FUTILITY OF POLITICAL TOILS.
THE perishable labours of man often form a chapter of lamentations, and those of modern public life seem more than any "to dumb for- getfulness a prey." In diplomacy, hardly any traces can long be ex- pected to survive ; and of the wearying vigils and waggon-load de- liveries in Parliament not a hand-barrow-full will reach posterity. The sure oblivion that awaits speechmaking is dwelt upon in the current number of the Edinburgh Review. None of the great ora- tors of antiquity, except two, have come down to us ; yet harangu- ing was the daily food, the bread and cheese as we say, of the De- mosthenes and Cicero admiring Greeks and Romans. A similar fate hangs over the future of the gifted leaders of our own tem. Though effective in the outpouring, the speeches of Pitt, Fox, or Sheridan, are rarely referred to : with Burke it is somewhat different, and, precisely for the reason—the truths of all time— that caused his orations to be undervalued in delivery, they are now sought after for guidance and authority. Singular but just dispensation ; Nature withholding from all double pay, and either in life or posthumously, seldom in both, apportioning to each his honorary distinction. The ordinance holds most strikingly in the actor's career, who lives and dies in the breath of his auditory ; and in authorship, it is commonly found that ventures prosperous at the outset are rarely so in the long run. An additional peculiarity clings to Parliamentary debates, in the fact that they are not only likely to be short-lived, but to drag down in their oblivious wake much of the contemporary literary intellect of the age. In comment and criticism the pub- lic press was probably never more efficiently manned. Articles are constantly appearing that in eloquence, taste, logical sequence, and anecdotical pertinence, might vie in all their excellences, save detail and completeness, with the best standards of com- position. But all are fated to perish—and soon. Nobody thinks of preserving them, any more than milk or mackarel ; or even of culling into a volume their fugitive sweets. The " Beauties of the Times," for instance, is a speculation that has never been ventured upon. To this exists only one exception—a journalist did once collect and publish his choicest lueubrations ; but where are they ? Eoho answers " Where ? " How is this? Is it the richness of the confection that precludes longevity and hastens de- cay or transformation? or rather, is it the unavoidable frag- mentary character of newspaper writing? or in a still greater de- gree, the evanescent nature of the men and subjects to which it is appendent, spiced, and fitted, and with them dies, or fails in breadth and interest.
Previous page
