. It must appeal to the senses, not merely by power of voice and gesture, but by beauty of phrase and by instilling into each word something of 'personal magnetism or of fascination. Finally, like poetry, it must vibrate with passion, or else it is a dead thing. Certainly tried by this standard Sheil's outburst is true oratory. Its poignancy must have been great at the time. Alas it is even greater now. Shell could correct and chastise the man who had dared to accuse Ireland of not doing her part in bringing the tyrant to the ground. But what could an Irish orator say now if the bulk of the people of Ireland were called " aliens " and traitors to tho cause of liberty and justice ? No one could spring to his Met indignantly to deny such a charge, or pretend that the Irish had done their share, and more than their share. It would have to be aoknowledged, no doubt, that certain Irishmen have fought the good fight. They were not the rule, however, but the exception, and these men of exception came for the greater part from those -portion of Ireland which are neither Roman Catholic, nor Celtic, nor disloyal, but Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, and Unionist.

There are half-a-hundred fine and notable things which we might quote from Mr. Locker Lampson's book. We will only say, however, that we think he missed an opportunity in not quoting, under the heading of Brougham, the magnificent passage in the great agitator's great speech at the trial of Queen Caroline in which he laid down in terms of passion, and, though it seems strange to say this of Brougham, sincere passion, the duties of an advocate :-

" The cause of the queen does not require recrimination (pause) at present.. . . If, however, I shall hereafter think it advisable to exercise that right—if I shall think it necessary to avail myself cf means which at present I decline using—let it not be vainly supposed that I, or even the youngest member in the profession, would hesitate to resort to such a course, and fearlessly perform my duty. I have before stated to your Lordships—but surely of that it is scarcely necessary to remind you—that an advocate in the discharge of his duty knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all hazards and costs to other persons, and among them to himself, is his first and only duty ; and in performing this duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction which he may bring upon others. (Here Brougham paused once more, drew himself up ; and in a voice of intense earnestness proceeded.) Separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, he must go on reckless of consequences, though it should be his unhappy fate to involve his country in confusion."

This is of course largely the language of exaggeration, but it is a very passionate, as well as a very poignant, statement of the advocate's duty.

There remains over, and untouched by Mr. Godfrey Locker Laznpson, a technical problem of no little interest. Is there anything discoverable as to the prose rhythms of the best orators of the Great Age ? Did they get their melodies haphazard, or did they compose them in obedience to a conscious art ? It is a nice question, difficult, but not perhaps beyond all conjecture.