384 EMERSON THE LECTURER. 



approval and caught another sentence from the Sibylline 

 leaves that lay before him ambushed behind a dish of 

 fruit and seen only by nearest neighbors. Every sen- 

 tence brought down the house, as I never saw one 

 brought down before, — and it is not so easy to hit Scots- 

 men with a sentiment that has no hint of native brogue 

 in it. I watched, for it was an interesting study, how 

 the quick sympathy ran flashing from face to face down 

 the long tables, like an electric spark thrilling as it went, 

 and then exploded in a thunder of plaudits. I watched 

 till tables and faces vanished, for I, too, found myself 

 caught up in the common enthusiasm, and my excited 

 fancy set me under the bema listening to him who ful- 

 mined over Greece. I can never help applying to him 

 what Ben Jonson said of Bacon : " There happened in 

 my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity in 

 his speaking. His language was nobly censorious. No 

 man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weight- 

 ily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he 

 uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of 

 his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look 

 aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he 

 spoke." Those who heard him while their natures were 

 yet plastic, and their mental nerves trembled under the 

 slightest breath of divine air, will never cease to 'feel 

 and say : — ■ 



" Was never eye did see that faoe, 



Was never ear did hear that tongue, 

 Was never mind did mind his grace, 

 That ever thought the travail long; 

 But eyes, and ears, and every thought, 

 Were with his sweet perfections caught." 



