It is now above forty years since I have never spoken nor written
one single word, without giving myself at least one moment's time to
consider, whether it was a good one or a bad one, and whether I could
not find out a better in its place. An unharmonious and rugged period,
at this time, shocks my ears; and I, like all the rest of the world,
will willingly exchange and give up some degree of rough sense, for
a good degree of pleasing sound. I will freely and truly own to you,
without either vanity or false modesty, that whatever reputation I
have acquired as a speaker, is more owing to my constant attention to
my diction than to my matter, which was necessarily just the same as
other people's. When you come into parliament, your reputation as a
speaker will depend much more upon your words, and your periods than
upon the subject. The same matter occurs equally to everybody of
common sense, upon the same question: the dressing it well, is what
excites the attention and admiration of the audience.
It is in parliament that I have set my heart upon your making a
figure; it is there that I want to have you justly proud of yourself,
and to make me justly proud of you. This means that you must be a good
speaker there; I use the word _must_, because I know you may if you
will. The vulgar, who are always mistaken, look upon a speaker and a
comet with the same astonishment and admiration, taking them both for
preternatural phenomena. This error discourages many young men from
attempting that character; and good speakers are willing to have their
talent considered as something very extraordinary, if not a peculiar
gift of God to his elect. But, let you and I analyze and simplify this
good speaker; let us strip him of those adventitious plumes with which
his own pride and the ignorance of others have decked him; and we
shall find the true definition of him to be no more than this: a
man of good common sense, who reasons justly, and expresses himself
elegantly, on that subject upon which he speaks. There is, surely, no
witchcraft in this. A man of sense, without a superior and astonishing
degree of parts, will not talk nonsense upon any subject; nor will he,
if he has the least taste or application, talk inelegantly. What then
does all this mighty art and mystery of speaking in parliament amount
to? Why, no more than this, that the man who speaks in the House
of Commons, speaks in that house, and to four hundred people, that
opinion upon a given subject which he would make no difficulty of
speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or at table, to
any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps, and severer
critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of
Commons.
I have spoken frequently in parliament, and not always without some
applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that
there is very little in it. The elegancy of the style and the turn of
the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but
one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will
retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people
do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that
have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears,
but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you
will catch their judgements, such as they are.
Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profession (for in
his time eloquence was a profession), in order to set himself off,
defines, in his treatise _de Oratore_, an orator to be such a man as
never was, or never will be; and, by this fallacious argument, says
that he must know every art and science whatsoever, or how shall he
speak upon them? But with submission to so great an authority, my
definition of an orator is extremely different from, and I believe
much truer than, his. I call that man an orator who reasons justly,
and expresses himself elegantly, upon whatever subjects he treats.
Problems in geometry, equations in algebra, processes in chemistry,
and experiments in anatomy, are never, that I have heard of, the
objects of eloquence; and therefore I humbly conceive that a man may
be a very fine speaker, and yet know nothing of geometry, algebra,
chemistry, or anatomy. The subjects of all parliamentary debates are
subjects of common sense singly.
Thus I write whatever occurs to me, that I think may contribute either
to form or inform you. May my labour not be in vain! and it will not,
if you will but have half the concern for yourself that I have for
you. Adieu.