- το πνευμα

We have said that the character of Demosthenes might be divined from his eloquence; and so the character of his eloquence was a mere emanation of his own. It was the life and soul of the man, the patriot, the statesman. "Its highest attribute of all," says Dionysius, "is the spirit of life -that pervades it." His very language dictates to a reader how it is to be uttered, and I should think it impossible (it is the same critic who speaks) that one with the sense of a brute, nay, of a stock or a stone, could pronounce his text without distinguishing the various meaning, and kindling with the changing passions of the master. This is the first and great characteristic of Demosthenes, the orator. You see absolutely nothing of the artist: nay, you forget the speaker altogether: it is the statesman, or the man only, that is before you. To him, eloquence, wonderful as his was considered as mere rhetoric, is but an instrument, not, as in Cicero, a thing to boast of and display. This feature of his character has been well seized and portrayed by the author of a declamatory encomium on Demosthenes, ascribed to Lucian and printed among his works. Gesner and Becker after him will not consent to give it up; all we can say is, that if it is the work of the Voltaire of antiquity, Lucian was not Lucian when he wrote it. But, though too high-flown and exaggerated for its supposed author, it is a striking instance of the admiration in which the great orator was held by the Greeks in all ages. It is from him we borrow the phrase "the Homer of Prose," which describes so well the admitted perfections of Demosthenes as a writer. But it is not his style only that is extolled there. He admires his life, his administration, his truly touching and sublime death. He puts into the mouth of Antipater a supposed conversation in reference to this last event, in which he does justice to his great adversary in a magnanimous spirit, and regrets that he chose rather to die free and by his own hand, than survive a courtier for the favor, or a dependent upon the mercy of the conqueror. It consecrates for ever that tragical scene at Calauria, and leaves the image of the mighty orator upon the mind with the greatest pictures of fiction or history-with Edipus at Colonus, or Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage. We cannot join with the author in his blasphemy against heaven for the trials to which the greatest men have almost always been subjected, and none more than Demosthenes. We know that sorrow is knowledge; that if in much wisdom

there is much grief, the reverse is also true; and that adversity is the only school in which genius and virtue are permitted to take their highest degrees.

The second remarkable feature of the eloquence of Demosthenes is a consequence of the first: its amazing flexibility and variety. As he thinks only of the subject, so he always speaks like his subject. We have endeavored to illustrate this through the whole course of this paper. We wanted to eradicate the false and pernicious idea that Demosthenian is synonymous with ranting. At times, no doubt, on extraordinary and exciting occasions, he forgot himself in a transport of passion, and raged on the Bema, as Plutarch has it, like a Bacchante. But we will venture to affirm, that when he did so, his audience was as little conscious of it as himself, partaking fully with him in the phrenzy of the moment. In general, he aims at nothing but the true and the natural. Hence, every thing is perfectly appropriate and fitting, and, in the almost infinite range of his speaking, from a special plea in bar or in abatement, (napaygaon,) to the sublime and ravishing enthusiasm of the immortal defence of the Crown, every thing is every where just what it ought to be—"proper words in proper places." It is he that exemplifies Cicero's definition-1s enim est eloquens, qui et humilia subtiliter, et magna graviter, et mediocria temperate potest dicere. And accordingly, he remarks farther, that he is fully equal to Lysias, to Hyperides, and to Æschines, in their respective excellences, while he adds to them, whenever occasion calls for them, his own unapproachable sublimity and power. Dionysius of Halicarnassus goes still farther. In a work written expressly to unfold the perfections of the diction of Demosthenes, (for he promised another and separate one upon his other excellences,) he shows, by a critical comparison of passages from the works of the orator with the most celebrated productions of other pens, that he was the greatest master of every style. He prefers him, for instance, to Plato, even in that kind of writing, in which the philosopher is considered as a model.

The third distinguishing peculiarity of Demosthenes as an orator is, that his greatest beauties consist not in words or tropes and figures of rhetoric, similes, metaphors, etc., which he seldom condescends to use, but in thought, and sentiment, and passion. The forms he delights in most are all adapted

* Orat. c. 29, cf. 31.

to express these-to show the orator to be truly in earnest, and to enforce his opinions as matters of deep conviction with himself, and deserving to be so with his hearers. His grandest amplifications are only vehement reasonings. Hence, too, his occasional abruptness, and suddenness of transition and startling appeal, interrogatory and apostrophe-all the perfection of art because the dictate of nature, which Blair most absurdly censures as defects, as if the master of all style fell into such things because he could not help it. Cicero develops this topic at some length, and with his usual power of language, in one of his rhetorical works. He represents his perfect orator, who is only an imaginary Demosthenes, as presenting the same topic often in various lights, and dwelling upon it more or less according to circumstances. as extenuating some things and turning others into ridicule — as occasionally deviating from his subject and propounding what he shall presently have to say, and when he has fully discussed any matter, reducing it into the shape of a rule or definition-as correcting himself, or repeating what he had said

as pressing by interrogation and answering his own questions as wishing to be taken in a sense the opposite of what he seems to say-as doubting what or how he should speak -as dividing into parts, omitting and neglecting some points and fortifying others in advance-as casting the blame upon his adversary of the very things for which he is himself censured as often deliberating with those who hear him, sometimes even with his adversary-as describing the manners and language of men-as making mute things speak [that is rare in Demosthenes]-as drawing off the minds of the audience from the true question before them-as anticipating objections which he foresees will be made-as comparing analogous cases-as citing examples - as putting down interruptions as pretending to suppress or reserve something, or to say less than he knows-as warning those he addresses to be on their guard as venturing at times on some bold proposition as being angry, and even so far as to chide and rail as deprecating, supplicating, conciliating-as uttering wishes or execrations, and using sometimes a certain familiarity with his hearers. He will, he continues, aim, at other times, at other virtues of style as brevity, if the occasion call for it. He will bring the object often before their very

* Orator, cc. 39, 40. Every reader of Demosthenes is familiar with such sentences as ουδε γρύ-πολλου γε και δει, etc., thrown so naturally in the midst of the most splendid passages.

eyes, etc. etc. It is, indeed, in such ornaments of speech as these that the grand excellence of Demosthenes consists -it is by these that it becomes a thing of life, and power, and persuasion -a means of business-a motive of action -but there is never the least prettiness or rhetoric-nothing fine, or showy, or theatrical-nothing, in short, that can be spared, nothing that can be lopped off without mutilating and weakening the body as well as deforming it.

And this leads us to consider a fourth characteristic of his eloquence its condensation and perfect logical unity. It is not easy, perhaps, without extending these remarks farther than would be proper here, to make ourselves quite intelligible upon this subject to the general reader. But every one that has studied Greek literature and art will at once perceive that we refer to that unity of design, that closeness of texture and mutual dependence of the parts-that harmony of composition and exact fitness and proportion-in short, that avaren dozorain, as Plato expresses it, which makes of every production of genius, a sort of organized body, with nothing superfluous, nothing defective in it, but every thing necessary to constitute a complete whole, answering perfectly the ends of its being, whatever those may be. What Cicero says of the Stoical philosophyt may be applied to the orations of Demosthenes. What is there in the works of nature where such a perfect arrangement and symmetry prevails, or in those of man, so well put together, so compact, so intimately united? What consequent does not agree with its antecedent? What follows that does not answer to that which goes before? What is there that is not so knit together with the rest, that if a single letter be removed the whole structure would totter? But, in truth, nothing can be removed, etc. We differ, therefore, entirely, with Lord Brougham, when, in one of the passages cited above, he speaks of this marvellous unity and condensation as a thing as much within the reach of mediocrity as of genius. It is, on the contrary, the perfection of Greek art, and the orations of Demosthenes are in this, as in every other respect, the most exquisite model

of it.

Another excellence, that has been mentioned repeatedly in the course of the preceding remarks, remains to be particularly noticed. Not only do the orations of Demosthenes re

*Plato Phædr. p. 264. c. NO. XVII. VOL. IX.

9

+ De Finib. iii. 22.

semble the great works of nature in this, that their beauty and sublimity are inseparable from utility, or more properly speaking, that utility is the cardinal principle of all their beauties, but there is still another analogy between them. It is, that the grandeur of the whole result is not more remarkable than the claborate and exquisite finish of the most minute details. Dionysius, in the essay so often referred to, aims to show that the orator was by far the greatest master of composition the world had ever seen. This critic may be relied on for such a purpose. His fault is, that he exacts in all things rather a pedantic precision and accuracy. In short, he is hypercritical, and is too little disposed to make allowance for small blemishes, even when they are redeemed by high virtues, or to approve and relish the non ingrata negligentia-the careless graces of genius. But, in Demosthenes, whose eloquence makes him perfectly ecstatical in its praise, he searches in vain for a spot, however minute. He takes his examples at random, and finds every thing perfect every where. Certainly, in the critical comparisons which he institutes between him and Plato and Isocrates, it is impossible not to admit the soundness of his judgments. This prodigious perfection of style he affirms to have been a creation of the orator's. He had studied, he thinks, all the masters who had gone before him, and selecting from each what he excelled in, made up a composition far superior to any of its ingredients. Thucydides gave him his force and pregnancy, Lysias, his clearness, ease, and nature, Isocrates, his occasional splendor and brilliancy, and Plato, his majesty, elevation, and abundance. That Demosthenes studied, and studied profoundly, all these models, we have no doubt. Of Thucydides, especially, the tradition represents him to have been a devoted admirer. But eclecticism, imitation, was out of the question with him. Undoubtedly he was indebted to them for having done so much to perfect the instrument he was to use the Greek language; and their beauties and defects were hints to him in the training of his own mighty and original genius. But that is all: had they never written, his works would not, probably, have been so unblemished in the execution, but they would infallibly have formed an era in literature, and displayed very much the same excellences that now distinguish them.

-

The instrument, of which we have just spoken, must not be lost sight of in appreciating the Greek masters, and espe