risen higher. It is a field where there is much honour yet to be reaped; it is an instrument which may be employed for purposes of the highest importance. The ancient models. may still, with much advantage, be set before us for imitation, though in that imitation we must, doubtless, have some regard to what modern taste and modern manners will bear, of which I shall afterwards have occasion to say more. Lawyers, eloquent, fearless, and honest, have always been among the first to resist the encroachments of tyranny, and promote the welfare of the human race.

History proves the truth of this assertion.

Demosthenes, who roused the Athenians to arms against the tyrannical Philip, was a lawyer; Cicero, who did such valiant service for the cause of freedom, and whose eloquent orations still nerve the patriot's arm and fire his heart, was a lawyer. When Charles I. endeavoured to establish an absolute monarchy in England, he was first opposed by lawyers. France has been regenerated by lawyers, and at the present moment her greatest statesmen are lawyers.

When Great Britain endeavoured to deprive the Colonies of their rights, they were aroused to conquest by the voices of Otis, Henry, Adams, and other lawyers, and the beacon lights of patriotism and law are kept burning by lawyers at the present moment in England and America, and it is to be hoped that they will be perpetually kindled by them until time is merged into eternity.

TH

CHAPTER IV.

ORATORY IN ENGLAND.

HE conduct of advocates in England has been subjected to very little legislative interference. A statute, however, which is still in force, was passed in 1275, in the reign of Edward I., whereby it was provided, "That if any sergeant, countor, or others, do any manner of deceit or collusion in the king's court, or consent unto it, in deceit of the court, or to beguile the court, or the party, and thereof be attainted, he shall be imprisoned for a year and a day, and from thenceforth shall not be heard to plead in that court for any man; and if he be no countor, he shall be imprisoned in like manner by the space of a year and a day at least; and if the trespass shall require greater punishment it shall be at the king's pleasure.'

In the Mirroir des Justices, one of the most ancient English law books extant, it is laid down that every pleader (or countor as he is called) on behalf of others ought to have regard to four things: First, that he be a person receivable in judgment; that he be no heretic, excommunicate person, nor criminal, nor a man of religion, nor a woman, nor a beneficed clerk with cure of souls, nor under the age of twentyone years, nor judge in the same cause, nor attainted of falsity against the right of his office. Secondly, every pleader is to be charged by oath that he will not maintain nor defend what is wrong or false to his knowledge, but will fight (guerra) for his client to the utmost of his ability. Thirdly, he is to put in before the court no false delays (dilatory pleas), nor false evidence, nor move nor offer any

corruptions, deceits, or tricks, or false lies, nor consent to any such, but truly maintain the right of his client, so that it fail not through any folly, negligence, or default in him. Fourthly, in respect to his salary four things are to be considered the value of the cause; the pains of the sergeant ; the worth of the pleader in point of knowledge, eloquence, and gifts; the usage of the court. And a pleader is to be suspended if he be attainted of having received fees from both sides in the same cause, and if he say or do anything in contempt of the court."

In England, forensic eloquence was almost unknown until the latter part of the eighteenth century. Finch, afterwards Lord Nottingham, was called in his day the " English Cicero," and the English Roscius, but the speeches of his which have come down to us do not justify these epithets. The State Trials, that voluminous and interesting repository of cases, may be searched in vain for the higher efforts of forensic oratory. Immense learning, and research, a remarkable familiarity with precedents, and sound and logical arguments are found, however.

Eloquence has always been comparatively rare among the advocates of England, but there are causes to account for this. One reason is the technicality which formerly pervaded every branch of English law. Special pleading seems to have the effect of cramping and confining the intellect.

Owing to its enormous and unwieldy mass, the English law is unfavourable to the cultivation of oratory. tends to suffocate the fire of genius, and deadens the imagination which shrinks back in affright from the aspect of the thousand volumes in which are enshrined the mysteries of our jurisprudence." It is said that in six hundred volumes. of law reports there are not less than two hundred and forty thousand points. The immense number of law books, it must be remembered, continues yearly to increase both in England and in this country. Each session of parliament, there, or of the legislature here, gives birth to a bulky volume of statutes to swell the numerous progeny of legislation. The increase of law reports is also alarming.

The effect of this system of laws, then, upon eloquence must be very great.

In ancient times, during the flourishing periods of Greek and Roman eloquence, the laws were few in number and simple in phraseology, and the judges were vested with a large discretion, and were governed to a large extent by equity and common sense. The study of the laws was not such a laborious occupation, requiring the drudgery of years to finish it. The statesmen and generals of Rome were nearly all lawyers, and Cicero, amongst the multiplicity of his engagements, declared that he would undertake in a few days. to make himself a complete civilian. And of course when an advocate addresses himself to the equity of the judges he has greater room for the display of eloquence, than where he must draw his arguments from strict laws. In the former case many personal considerations may be regarded, and even favour and inclination, which it belongs to the advocate to conciliate by his eloquence, may be disguised under the appearance of equity.

The chief reason, however, of the absence of eloquence is a neglect of the means necessary to acquire the habit of graceful and fluent elocution. It is strange that so little pains should be taken by advocates to qualify themselves for success in speaking. They seem to believe that eloquence must spring into being like Minerva from the head of Jove, instantaneously, in full and perfect panoply, and that it requires no discipline and study in advance. Or else they dread the infinite labor which they must undergo, in order to perfect themselves in the art of speaking.

If the poet, the musician, the sculptor, and the artist all devote themselves with untiring assiduity to a study of the principles of their art, why should the advocate imagine that he is exempt from the necessity of toil?

In studying the history of modern parliamentary eloquence there is little to interest us until we come to the time of Lord Chatham, if we except the traditionary accounts of the wonderful oratorical ability of Lord Bolingbroke. Of course we find some sudden bursts of genuine eloquence

in the speeches of Pym, Eliot, Vane, and other statesmen of the English Commonwealth under Cromwell, yet we hear not the highest notes until Chatham arises and sways the British senate by the spell of his magnificent oratory. The author will now proceed to contemplate some of the most celebrated orators and statesmen, beginning with Lord Bolingbroke.

Bolingbroke.-Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, was born in October, 1678, at Battersea in Surrey, at a seat that had been in the possession of his ancestors for ages before. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and there laid the foundation of his classical education which he afterward completed. He was more extensively acquainted with Latin than Greek literature.

St. John's handsome person, and a face in which dignity was happily blended with sweetness, his commanding presence, his fascinating address, his vivacity, his wit, his extraordinary memory, his subtlety in thinking and reasoning, and oratorical powers of the very highest order, contributed to his phenomenal success as a parliamentary orator.

Very few fragments of his speeches have come down to us, but from criticisms of those who heard him speak, and from his published writings, they must have been brilliant, sarcastic, and extremely effective, and Lord Chatham said. that the loss of his speeches was to be more greatly deplored than the lost books of Livy.

His application to business was prodigious, and he would sometimes plod for whole days and nights in succession, like the lowest clerk in an office.

Bolingbroke died on the 12th day of December, 1751.

The following testimony of Lord Brougham to his oratorical powers is convincing:

"Few men, whose public life was so short, have filled a greater space in the eyes of the world during his own times than Lord Bolingbroke, or left behind them a more brilliant reputation. Not more than fifteen years elapsed between his first coming into parliament and his attainder; during not more than ten of these years was he brought before the public in the course of its proceedings; and yet, as a states