THE BOSTON REVIEW, FOR APRIL, 1810. Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui annotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. Plin. ARTICLE 10. Lectures on Rhetorick and Oratory, delivered to the classes of senior and junior sophisters in Harvard University. By John Quincy Adams, L L. D. late Boylston Professor of Rhetorick and Oratory. In two volumes. Cambridge; Hilliard & Metcalf. 8vo. pp. 832. 1809. WE should esteem ourselves altogether unworthy the honour to which we aspire of being numbered among the friends of literature, if we could for a moment suffer our judgment of the claims of a man of letters to be influenced by any feelings of political antipathy. It is the delight and charm of literature, that it affords us a refuge from the tumults and contentions of active life-a spot, where we may escape from the hot and feverous atmosphere, which we are compelled to breathe in the world, and enjoy that repose, which we find no where else; not always, alas! even in the holy walks of theological inquiry. We should feel the same sort of repugnance at introducing the passions of party into these quiet regions, as at bringing a band of ruffians into the abodes of rural innocence and happiness, to mar their beauty, and violate their peace. At the same time, however, in a country like ours, where politicks possess an interest so overwhelming, that he who will not talk of them must be content to pass his days in silence to say that we have formed no opinion on one who has engaged so much attention as Mr. Adams, would be laying claim to a neutrality, which it is no part of our ambition to possess. We have indeed no wish to disguise our sentiments on the political career of Mr. Adams. We have, on this subject, no sympathy with him whatever. We see and lament that the orb of his political glory has become dar k— "Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse: SAMSON AGONISTES. We offer this free expression of our opinions, lest the praise we may be bound in justice to bestow, should lose its value by being supposed to proceed from political friends. Having then made this sacrifice to the unhappy temper of the times, we proceed to the examination of the work of this gentleman, whose claims to the name of the best read and most accomplished scholar our country has produced, are, we presume, beyond all dispute. It seems to be generally agreed, that however superiour in philosophy and the exact sciences, the moderns fall far below the ancients in eloquence. The causes usually assigned for this inferiority are examined by Hume in one of his essays, and he pronounces them all to be inadequate and unsatisfactory. There is one reason, however, to which, we conceive, he has not allowed sufficient force. From the changes in our habits, constitution and government, and the more universal diffusion of knowledge, the same effects as formerly cannot now be produced by appeals to the passions. The degree of excellence which any art will attain, may be estimated as certainly and exactly by the effects which its perfection will produce, as in commerce the quality of any commodity is regulated by the price which it will command. It is therefore because eloquence has lost so much of its efficacy, that it has lost so much of its elevation. If in our courts of jurispru dence the decision of a cause depended on the will of the judges, or if our deliberative assemblies were so constituted, that the fate of an empire depended on the passions of a mob, there would be a sufficient premium offered to induce men to devote themselves exclusively to the art, and the eloquence of Greece and of Rome would be indubitably rivalled. But, says Hume, "it would be easy to find a Philip in modern times; but where shall we find a Demosthenes ?" We reply, show us the country where it depends on the eloquence of a Demosthenes to determine whether to march or not against Philip; and the man will in due time appear, who, like him, will make the chains of the tyrant resound in the ears of his countrymen, till they, like the Athenians, involuntarily start up to oppose him.* We scarcely know whether to consider it as a subject of felicitation or regret, that the causes which impede the progress of eloquence are felt less forcibly in our own country than in Europe. Notwithstanding the obstacles which the regular organization of parties, and the superiour diffusion of intelligence, and a spirit of calculation among our common people, oppose to its advancement, we believe that greater effects may be produced by it among us, than in any nation since the days of antiquity. Nothing, therefore, but inferiority of native genius can prevent this art from regaining something of its ancient pre-eminence. That nature is less liberal of her gifts on one side of the Atlantick than on the other, we presume no one is now child enough to believe. If the opinion were ever seriously entertained by any one, it is now sufficiently refuted by facts. We do not fear to say, (and too much nationality is not supposed to be our foible) that the debates on the British treaty, and on the judiciary, considered as a whole, afforded a finer specimen of oratorical talents than has been witnessed in any deliberative assembly since the days of the senate of Rome. At the same time, however, we are far from supposing, that we have already produced any rivals to the orators of antiquity. With all the vigour and originality which we have seen displayed, there exists a palpable want of that extent and variety of knowledge, which regular study alone can supply, and a most deplorable deficiency of that purity of taste, which is gained only by long and habitual meditation of the great masters of style. Even in the debate on the judiciary, which however, we admit, produced nothing to rival two or three of the finest speeches on the British treaty, there are very few passages to which we could apply an epithet of higher dignity than that of very eloquent and splendid declamation. Perhaps we might take Mr. Randolph as a pretty fair specimen. at once of the excellence and defects of our countrymen. In his vague and often unconsequential reasonings, his coarse invective, and his confused and revolting imagery, we have a striking illustration of our prevailing defects; and in his strong and original conceptions, in the bright and bold flashes * Quand Demosthene menace ses concitoyens de l'esclavage on croit entendre dans le lointain de distance en distance le bruit des chaines que leur apporte le tyran. Maury. Principes d'Eloquence. of his imagination, and the nervous diction, which he sometimes displays, we have a flattering proof of what our country is capable. It is the tendency of the remarks we have hazarded, to illustrate the necessity of a more regular and scientifick study of rhetorick. The establishment of a new professorship of this science at the university of Cambridge we consider as one additional pledge, that a spirit of literary improvement has begun its career among us. The book before us, therefore, we take up with singular pleasure, as the first fruits of this establishment; and though we will not say that it is faultless, yet it is certainly in a high degree honourable to the talents and learning of the author, and must be of great and permanent utility. For him, who is desirous of finding a compendium of all the best precepts of the ancient masters of rhetorick, adapted to the state of eloquence in modern times, and the particular circumstances of our own country, we know of no book to which we should so soon refer, as to the Lectures of Mr. Adams. We shall endeavour to enable our readers to judge of its merits and defects by offering as copious an analysis of its contents as our limits will admit. Mr. Adams informs us, that by the regulations of the institution he was required to deliver a course of lectures on rhetorick and oratory, founded on the classical theories of antiquity. "My plan, therefore," says he, " has necessarily been different from that of all the modern writers upon rhetorick and belles lettres. It has been partly didactick and partly historical; partly to unfold to you, as matter of fact, the precepts of Aristotle, Cicero, Quinctilian, Longinus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and the rest; and partly to show how much of that doctrine may still be suited to us, amid the changes of language, of manners, of religion, and of government, which in the lapse of ages have been effected by the ever-revolving hand of time." Vol. II. p. 141. For the merits or defects of the general outline of his lectures, it is evident that Mr. A. is not responsible. We shall proceed therefore to examine with what ability and success his plan has been executed. In his first lecture Mr. A. is employed in settling the definition of his subject, and the boundaries which separate it from grammar and logick. The definitions of rhetorick given by Aristotle, Cicero and Quinctilian pass in review before him, and he joins with the last of these writers in calling it "the science of speaking well." The reasons on which he vindicates his decision do not strike us as remarkably cogent. He expressly rejects the principal ground on which Quinctilian himself justifies its adoption, that it includes the moral character of the speaker, as well as the excellence of speech. The reasons on which Mr. A. defends it are its comprehensiveness and its coincidence with the scriptures. But the objection to which it appears to us to be most exposed, is the want of the very quality, which recommends it to Mr. A. It confines the extent of the science to oral eloquence alone. Whereas we certainly talk familiarly, and we think accurately of the eloquence of compositions, not only never spo ken, but not at all adapted to speaking; and no man will say that the orations of Cicero are at all the less eloquent, because we are convinced that none of them were ever spoken in the form in which they now appear. His second reason is founded on a feeling so laudable that we are unwilling to find fault with it. Yet the habit of making the scriptures settle points of criticism and philosophy is a very dangerous perversion of their design. It is founded on the same notion of their verbal inspiration, which Galileo was accused of impeaching, when he maintained that the earth and not the sun is in motion. To say that, because "to be eloquent," and "to speak well," are used in the scripture as equivalent expressions, Quinctilian's definition of rhetorick "is ratified by the voice of heaven," is so near an approach to the ludicrous, that we are surprised that Mr. A. should hazard it. We are hardly satisfied with the reasons on which the definition of Aristotle is rejected. Mr. A. follows Quinctilian in giving this definition thus: Rhetorick is the power of inventing whatsoever is persuasive in discourse. The words of Aristotle certainly do not necessarily have this meaning; and we are half inclined to suspect Quinctilian of giving them this turn in order to make the objection, that they include only one part of the science, viz. invention. The words may, not to say ought to be, translated,* the power of discerning↑ in any * Δύναμις ἐστι περὶ ἕκαστον του θεωρῆσαι τὸ ἐνδεχομενον πιθανον. Rhet. Lib. 1. c. 7. To justify the temerity of doubting the propriety of Quinctilian's use of invenire instead of videre, we have the authority of several criticks. See Vossius de nat. et const. Rhet. et Burman ad Inst. Quinct. Lib. ii. c. 15. After all, however, it must be allowed that Quinctilian is no contemẞtible authority for the meaning of Aristotle. |