joking, but well understood the use of the scymitar. Bad as things
were, they soon became worse; for the chiefs of the Grecian army,
being foolish enough to accept a dinner invitation from the Persian
commander-in-chief, were assassinated; and the words of Milton became
intelligible--that in the lowest deep a lower deep had opened to
destroy them. In this dilemma, Xenophon, the historian of the
expedition, was raised to a principal command; and by admirable skill
he led back the army by a different route to the Black Sea, on the
coast of which he knew that there were Grecian colonies: and from one
of these he obtained shipping, in which he coasted along (when he did
not march by land) to the mouth of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
This was the famous retreat of the ten thousand; and it shows how much
defect of literary skill there was in those days amongst Grecian
authors, that the title of the book, _The Going Up_, does not apply to
the latter and more interesting seven-eighths of the account. The
Going Up is but the preparation or preface to the Going Down, the
_Anabasis_ to the _Katabasis_, in which latter part it is that
Xenophon plays any conspicuous part. A great political interest,
however, over and above the personal interest, attaches to this
expedition: for there can be no doubt, that to this proof of weakness
in the Persian empire, and perhaps to this, _as recorded by Xenophon_,
was due the expedition of Alexander in the next generation, which
changed the face of the world.
The literateurs, as we have styled Plutarch and Lucian, though far
removed from the true classical era, being both posterior to
Christianity, are truly interesting. And, for Lucian in particular,
though he is known by reputation only as a humorous and sneering
writer, we can say, upon our personal knowledge, that there are
passages of more terrific effect, more German, and approaching to the
sublime, than anywhere else in Greek literature, out of the tragic
poets. Of Plutarch we need hardly speak; one part of his voluminous
works--viz. his biographies of Greek and Roman leaders in arts[16] and
arms--being so familiar to all nations; and having been selected by
Rousseau as the book for him who should be limited (or, like Collins
the poet, should limit himself) to one book only--a foolish choice
undoubtedly, but still arguing great range of resources in Plutarch,
that he should be thought of after so many myriads of modern books had
widened the range of selection. Meantime, the reader is not to forget
that, whatever may be his powers of amusement, a more inaccurate or
faithless author as to dates, and, indeed, in all matters of research,
does not exist than Plutarch. We make it a rule, whenever we see
_Plut._ at the bottom of a dictionary article, as the authority on
which it rests, to put the better half down as a bouncer. And, in
fact, Joe Miller is quite as good authority for English history as
Plutarch for Roman.
[Footnote 16: 'In arts,' we say, because great orators are amongst his
heroes; but, after all, it is very questionable whether, simply as
orators, Plutarch would have noticed them. They were also statesmen;
and Mitford always treats Demosthenes as first lord of the treasury
and premier. Plutarch records no poet, no artist, however brilliant.]
Now remain the orators; and of these we have a right to speak, for we
have read them; and, believe us, reader, not above one or two men in a
generation have. If the Editor would allow us room, we would gladly
contrast them with modern orators; and we could easily show how
prodigious are the advantages of modern orators in every point which
can enter into a comparison. But to what purpose? Even modern orators,
with all the benefit of modern interest, and of allusions everywhere
intelligible, are not read in any generation after their own, pulpit
orators only being excepted. So that, if the gods _had_ made our
reader a Grecian, surely he would never so far misspend his precious
time, and squander his precious intellect upon old dusty quarrels,
never of more value to a philosopher than a tempest in a wash-hand
bason, but now stuffed with obscurities which no man can explain, and
with lies to which no man can bring the counter-statement. But this
would furnish matter for a separate paper.
No. II.--THE GREEK ORATORS.
Now, let us come to the orators. Isocrates, the eldest of those who
have survived, is a mere scholastic rhetorician: for he was a timid
man, and did not dare to confront the terrors of a stormy political
audience; and hence, though he lived about an entire century, he never
once addressed the Athenian citizens. It is true, that, although no
_bonâ fide_ orator--for he never _spoke_ in any usual acceptation of
that word, and, as a consequence, never had an opportunity of
replying, which only can bring forward a man's talents as a
_debater_--still he employed his pen upon real and upon existing
questions of public policy; and did not, as so many generations of
chamber rhetoricians continued to do in Greece, confine his powers to
imaginary cases of political difficulty, or (what were tantamount to
imaginary) cases fetched up from the long-past era of King Priam, or
the still earlier era of the Seven Chiefs warring against the
Seven-gated Thebes of Boeotia, or the half-fabulous era of the
Argonauts. Isocrates was a man of sense--a patriot in a temperate
way--and with something of a feeling for Greece generally, not merely
a champion of Athens. His heart was given to politics: and, in an age
when heavy clouds were gathering over the independence and the civil
grandeur of his country, he had a disinterested anxiety for drawing
off the lightning of the approaching storms by pacific counsels.
Compared, therefore, with the common mercenary orators of the Athenian
forum--who made a regular trade of promoting mischief, by inflaming
the pride, jealousy, vengeance, or the martial instincts of a 'fierce
democracy,' and, generally speaking, with no views, high or low, sound
or unsound, that looked beyond the momentary profit to themselves from
thus pandering to the thoughtless nationality of a most sensitive
people--Isocrates is entitled to our respect. His writings have also a
separate value, as memorials of political transactions from which the
historian has gathered many useful hints; and, perhaps, to a diligent
search, they might yield more. But, considered as an orator--if that
title can be, with any propriety, allowed to one who declaimed only in
his closet--one who, in relation to public affairs, was what, in
England, when speaking of practical jurisprudence, we call a Chamber
Counsel--Isocrates is languid, and with little of anything
characteristic in his manner to justify a separate consideration. It
is remarkable that he, beyond all other rhetoricians of that era,
cultivated the _rhythmus_ of his periods. And to this object he
sacrificed not only an enormity of time, but, I have no doubt, in many
cases, the freedom and natural movement of the thoughts. My reason,
however, for noticing this peculiarity in Isocrates, is by way of
fixing the attention upon the superiority, even artificial ornaments,
of downright practical business and the realities of political strife,
over the torpid atmosphere of a study or a school. Cicero, long after,
had the same passion for _numerositas_, and the full, pompous
rotundity of cadence. But in Cicero, all habits and all faculties were
nursed by the daily practice of life and its impassioned realities, in
the forum or in the senate. What is the consequence? Why this--that,
whereas in the most laboured performance of Isocrates (which cost him,
I think, one whole _decennium_, or period of ten years), few modern
ears are sensible of any striking art, or any great result of harmony;
in Cicero, on the other hand, the fine, sonorous modulations of his
periodic style, are delightful to the dullest ear of any European.
Such are the advantages from real campaigns, from the unsimulated
strife of actual stormy life, over the torpid dreams of what the
Romans called an _umbratic_[17] experience.
[Footnote 17: 'Umbratic.' I have perhaps elsewhere drawn the attention
of readers to the peculiar effects of climate, in shaping the modes of
our thinking and imaging. A life of _inertia_, which retreats from the
dust and toil of actual experience, we (who represent the idea of
effeminacy more naturally by the image of shrinking from cold) call a
chimney-corner of a fireside experience; but the Romans, to whom the
same effeminacy more easily fell under the idea of shrinking from the
heat of the sun, called it an experience won in the shade; and a mere
scholastic student, they called an _umbraticus doctor_.]
_Isocrates_ I have noticed as the oldest of the surviving Greek
orators: _Demosthenes_, of course, claims a notice more emphatically,
as, by universal consent of Athens, and afterwards of Rhodes, of Rome,
and other impartial judges, the greatest, or, at least, the most
comprehensively great. For, by the way, it must not be forgotten--though
modern critics _do_ forget this rather important fact in weighing the
reputation of Demosthenes--he was not esteemed, in his own day, as the
greatest in that particular quality of energy and demoniac power
([Greek: deinotês]) which is generally assumed to have been his leading
characteristic and his _forte_; not only by comparison with his own
compatriots, but even with Cicero and the greatest men of the Roman bar.
It was not of Demosthenes that the Athenians were accustomed to say, 'he
thunders and lightens,' but of Pericles, an elder orator; and even
amongst the written oratory of Greece, which still survives (for as to
the speeches ascribed to Pericles by Thucydides, I take it for granted
that, as usual, these were mere forgeries of the historian), there is a
portion which perhaps exceeds Demosthenes in the naked quality of
vehemence. But this, I admit, will not impeach his supremacy; for it is
probable, that wherever an orator is characterised exclusively by
turbulent power, or at least remembered chiefly for that quality, all
the other numerous graces of eloquence were wanting to that man, or
existed only in a degree which made no equipoise to his insulated gift
of Jovian terror. The Gracchi, amongst the Roman orators, were probably
more properly 'sons of thunder' than Crassus or Cicero, or even than
Cæsar himself, whose oratory, by the way, was, in this respect, like his
own character and infinite accomplishments; so that even by Cicero it is
rarely cited without the epithet of splendid, magnificent, &c. We must
suppose, therefore, that neither Cicero nor Demosthenes was held to be
at the head of their respective fields in Rome and Athens, in right of
any absolute pre-eminence in the one leading power of an orator--viz.
native and fervent vigour--but in right of a large comprehensive harmony
of gifts, leaving possibly to some other orators, elder or rival to
themselves, a superiority in each of an orator's talents taken apart,
but claiming the supremacy, nevertheless, upon the whole, by the
systematic union of many qualities tending to one result: pleasing the
taste by the harmonious _coup d'oeil_ from the total assemblage, and
also adapting itself to a far larger variety of situations; for, after
all, the _mere_ son of thunder is disarmed, and apt to become
ridiculous, if you strip him of a passionate cause, of a theme saturated
with human strife, and of an excitable or tempestuous audience.
Such an audience, however, it will be said that Demosthenes had, and
sometimes (but not very often in those orations which survive) such a
theme. As to his audience, certainly it was all that could be wished
in point of violence and combustible passion; but also it was
something more. A mighty advantage it is, doubtless, to an orator,
when he sees and hears his own kindling passions instantaneously
reflected in the blazing eyes and fiery shouts (the _fremitus_) of
his audience--when he sees a whole people, personally or by
deputation, swayed backwards and forwards, like a field of corn in a
breeze, by the movements of his own appeals. But, unfortunately, in
the Athenian audience, the ignorance, the headstrong violence of
prejudice, the arrogance, and, above all, the levity of the national
mind--presented, to an orator the most favourite, a scene like that of
an ocean always rocking with storms; like a wasp always angry; like a
lunatic, always coming out of a passion or preparing to go into one.
Well might Demosthenes prepare himself by sea-shore practice; in which
I conceive that his purpose must have been, not so much (according to
the common notion) to overcrow the noise of the forum, as to _stand
fire_ (if I may so express it) against the uproarious demonstrations
of mob fury.
This quality of an Athenian audience must very seriously have
interfered with the intellectual display of an orator. Not a word
could he venture to say in the way of censure towards the public
will--not even hypothetically to insinuate a fault; not a syllable
could he utter even in the way of dissent from the favourite
speculations of the moment. If he did, instantly a roar of menaces
recalled him to a sense even of personal danger. And, again, the mere
vivacity of his audience, requiring perpetual amusement and variety,
compelled a man, as great even as Demosthenes, to curtail his
arguments, and rarely, indeed, to pursue a theme with the requisite
fulness of development or illustration; a point in which the superior
dignity and the far less fluctuating mobility of the Roman mind gave
an immense advantage to Cicero.
Demosthenes, in spite of all the weaknesses which have been arrayed
against his memory by the hatred of his contemporaries, or by the
anti-republican feelings of such men as Mitford, was a great man and
an honest man. He rose above his countrymen. He despised, in some
measure, his audience; and, at length, in the palmy days of his
influence, he would insist on being heard; he would insist on telling
the truth, however unacceptable; he would not, like the great rout of
venal haranguers, lay any flattering unction to the capital distempers
of the public mind; he would point out their errors, and warn them of
their perils. But this upright character of the man, victorious over
his constitutional timidity, does but the more brightly illustrate the
local law and the tyranny of the public feeling. How often do we find
him, when on the brink of uttering 'odious truth,' obliged to pause,
and to propitiate his audience with deprecatory phrases, entreating
them to give him time for utterance, not to yell him down before they
had heard his sentence to the end. [Greek: Mê thoryzeite]--'Gentlemen
of Athens! for the love of God, do not make an uproar at what I am
going to say! Gentlemen of Athens! humbly I beseech you to let me
finish my sentence!' Such are his continual appeals to the better
feelings of his audience. Now, it is very evident that, in such
circumstances, no man could do justice to any subject. At least, when
speaking not before a tribunal of justice, but before the people in
council assembled--that is, in effect, on his greatest stage of
all--Demosthenes (however bold at times, and restive in a matter which
he held to be paramount) was required to bend, and did bend, to the
local genius of democracy, reinforced by a most mercurial
temperament. The very air of Attica, combined with great political
power, kept its natives in a state of habitual intoxication; and even
wise men would have had some difficulty in mastering, as it affected
themselves, the permanent bias towards caprice and insolence.
Is this state of things at all taken into account in our modern
critiques upon Demosthenes? The upshot of what I can find in most
modern lecturers upon rhetoric and style, French or English, when
speaking of Demosthenes, is this notable simile, by way of
representing the final effect of his eloquence--'that, like a mountain
torrent, swollen by melting snow, or by rain, it carries all things
before it.' Prodigiously original! and exceedingly discriminative! As
if such an illustration would not equally represent the effect of a
lyrical poem, of Mozart's music, of a stormy chorus, or any other form
whatever of impassioned vehemence. Meantime, I suspect grievously that
not one of these critics has ever read a paragraph of Demosthenes.
Nothing do you ever find quoted but a few notorious passages about
Philip of Macedon, and the too-famous oath, by the manes of those that
died at Marathon. I call it too famous, because (like Addison's
comparison of Marlborough, at Blenheim, to the angel in the storm--of
which a schoolmaster then living said, that nine out of every ten boys
would have hit upon it in a school exercise) it has no peculiar
boldness, and must have occurred to every Athenian, of any
sensibility, every day of his life. Hear, on the other hand, a modern
oath, and (what is most remarkable) an oath sworn in the pulpit. A
dissenting clergyman (I believe, a Baptist), preaching at Cambridge,
and having occasion to affirm or to deny something or other, upon his
general confidence in the grandeur of man's nature, the magnificence
of his conceptions, the immensity of his aspirations, &c., delivered
himself thus:--'By the greatness of human ideals--by the greatness of
human aspirations--by the immortality of human creations--_by the
Iliad_--_by the Odyssey_'--Now, that _was_ bold, startling, sublime.
But, in the other case, neither was the oath invested with any great
pomp of imagery or expression; nor, if it had--which is more to the
purpose--was such an oath at all representative of the peculiar manner
belonging to Demosthenes. It is always a rude and inartificial style
of criticism to cite from an author that which, whether fine or not in
itself, is no fair specimen of his ordinary style.
What then _is_ the characteristic style of Demosthenes?--It is one
which grew naturally, as did his defects (by which I mean faults of
_omission_, in contradiction to such as are positive), from the
composition of his audience. His audience, comprehending so much
ignorance, and, above all, so much high-spirited impatience, being, in
fact, always on the fret, kept the orator always on the fret. Hence
arose short sentences; hence, the impossibility of the long,
voluminous sweeps of beautiful rhythmus which we find in Cicero;
hence, the animated form of apostrophe and crowded interrogations
addressed to the audience. This gives, undoubtedly, a spirited and
animated character to the style of Demosthenes; but it robs him of a
large variety of structure applied to the logic, or the embellishment,
or the music of his composition. His style is full of life, but not
(like Cicero's) full of pomp and continuous grandeur. On the contrary,
as the necessity of rousing attention, or of sustaining it, obliged
the Attic orator to rely too much on the _personality_ of direct
question to the audience, and to use brief sentences, so also the same
impatient and fretful irritability forbade him to linger much upon an
idea--to theorise, to speculate, or, generally, to quit the direct
business path of the question then under consideration--no matter for
what purpose of beauty, dignity, instruction, or even of _ultimate_
effect. In all things, the _immediate_--the instant--the _præsens
præsentissimum_, was kept steadily before the eye of the Athenian
orator, by the mere coercion of self-interest.
And hence, by the way, arises one most important feature of
distinction between Grecian oratory (political oratory at least) on
the one hand, and Roman (to which, in this point, we may add British)
on the other. A Roman lawyer, senator, or demagogue, even, under
proper restrictions--a British member of parliament--or even a
candidate from the hustings--but, most assuredly, and by the evidence
of many a splendid example, an advocate addressing a jury--may
embellish his oration with a wide circuit of historical, or of
antiquarian, nay, even speculative discussion. Every Latin scholar
will remember the leisurely and most facetious, the good-natured and
respectful, yet keenly satiric, picture which the great Roman
barrister draws of the Stoic philosophy, by way of _rowing_ old Cato,
who professed that philosophy with too little indulgence for venial
human errors. The _judices_--that is, in effect, the jury--were
tickled to the soul by seeing the grave Marcus Cato badgered with
this fine razor-like raillery; and there can be no doubt that, by
flattering the self-respect of the jury, in presuming them susceptible
of so much wit from a liberal kind of knowledge, and by really
delighting them with such a display of adroit teasing applied to a man
of scenical gravity, this whole scene, though quite extrajudicial and
travelling out of the record, was highly useful in conciliating the
good-will of Cicero's audience. The same style of liberal _excursus_
from the more thorny path of the absolute business before the court,
has been often and memorably practised by great English
barristers--as, in the trial of Sacheverel, by many of the managers
for the Commons; by 'the fluent Murray,' on various occasions; in the
great cause of impeachment against our English Verres (or, at least,
our Verres as to the situation, though not the guilt), Mr. Hastings;
in many of Mr. Erskine's addresses to juries, where political rights
were at stake; in Sir James Mackintosh's defence of Peltier for a
libel upon Napoleon, when he went into a history of the press as
applied to politics--(a liberal inquiry, but which, except in the
remotest manner, could not possibly bear upon the mere question of
fact before the jury); and in many other splendid instances, which
have really made _our_ trials and the annals of _our_ criminal
jurisprudence one great fund of information and authority to the
historian. In the senate, I need not say how much farther, and more
frequently, this habit of large generalisation, and of liberal
excursion from perhaps a lifeless theme, has been carried by great
masters; in particular, by Edmund Burke, who carried it, in fact, to
such excess, and to a point which threatened so much to disturb the
movement of public business, that, from that cause more perhaps than
from rude insensibility to the value of his speculations, he put his
audience sometimes in motion for dinner, and acquired (as is
well-known) the surname of the Dinner Bell.[18]
[Footnote 18: Yet this story has been exaggerated; and, I believe, in
strict truth, the whole case arose out of some fretful expressions of
ill-temper on the part of Burke, and that the name was a retort from a
man of wit, who had been personally stung by a sarcasm of the offended
orator.]
Now, in the Athenian audience, all this was impossible: neither in
political nor in forensic harangues was there any license by rule, or
any indulgence by usage, or any special privilege by personal favour,
to the least effort at improving an individual case of law or politics
into general views of jurisprudence, of statesmanship, of diplomacy;
no collateral discussions were tolerated--no illustrative details--no
historical parallelisms--still less any philosophical moralisations.
The slightest show of any tendency in these directions was summarily
nipped in the bud: the Athenian gentlemen began to [Greek: thoryzein]
in good earnest if a man showed symptoms of entering upon any
discussion whatever that was not intensely needful and pertinent in
the first place--or which, in the second place, was not of a nature to
be wound up in two sentences when a summons should arise either to
dinner, or to the theatre, or to the succession of some variety
anticipated from another orator.