ORATOR T. 
clans as their matters in ever)’ part of learning. To this 
purpofe Horace fpeaks of them in his Epilt. ad Aug. 
When conquer’d Greece brought in her captive arts, 
She triumph'd o’er her favage conquerors’ hearts; 
Taught our rough verfe its numbers to refine, 
And our rude dyle with elegance to fhine. Francis. 
As the Roman government, during the republic, was 
of the popular kind, public fpeaking became at an early 
period an engine of government, and was employed for 
gaining diflindtion and power. But, in the rude unpo- 
lifned times of the date, their fpeaking could hardly be 
deemed eloquence. It was not till a fliort time preceding 
the age of Cicero, that the Roman orators rofe into any 
note. CrafTus and Antonius, to whom we may add Hor- 
tenfius, appear to hltve been the mod eminent. Cicero 
has defcribed the character of their eloquence. Cicero 
himfelf is at this period the objedt mod worthy of our 
attention; and his name alone fuggefts every thing that 
is fplendid in oratory. 
The reign of eloquence among the Romans, was very 
fliort. After the age of Cicero, it not only long lan- 
guifhed,but expired: nor need we wonder that thisfhould 
be the cafe. For, not only was liberty entirely extin- 
guifned, but arbitrary power was felt in its heavied and 
mod opprefiive weight; Providence having in its wrath 
delivered over the Roman empire to a l’ucceflion of Come 
of the mod execrable tyrants that ever difgraced and 
fcourged the human race. The change which was pro¬ 
duced in eloquence by the nature of the government and 
the date of the public manners, is beautifully defcribed 
in the dialogue “De Caiifis corruptte Eloquentise,” at¬ 
tributed by fome to Tacitus, by others to Quintilian. In 
the fchools of the declaimers, the corruption of eloquence 
was completed. Thus, with the Greek rhetoricians, the 
manly and fenfible eloquence of their fil'd noted fpeakers 
degenerated into fubtilty and fophidry ; and, among the 
Roman declaimers, itpaffed into the quaint and aftedled, 
into point and antithefis. This corrupt manner begins to 
appear in the writings of Seneca ; and fhows itfelf alfo in 
the famous panegyric of Pliny the Younger on Trajan, 
which may be confidered as the lad effort of Roman ora¬ 
tory. 
In the decline of the Roman empire, the introdudlion 
of Chridianity gave rife to a new lpecies of eloquence, 
in the apologies, fermons, and padoral writings, of the 
fathers of the church. Among the Latin fathers, Lac- 
tantius and Minutius Felix are the mod remarkable for 
purity of dyle; and, in a later age, the famous St. Au- 
gudine pofleffes a confiderable fhare of fprightlinefs and 
drength. But none of the fathers afford any jud models 
of eloquence. Among the Greek fathers, the mod dif- 
tinguilhed, in a high degree, for his oratorical merit, is St. 
Chryfodom. 
In modern times, and even in Great Britain, we are 
unqueftionably inferior, in a variety of refpedts, to the 
Greeks and Romans. They afpired to a more l'ublime 
fpecies of eloquence than the moderns. Theirs was of 
the vehement and paflionate kind ; that of the moderns 
is much more cool and temperate ; and, in our country 
efpecially, it has confined itlelfalmod wholly to the argu¬ 
mentative and rational. Indeed, the mod driking differ¬ 
ence in the literary purfuits of modern times, compared 
withthofeof antiquity, appears in the fuperior attention 
formerly paid to the principles and practice of eloquence. 
It is well known, that the Greeks and Romans regarded 
this art as the nobled of intellectual acquirements; in 
the education of their youth, itcondiluted the principal 
objedt of attention ; and abdradt fcience was cultivated 
not more for its immediate value, than for the fake of 
the .materials which it might contribute to the exercife 
of their perfuafive powers. In modern academies, on 
the contrary, (if we except a weekly theme or a few' La¬ 
tin verfes, occadonal repetition of Latin and Greek poe¬ 
try, or now and then of pallages feledted from the coni- 
3 
C87 
pofitions of their own countrymen; and, in a few of them, 
an exhibition fomew'hat public once or twice in a year,) 
it were fcarcely too much to affert, that the dudy of ora¬ 
tory has long fince been totally negledted. Toenlargeon 
the confequences of this negledt, would be foreign to our 
immediate purpofe ; but, independently of its importance 
on public occafions, we mud all be aw-are that eloquence 
was, and dill might be, the brighted ornament of private 
converfation and focial intercourfe, the mod irrefidible 
recommendation and the firmed lupport of religion and 
philofophy. 
It is laid, however, that ouf youth have much more to 
learn than was ever contemplated by the ancients. We 
readily admit that learning has widely extended its do¬ 
minion : but is it not alfo beyond companion more accef- 
fible ? and of how little efficacy is all the knowledge 
which we poffefs, if we have not the talent of difplaying 
it to advantage? Let it be objected, that there have ex- 
ided in modern times, and do exid in the prefent age, 
orators capable of rivalling a Cicero or a Demodhenes : 
grant that it is fo ; fuch men are what they are, in fpite of 
the modern fydem of education, not in confequence of 
it; or rather, they have formed themfelves on the ancient 
fydem, in contempt and defiance of modern prejudice. 
In no date of fociety, perhaps, has eloquence obtained 
a more powerful and permanent influence over the minds 
of men than it now pofleffes in our own country, yet, as 
we have hinted, never could it be indebted for its effedt 
to fewer external advantages. In fadt, if fome dern and 
rude Lycurgus, in legiflating for our Saxon ancedors, 
had refolved to preferve the people from the dangerous 
fedudtions which belong to this accomplilhment, he could 
not have taken more effedlual means to guard againd 
the.ni, than by conffrudting the theatres of rhetorical ex¬ 
hibitions precifely In their adtual dyle. On vifiting the 
venerable pile which embraces within its precindts nearly 
all the important public functions of our commonwealth, 
the feat of legiflative authority, the arena of political con¬ 
tention, the abode of juflice in all her awful majedy and 
under all her diverfified forms, how mud a foreigner be 
adonifhed to obferve, while he counts his founding paces 
through the deferted hall of Rufus, that the interefls of 
nations and the rights of individuals are difcuffed in anti¬ 
chambers and clofets! When he has with difficulty ef- 
fedted his paflage through the dark and winding ways 
which condudt him to the Houfe of Commons, and has 
gazed at the obfcure corner to which our fenators retire 
to adjud the affairs of Europe, he will inquire for the 
leading orator of this didinguilhed affembly ; and will dif- 
cover him, with wonder, in the lead confpicuous part of 
the building, and fpeaking as from the bottom of a well. 
In all our courts of judice, metropolitan as well as pro¬ 
vincial, the advocate occupies a fimilar fituation ; as if 
the tendency of the voice to afcend had been alone con¬ 
fidered, and the various advantages of a commanding 
pofition were entirely overlooked. We might be tempted 
to fuppofe that the elevated rodrum, from which our 
clergy addrefs their congregations, was more favourable 
to an impreffive mode of enunciation, were we not fen¬ 
fible of feveral inconvenient adjundts ; viz. that the 
preacher is inclofed nearly as high as his bread, and bol- 
dered up with cufhions in a narrow pulpit, from which 
he generally reads his difcourfe with his face almod 
clofe to his book, wh.ilft little more than his head and 
flioulders can be feen ; a fituation which is equally de- 
drudtive to the graces and the energies of delivery. 
Even at our popular eledtions, where every facility 
fliould be afforded for addreffing the colledied multitude, 
and where the candidates fliould eredt their huflings in 
the manner mod conducive to this purpofe, the form of 
the patriot is lod among a bufy throng of poll-clerks 
and parifli-officers; and his voice is completely drown¬ 
ed by the murmurs of a crowd, from which there 
is nothing to dilcriminate his fituation. One mo¬ 
ment’s refledtion on the driking difference between the 
eminences 
