An Artificial Age : Port;, the Patron ^ and the Pillory. 6i 



possible for me'to bring to a close this desultory paper without 

 asking your attention to the extraordinary change that has 

 taken place in respect of that form of mysticfication known as 

 oratory. There were great orators, we are given to understand, 

 at every period during the eighteenth century. So far as we 

 can gather, their finest outbursts were addressed chiefly to such 

 abstractions as Liberty, Truth, Justice, nymphs, and negroes. 

 The orators could never have made any progress without their 

 mountain nymphs, and the negro, as an abstract quality called 

 for some impassioned rhetoric. The negro in the concrete has 

 usually been the object of a good deal of impassioned rhetoric. 

 The orator now and again resorted to auxiliaries which in these 

 days would scarcely be called legitimate. You remember how 

 Burke, rising to a point of sublimity in one speech, took a 

 dagger out of his pocket and flung it down upon the floor of 

 Westminster Hall. That was a fine stroke of oratory. I have 

 often wondered if he sent round for that dagger the next day, 

 or if it became the perquisite of the hallkeeper. We have 

 changed all this. Where would we be if Mr. Balfour 

 were to give point to his argument in the House of Commons 

 by flinging down a golf putter at the feet of Mr. Gladstone 

 — if Mr. Gladstone were to produce from under the tails of 

 his coat his celebrated axe — if Mr. Timotheus Healy were to 

 dash a symbolic message of peace in the form of a blackthorn 

 in front of Colonel Saunderson ? It was my good fortune 

 to be present in the gallery of the House of Commons when 

 Dr. Kenealy made a speech that called for a great deal of 

 laughter. " Laugh on, laugh on," cried that orator, " I shake 

 ye off as the lion of the desert shakes the dewdrops from his 

 mane." Now, there was a sample of the genuine, warm- 

 hearted oratorical tradition of the eighteenth century, and the 

 House was convulsed for several minutes. " How about that 

 mane ? " was the question that greeted Dr. Kenealy at any 

 time he rose again. Some years afterwards I heard in the same 

 building a true nineteenth century speech that was greeted by 

 cheers and cheers, and that caused the occupants of the 



