136 IRISH ORATORS. 



cy. He attempted to soar into the empyreal 

 heights of oratory, but how often does he mistake 

 bombast for sublimity — quaintness for energy — 

 and the erratic flights of an undisciplined imagi- 

 nation, for the most elevated effusions of the hu- 

 man mind. 



Last comes Phillips— Phillips the Orator as he 

 is called. O how I blush for my country — that 

 such a brainless biped should be followed with 

 acclamations, and covered with honors— -Phillips, 

 the prince of Dandy orators — whose " gaudy, 

 gauzy, gossamery eloquence," full of glitter, bom- 

 bast, froth, and fustian, is nauseating to good 

 taste, and a disgusting exhibition of flowery non- 

 sense. He is in eloquence what Hervey was in 

 fine writing — continually on stilts — continually 

 straining after figures — pursuing conceits — and 

 clothing puerile ideas in an embroidered phrase- 

 ology. His oratory is without essence or sub- 

 stance; it either sinks into dregs, or rises into 

 lees. He is, among real orators, what a peacock 

 is among birds — a beau among men. I do not- 

 however, mean to deny him a fertile imagination, 

 but it evaporates in frothy verbiage, and he comes 

 directly within the censure of Quinctilian — " Sunt, 

 qui neglecto rerum pondere et viribus sententia- 

 ruin, si vel inauia verba in hos modos deprava- 

 jftint, summos se judicant artifices; ideoque noa 



