'Tis not enough the voice be sound and clear, 'Tis modulation that must charm the ear. When desperate heroines grieve with tedious moan, Some o'er the tongue the laboured measures roll, And e'en in speaking we may seem too just. Some placid natures fill the allotted scene He, who in earnest studies o'er his part, In the white handkerchief and mournful drawl ; Lloyd. Heard ye those loud-contending waves, And bid the raging tumult cease? With siren tongue, and speaking eyes, To thee, O Power! who can inspire And shook thy plumes in Attic skies! The reddening storm of battle pours, Fastens on the Olynthian towers. Where rests the sword ?-where sleep the brave? From the fury of the blast: Burst the storm on Phocis' walls! Up! or Freedom breathes her last. Lightning flashing from his eye. "To arms! to arms! to arms!' they cry; Let us conquer him, or die!' Ah, Eloquence! thou wast undone ; When Tyranny eclipsed the sun, And blotted out the stars of heaven! When Liberty from Greece withdrew, To where the Tiber pours his urn- Rise, kindling with the orient beam, And point the way to heaven-to God! Carey. When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable, in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It can not be brought from afar. Labour and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they can not compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it,-they can not reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments, and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object-this, this is eloquence; or rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence-it is action, noble, sublime, Godlike action. Daniel Webster. Ex. 145. Hamlet's Instruction to the Players. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say,) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire, and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows, and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it outherods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word; the word to the action with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first, and now was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form, and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Chris tians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well: they imitated humanity so abominably. Ex. 146. The Perfect Orator. Shakspeare. Imagine to yourselves a Demosthenes, addressing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustrious of nations depended-How awful such a meeting! how vast the subject !—Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion ?-Adequate ! Yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of the subject, for a while, superseded by the admiration of his talents. With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart, does he assault and subjugate the whole man; and, at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions! To effect this, must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human nature. Not a faculty that he possesses, is here unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses, but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work: all his external, testify their energies. Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, are all busy without,-every muscle, every nerve is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those energies from soul to soul. Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude; by the lightning of eloquence, they are melted into one mass-the whole assembly, actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is-Let us march against Philip, let us fight for our liberties-let us conquer or die ! Sheridan. Ex. 147. Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. |