DOING JUSTICE TO THE CONSONANTS. 



123 



which ranged over all nature for 

 illustrations, and yet managed and 

 applied each of them with the same 

 unerring dexterity, as if that single 

 one had been the study of a whole 

 life. a The tartan beats us," said 

 Mr. Canning ; "we have no preach- 

 ing like that in England. " " Can- 

 ning," says Sir James Mackintosh, 

 " told me that he was entirely con- 

 verted to admiration of Chalmers." 

 Wilberforce noted in his diary, that 

 Canning was affected to tears. 



PITT, FOX, AND SHERIDAN. 



Pitt and Fox were listened to 

 with profound respect, and in silence 

 broken only by occasional cheers ; 

 but from the moment of Sheridan's 

 rising, there was an expectation of 

 pleasure, which, to his last days, 

 was seldom disappointed. A low 

 murmur of eagerness ran round the 

 house ; every word was watched for, 

 and his pleasantry set the whole as- 

 semblage in a roar. Sheridan was 

 aware of this, and has been heard 

 to say, that if a jester would never 

 be an orator, yet no speaker could 

 expect to be popular in a full house, 

 without a jest ; and that he always 

 made the experiment, good or bad ; 

 as a laugh gave him the country 

 gentlemen to a man. 



PREACHERS AND ACTORS. 



" Pray, Mr. Betterton, " asked 

 the good Archbishop Sancroft, of 

 the celebrated actor, " can you in- 

 form me what is the reason you 

 actors on the stage, speaking of 

 things imaginary, affect your audi- 

 ence as if they were real, while we 

 in the church speak of things real, 

 which our congregations receive 

 only as if they were imaginary ? " 

 u Why, really, my Lord," answered 

 Betterton, " I don't know, unless 

 we actors speak of things imaginary 

 as if they were real, while you in 

 the pulpit speak of things real as if 

 they were imaginary." 



CANNING AND GRATTAN. 



Canning said of Grattan's elo- 

 quence, that, for the last two years, 

 his public exhibitions were a com- 

 plete failure, and that you saw all 

 the mechanism of his oratory with- 

 out its life. It was like lifting the 

 flap of a barrel-organ, and seeing the 

 wheels ; you saw the skeleton of his 

 sentences without the flesh on them ; 

 and were induced to think that 

 what you had considered flashes, 

 were merely primings kept ready 

 for the occasion. (Moore.) 



READING. 



The late Isaac Hawkins Brown 

 declared, that he never felt the 

 charms of Milton until he heard 

 his exordium read by Sheridan. 



Virgil pronounced his own verses 

 with such an enticing sweetness and 

 enchanting grace, that Julius Mon- 

 tanus, a poet who had often heard 

 him, used to say that he could steal 

 Virgil's verses, if he could steal his 

 voice, expression, and gesture ; for 

 the same verses, that sounded so 

 rapturously when he read them, 

 were not always excellent in the 

 mouth of another. 



DOING JUSTICE TO THE CONSONANTS. 



Mr. Jones, in his life of Bishop 

 Home, speaking of Dr. Hinchclifie, 

 Bishop of Peterborough, says, that 

 in the pulpit he spoke with the 

 accent of a man of sense, such as 

 he really was in a superior degree ; 

 but it was remarkable, and, to those 

 who did not know the cause, myste- 

 rious, that there was not a corner of 

 the church in which he could not be 

 heard distinctly. The reason which 

 Mr. Jones assigned was, that he 

 made it an invariable rule to do 

 justice to every con-sonant, knowing 

 that the vowels would speak for them- 

 selves. And thus he became the 

 surest and clearest of speakers ; his 

 elocution was perfect, and never 

 disappointed his audience. 



