The Fasces of the Main;-to other hands (Not unremindful of his last behest

And patriot exhortation) now resign'd.

240

Mourn-Mersey mourn! with every tradeful stream That to the Ocean Albion's tribute pours,

Join the long Dirge; and, midst your Triumphs, mourn. He who o'er every Ocean Victor rode,—

Victim himself,-thy Nelson is no more!

246

ORATION,

ON THE

INFLUENCE

OF

Animated Elocution

IN AWAKENING

MARTIAL ENTHUSIASM:

WITH THE

EULOGIES

OF

Epaminondas and Alfred,

AND AN

APOSTROPHE

TO THE

HEROIC SHADE

OF

NELSON.

ORATION,

bc.

ON the subject of the present disquisition, it could scarcely have been necessary to address an ancient audience. The most venerated nations of antiquity, were sufficiently impressed with the importance of Elocutionary Accomplishment, and its influence upon every thing that is connected with the Intellect, the Glory and the Power of States. Every part of their history, every record of their habits, their customs and their institutions, evinces their attention to the cultivation of this Science.

Among the Grecian States, every thing may be said to have been Elocutionary. Poems and Histories were written-not only that they might become the amusements of the studious and retired, but that the strains of instruct ion, of sentiment and pathos, might

be conveyed, in their proper tones, to congregated auditors; and the rich melody of a finely cultivated rythmus, might be rendered obvious to the popular ear. The speculations of the Philosopher, and the sublime institutions of the Moralist, were not consecrated to the silent gaze of the unsocialized recluse ; but were poured, in strains of vital eloquence, from the bosom of the Tutor, amidst a throng of emulous Pupils,- -as they flocked around him, in the Porch, or in the Grove, and imbibed, at once, his wisdom and his animation.-Even Laws themselves, were promulgated, and the obligations of social concord, and the sacred zeal of patriotism, disseminated-by the assistance of the Elocutionist :-who, partly from necessity, and partly from a conviction of the animating influence of oral instruction, became the organ of all communication between the enlightened and the uninformed. We hear, with astonishment, in these days of drawling and monotonous inanity,—that the congregated nations of Greece, at their very highest festivals, even amidst the emulous sports and pageantries of the Olympic Games, could listen, all ear, to the recitation of the entire Works of Homer and of Hesiod; to the long poem of Empedocles, on the doctrines of Pythagoras; and even to the elaborate