The art of speaking well is unquestionably one of the showiest
qualifications for public life; although the drawback of unsoundness may
be as common now as when it was classically expressed: _Satis
eloquentiæ, sapientiæ parum_. Little or no attention has been bestowed
in modern times on oratory as a separate branch of study; and eloquence
has come to be more admired as one of the rare gifts of nature, than
sought after as one of the fruits of art. The diffusion of opinions and
arguments by means of the press has perhaps contributed in some degree
to the present neglect of oratory; for a speaker is mainly known to the
public through the press, and it is often more important to him to be
_read_ than to be _heard:_ the eloquence of the newspaper—that is, the
accomplishment of reporting—is the best oratory of our times; but the
following experiences may be useful.
First, of one of the greatest orators of antiquity—Demosthenes. Those
who expect to find in his style of oratory the fervid and impassioned
language of a man carried away by his feelings to the prejudice of his
judgment, will be disappointed. He is said not to have been a ready
speaker, and to have required preparation. All his orations bear the
marks of an effort to convince the understanding rather than to work on
the passions of his hearers. And this is the highest praise. Men may be
_persuaded_ by splendid imagery, well-chosen words, and appeals to their
passions; but to convince by a calm and clear address, when the speaker
has no unfair advantage of person or of manner, and calls to his aid
none of the tricks of rhetoric,—this is what Cicero calls the Oratory of
Demosthenes, the ideal model of true eloquence.[97]
Demosthenes laboured under great physical disadvantages: he was
naturally of a weak constitution, had a feeble voice, an indistinct
articulation, and a shortness of breath. To remedy these defects, he
climbed up hills with pebbles in his mouth, he declaimed on the
sea-shore, or with a sword hung so as to strike his shoulders when he
made an uncouth gesture. He is also said to have shut himself up at
times in a cave underground for study’s sake, and this for months
together.
Next, of a great master of eloquence in our own times—Charles James Fox,
whom Lord Ossory describes as “one of the most extraordinary men that
ever existed.” He was very young when his father, Henry, Lord Holland,
finished his political career; but hearing from his childhood a constant
conversation upon political subjects and the occurrences in the House of
Commons, he was, both by nature and education, formed for a statesman.
“His father delighted to cultivate his talents by argumentation and
reasoning with him upon all subjects. He took his seat in the House of
Commons before he was twenty-one, and very shortly began to show the
dawn of those prodigious talents which he has since displayed. He was
much caressed by the then Ministry, and appointed a Lord of the
Admiralty, and soon promoted to the Treasury. Lord North (which he must
ever since have repented) was inclined to turn him out upon some trivial
occasion or difference; and soon afterwards the fatal quarrel with
America commenced, Mr. Fox constantly opposing the absurd measures of
administration, and rising by degrees to be the first man the House of
Commons ever saw. His opposition continued from 1773 to 1782, when the
Administration was fairly overturned by his powers; for even the great
weight of ability, property, and influence that composed the Opposition,
could never have effected that great work, if he had not acquired the
absolute possession and influence of the House of Commons. He certainly
deserved their confidence; for his political conduct had been fair,
open, honest, and decided, against the system so fatally adopted by the
Court. He resisted every temptation to be brought over by that system,
however flattering to his ambition; for he must soon have been at the
head of every thing. But I do not know whether his abilities were not
the least extraordinary part about him. Perhaps that is saying too much;
but he was full of good nature, good temper, and facility of
disposition, disinterestedness with regard to himself, at the same time
that his mind was fraught with the most noble sentiments and ideas upon
all possible subjects. His understanding had the greatest scope I can
form an idea of, his memory the most wonderful, his judgment the most
true, his reasoning the most profound and acute, his eloquence the most
rapid and persuasive.”
Scarcely any person has ever become a great debater without long
practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that
Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Fox
himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed
when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night.
“During five whole sessions,” he used to say, “I spoke every night but
one; and I regret only that I did not speak that night too.”
The model of a debate is that given by Milton in the opening of the
second book of _Paradise Lost_.
Mr. Sharp tells of the first meetings of a society at a public school,
in which two or three evenings were consumed in debating whether the
floor should be covered with a sail-cloth or a carpet; and better
practice was gained in these unimportant discussions than in those that
soon followed,—on liberty, slavery, passive obedience, and tyrannicide.
It has been truly said, that nothing is so unlike a battle as a review.
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has well illustrated a defect even in great
orators, namely, nervousness; he says: “I doubt whether there has been
any public speaker of the highest order of eloquence who has not felt an
anxiety or apprehension, more or less actually painful, before rising to
address an audience upon any very important subject on which he has
meditated beforehand. This nervousness will, indeed, probably be
proportioned to the amount of previous preparation, even though the
necessities of reply, or the changeful temperament which characterises
public assemblies, may compel the orator to modify, alter, perhaps
wholly reject, what, in previous preparation, he had designed to say.
The fact of preparation itself had impressed him with the dignity of the
subject—with the responsibilities that devolve on an advocate from whom
much is expected, on whose individual utterance results affecting the
interests of many may depend. His imagination had been roused and
warmed, and there is no imagination where there is no sensibility. Thus
the orator had mentally surveyed, as it were, at a distance, the
loftiest height of his argument; and now, when he is about to ascend to
it, the awe of the altitude is felt.”
The late Marquis of Lansdowne one day remarked to Thomas Moore, that he
hardly ever spoke in the House of Lords without feeling the approaches
of some loss of self-possession, and found that the only way to surmount
it was to talk on at all hazards. He added, what appears highly
probable, that those _commonplaces_ which most men accustomed to public
speaking have ready cut and dry, to bring in on all occasions, were, he
thought, in general used by them as a mode of getting out of those blank
intervals, when they do not know _what_ to say next, but, in the mean
time, must say _something_.
Mr. John Scott Russell, the eminent engineer, gives the following
practical hints: “In a large room, nearly square, the best place to
speak from is near one corner, with the voice directed diagonally to the
opposite corner. In all rooms of common forms, the lowest pitch of voice
that will reach across the room will be most audible. In all such rooms,
it is better to speak along the length of the room than across it; and a
low ceiling will, _cæteris paribus_, convey the sound better than a high
one. It is better, generally, to speak from pretty near a wall or
pillar, than far away from it. It is desirable that the speaker should
speak in the key-note of the room, and evenly, but not loud.”
To be well acquainted with the subject is of prime importance. Malone
relates an amusing instance of failure in this respect in one of our
greatest orators. Lord Chatham, when Mr. Pitt, on some occasion made a
very long and able speech in the Privy Council relative to some naval
matter. Every one present was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord
Anson, who was by no means eloquent, being then at the head of the
Admiralty, and differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, got up, and
only said these words: “My Lords, Mr. Secretary is very eloquent, and
has stated his own opinion very plausibly. I am no orator; and all I
shall say is, that he knows nothing at all of what he has been talking
about.”
Mr. Flood, the Irish orator, being told that he seemed to argue with
somewhat less of his usual vigour when engaged on the wrong side of the
question, happily replied that he “could not escape from the force of
his own understanding.” This must be the origin of the shrewd
observation, that some clever persons are “educated beyond their own
understanding.”
Mr. Brougham, writing to the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay when
the latter was at Cambridge University, urged the following, with a view
to the great promise for public speaking which Macaulay then possessed,
and of which Lord Grey had spoken in terms of the highest praise. “He
takes his accounts from his son,” says Mr. Brougham; “but from all I
know, and have learnt in other quarters, I doubt not that his judgment
is well formed. Now, of course, you destine him for the Bar; and,
assuming that this, and the public objects incidental to it, are in his
views, I would fain impress upon you (and through you, upon him) a truth
or two which experience has made me aware of, and which I would have
given a great deal to have been acquainted with earlier in life from the
experience of others.
“1. The beginning of the art is to acquire a habit of _easy speaking_;
and in whatever way this can be had (which individual inclination or
accident will generally direct, and may safely be allowed to do so), it
must be had. Now, I differ from all other doctors of rhetoric in this: I
say, let him first of all learn to speak safely and fluently; as well
and as sensibly as he can, no doubt, but at any rate let him learn to
speak. This is to eloquence or good speaking what the being able to talk
in a child is to correct grammatical speech. It is the requisite
foundation, and on it you must build. Moreover, it can only be acquired
young: therefore, let it by all means, and at any sacrifice, be gotten
hold of forthwith. But in acquiring it, every sort of slovenly error
will also be acquired. It must be got by a habit of easy writing—which,
as Wyndham said, proved hard reading; by a custom of talking much in
company; by debating in speaking societies, with little attention to
rule, and more love of saying something at any rate, than of saying any
thing well. I can even suppose that more attention is paid to the matter
in such discussions than to the manner of saying it; yet still to say it
easily, _ad libitum_, to say what you choose, and what you have to say,
this is the first requisite; to acquire which every thing else must for
the present be sacrificed.
“2. The next step is the grand one: to convert this style of easy
speaking into chaste eloquence. And here there is but one rule. I do
earnestly entreat your son to set daily and nightly before him the Greek
models. First of all, he may look to the best modern speeches (as
probably he has already); but he must by no means stop here; if he would
be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be
familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes. I take for
granted that he knows those of Cicero by heart; they are very beautiful,
but not very useful, except, perhaps, the _Milo, pro Ligario_, and one
or two more: but the Greek must positively be the model; and merely
reading it, as boys do, won’t do at all; he must enter into the spirit
of each speech, thoroughly know the positions of the parties, follow
each turn of the argument, and make the absolutely perfect and most
chaste and severe composition familiar in his mind. His taste will
improve every time he reads and repeats to himself (for he should have
the fine passages by heart); and he will learn how much may be done by
the skilful use of a few words, and a vigorous rejection of all
superfluities. In this view I hold a familiar knowledge of Dante as
being next to Demosthenes. It is in vain to say that imitation of these
models won’t do for our times. First, I do not counsel any imitation,
but only an imbibing of the same spirit. Secondly, I know from
experience that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though
they be) as what had been formed on the Greek models. I use a very poor
instance in giving my own experience; but I do assure you, that both in
courts of law and Parliament, and even in mobs, I have never made so
much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating
from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen in
the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four
weeks, and I composed it over twenty times at least; and it certainly
succeeded in a very extraordinary degree, and far above any merits of
its own. This leads me to remark, that though speaking with writing
beforehand is very well until the habit of any speech is acquired, yet,
after that, he can never write too much: this is quite clear. It is
laborious, no doubt, and it is more difficult beyond comparison than
speaking offhand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any
rate it is necessary to acquire the habit of correct diction. But I go
further, and say, even to the end of a man’s life, he must prepare word
for word most of his fine passages. Now, would he be a great orator or
no? In other words, would he have almost absolute power of doing good to
mankind in a free country or no? So he wills this, he must follow these
rules.—Believe me truly yours,