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GREAT ORATIONS GREAT ‘ORATIONS A COLLBUTION OF NOTABLE PORTIONS OF FAMOUS SPEECHES BY STATESMEN, JURISTS, POLITICIANS AND DIVINES “LONDON: HUTCHINSON & Co. PATERNOSTER ROW IN€RODUCTION Waar is oratory ? Tt scoms a simple question, but how few oan proctsely define ‘the term ? ‘To wply that i& ia the art of eloquant speech is not sufficient, fOr eloquence itself is 4 word thst requires elucidation, Tt iy not a fixed law oapable of absolute definition, but a quality which in its manifestations bea ehanged from age to age. Each cemury bes had its own special standard of testing public spcech, and this has differed from the standard of the preceding ‘ofiuiy or that succceding almost aa mush as the opinions of those particulay periéds dittered ‘from each vther. Wea we read (ie principal Parliamentary speeches of the EXicahethan ere—utterances which at the time they were delivered steve concidered tiodels of ofatorical skjll we wonder whercin lie the qualities which excited the ‘adbinitation. of the old-time Parliament mau, Pacon, who was neclaimed in his ‘age as the grostest of orators, is to us inexpressibly dull, owing to the extent to hich he overmeighted his apreched with slaasie imelovances. Ttis match the same with the compusttions of the greatest of his contemporaries, To us they are for,! ‘the most part almost incomprehensible jargon, in which an exaggerated pedautry is ever struggling with a whimsical hyperbolism Jor the mastery. ‘The spenkers always eppesr on stilts, waiking daintily in an academic field, and pausing fre~ quently to pick flowers on theie path, with the express object of showing, not how directly and offectively they can trevel, bat how admirably they ean compose a pretty nosegay of the brilliant thingsabaut them. Now wnd agein ia the speeches of the yroat Queen, or in the sermons of divines who made ecelosiustical bistory, we get 2 suggestion of eloquence as we understond the word. But these are mere ‘transient gleams which ouly serve to seoentaale the prevailing barrenness, IE-we take the Inter period of the Long Parliament, an era distinguished traditionally by uncommon oratory, we are lets at a loss to discover the foundationa on which est onstorival mputations were mised. ‘The apecches of that histories! epoch fare marked by s grim eamestness which we teypect, and an unflinching petsintism which we admire, In many eases we can uailerstand how in the circumstances of the day they created a sonsation. None the leis we miss that magic touch, of inspiration which we associate with the highest eloquence, Much, no doubt, is Jost to us in the reporting, much by the fact that we eaemot place ourselves, ins ‘the cirvitonment of the speakers, and breathe with the listenem the clectrie ut? mosphere in whioh the spoecked wore delivered. Still, making every aliawauve for these aad other drawbacks to a full appreciation of the qualities of the utler- aaners, itis elear to us that our ancestors! views of oratuey and oan own differ very widely. ‘Te $s not until we get into the cighteenth century, and the transccndent genius) of the Parliamentary giants of that day illume the scene, that we are on rually firm ground. That was undoubtedly the palmy age of oratory, ‘The thrill which ‘was sent through a listening Senate by the baming wotds of Chatham. is felt-by- us to-day when tre tead in cold type his glowing thetorio, Teamay even be ssi8