$69. DEMOSTHENES contrasted with ESCHINES.

Demosthenes appears to great advantage, when contrasted with Æschines, in the celebrated oration" Pro Corona." Eschines was his rival in business, and personal enemy; and one of the most distinguished orators of that age. But when we read the two orations, Eschines is feeble in comparison of Demosthenes, and makes much less impression on the mind. His reasonings concerning the law that was in question, are indeed very subtile; but his invective against Demosthenes is general, and ill-supported. Whereas, Demosthenes is a torrent, that nothing can resist. He bears down his antagonist with violence; he draws his character in the strongest colours; and the particular merit of that oration is, that all the descriptions in it are highly picturesque. There runs through it a strain of magnanimity and high honour the orator speaks with that strength and conscious dignity which great actions and public spirit alone inspire. Both orators use great liberties with one another; and, in general, that unrestrained license which ancient manners permitted, even to the length of abusive names and downright scurrility, as appears both here and in Cicero's Philippics, hurts and offends a modern ear. What those ancient orators gained by such a manner in point of freedom and boldness, is more than compensated by want of dignity: which seems to give an advantage, in this respect, to the greater decency of modern speaking.

Blair.

$70. On the Style of DEMOSTHENES. The Style of Demosthenes is strong and concise, though sometimes, it must not be dissembled, harsh and abrupt. His words are very expressive; his arrangement is firm and manly; and though far from being unmusical, yet it seems difficult to find in him that studied, but concealed number, and rhythmus, which some of the ancient critics are fond of attributing to him. Negligent of those lesser graces, one would rather conceive him to have aimed at that sublime which lies in sentiment. tions and pronunciation are recorded to have been uncommonly vehement and ardent; which, from the manner of his composition, we are naturally ied to believe. The character which one forms of him, from reading his works, is of the

His ac

austere, rather than the gentle kind. He
is, on every occasion, grave, serious, pas-
sionate; takes every thing on a high tone;
never lets himself down, nor attempts any
thing like pleasantry. If any fault can be
found in his admirable eloquence, it is, that
he sometimes borders on the hard and dry.
He may be thought to want smoothness
and grace; which Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus attributes to his imitating too close-
ly the manner of Thucydides, who was
his great model for Style, and whose his-
tory he is said to have written eight times
over with his own hand. But these defects
are far more than compensated, by that
admirable and masterly force of masculine
eloquence, which, as it overpowered all-
who heard it, cannot, at this day, be read
without emotion.

After the days of Demosthenes, Greece
lost her liberty, eloquence of course lan-
guished, and relapsed again into the feeble
manner introduced by the Rhetoricians and
Sophists. Demetrius Phalereus, who lived
in the next age to Demosthenes, attained
indeed some character, but he is repre-
sented to us as a flowery, rather than a per-
suasive speaker, who aimed at grace ra-
"Delectabat Athe-
ther than substance.
"nienses,' says Cicero," magis quam
"inflammabat." "He amused the Athe-
"nians, rather than warmed them." And
after this time, we hear of no more Gre-
Ibid.
cian orators of note.
any

71. On CICERO.

The object in this period most worthy to draw our attention, is Cicero himself; whose name alone suggests every thing that is splendid in oratory. With the history of his life, and with his character, as a man and a politician, we have not at We consider present any direct concern. him only as an eloquent speaker; and, in this view, it is our business to remark both his virtues, and his defects, if he has any. His virtues are, beyond controversy, eminently great. In all his orations there is high art. He begins generally, with a regular exordium; and with much preparation and insinuation prepossesses the hearers, and studies to gain their affections. His method is clear, and his arguments are arranged with great propriety. His method is indeed more clear than that of Demosthenes; and this is one advantage which he has over him. We find every thing in its proper place; he never attempts to move till he has endeavoured to convince;

and

and in moving, especially the softer pas- straints from the side of decorum; but, sions, he is very successful. No man, that even after these allowances made, Cicero's ever wrote, knew the power and force of ostentation of himself cannot be wholly words better than Cicero. He rolls them palliated; and his orations, indeed all his along with the greatest beauty and pomp; works, leave on our minds the impression and in the structure of his sentences, is of a good man, but withal, of a vain man. curious and exact to the highest degree. He is always full and flowing, never abrupt. He is a great amplifier of every subject; magnificent, and in his sentiments highly moral. His manner is on the whole diffuse, yet it is often happily varied, and suited to the subject. In his four orations, for instance, against Catiline, the tone and style of each of them, particularly the first and last, is very different, and accommodated with a great deal of judgment to the occasion, and the situation in which they were spoken. When a great public object roused his mind, and demanded indignation and force, he departs considerably from that loose and declamatory manner to which he inclines at other times, and becomes exceedingly cogent and vehement. This is the case in his orations against Antony, and in those too against Verres and Catiline. Blair.

$ 72. Defects of CICERO. Together with those high qualities which Cicero possesses, he is not exempt from certain defects, of which it is necessary to take notice. For the Ciceronian Eloquence is a pattern so dazzling by its beauties, that, if not examined with accuracy and judgment, it is apt to betray the unwary into a faulty imitation; and I am of opinion, that it has sometimes produced this effect. In most of his orations, especially those composed in the earlier part of his life, there is too much art; even carried the length of ostentation. There is too visible a parade of eloquence. He seems often to aim at obtaining admiration, rather than at operating conviction, by what he says. Hence, on some occasions, he is showy, rather than solid; and diffuse, where he ought to have been pressing. His sentences are, at all times, round and sonorous; they cannot be accused of monotony, for they possess variety of cadence; but, from too great a study of magnificence, he is sometimes deficient in strength. On all occasions where there is the least room for it, he is full of himself. His great actions, and the real services which he had performed to his country, apologize for this in part; ancient manners, too, imposed fewer re

The defects which we have now taken notice of in Cicero's eloquence, were not unobserved by his own contemporaries. This we learn from Quinctilian, and from the author of the dialogue, “de Causis "Corrupta Eloquentiæ." Brutus we are informed called him, "fractum et "elumbem," broken and enervated. "Suorum temporum homines," says Quinctilian, "incessere audebant eum et "tumidiorem & Asianum, et redundan. "tem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in "salibus aliquandò frigidum, & in com "positione fractum et exultantem, & pe"nè viro molliorem *." These censures were undoubtedly carried too far; and sa vour of malignity and personal enmity. They saw his defects, but they aggravated them; and the source of these aggravations can be traced to the difference which prevailed in Rome, in Cicero's days, be tween two great parties, with respect to eloquence, the "Attici," and the "Asi "ani." The former, who called themselves the Attics, were the patrons of what they conceived to be the chaste, simple, and natural style of eloquence; from which they accused Cicero as having departed, and as leaning to the florid Asiatic manner. In several of his rhetorical works, particularly in his "Orator ad Brutum," Ci cero, in his turn, endeavours to expose this sect, as substituting a frigid and jejune manner in place of the true Attic eloquence; and contends, that his own composition was formed upon the real Attic Style. In the tenth Chapter of the last Book of Quinctilian's Institutions, a full account is given of the disputes between these two parties; and of the Rhodian, or middle manner between the Attics and the Asiatics. Quinctilian himself declares on Cicero's side; and, whether it be Attic or Asiatic, prefers the full, the copious, and the amplifying style. He concludes with this very just observation: "Plures "sunt eloquentiæ facies; sed stultissimum

* "His contemporaries ventured to reproach "him as swelling, redundant, and Asiatic; too "frequent in repetitions; in his attempts to "wards wit sometimes cold; and, in the strain "of his composition, feeble, desultory, and

"more effeminate than became a man.”

u est

MOSTHENES.

On the subject of comparing Cicero and Demosthenes, much has been said by critical writers. The different manners of these two princes of eloquence, and the distinguishing characters of each, are so strongly marked in their writings, that the comparison is, in many respects, obvious and easy. The character of Demosthenes is vigour and austerity; that of Cicero is gentleness and insinuation. In the one, find more manliness; in the other more ornament.. The one is more harsh, but more spirited and cogent; the other more agreeable, but withal, looser and weaker.

you

To account for this difference, without any prejudice to Cicero, it has been said, that we must look to the nature of their different auditories; that the refined Athenians followed with ease the concise and convincing eloquence of Demosthenes; but that a manner more popular, more flowery, and declamatory, was requisite in speaking to the Romans, a people less acute, and less acquainted with the arts of speech. But this is not satisfactory. For we must observe, that the Greek orator spoke much oftener before a mixed multitude, than the oftener before a mixed multitude, than the Roman. Almost all the public business of Athens was transacted in popular assemblies. The common people were his hearers, and his judges. Whereas Cicero generally ad. dressed himself to the "Patres Conscripti," or, in criminal trials, to the Prætor, and the Select Judges; and it cannot be imagined, that the persons of highest rank and best education in Rome, required a more diffuse manner of pleading than the common citizens of Athens, in order to make them understand the cause, or relish the speaker. Perhaps we shall come nearer the truth, by observing, that to unite toge

*"Eloquence admits of many different forms; “and nothing can be more foolish than to in"quire by which of them an orator is to regu"late his composition; since every form, which "is in itself just, has its own place and use. "The Orator, according as circumstances re"quire, will employ them all; suiting them not "only to the cause or subject of which he treats "but to the different parts of that subject."

ther all the qualities, without the least exception, that form a perfect orator, and to excel equally in each of those qualities, is not to be expected from the limited powers of human genius. The highest degree of strength is, I suspect, never found united with the highest degree of smoothness and ornament: equal attentions to both are incompatible; and the genius that carries ornament to its utmost length, is not of such a kind, as can excel as much in vigour. For there plainly lies the characteristical difference between these two celebrated orators.

It is a disadvantage to Demosthenes, that, besides his conciseness, which sometimes produces obscurity, the language, in which he writes, is less familiar to most of us than the Latin, and that we are less acquainted with the Greek antiquities than we are with the Roman. We read Cicero with more ease, and of course with more pleasure. Independent of this circumstance too, he is no doubt, in himself, a more agreeable writer than the other. But notwithstanding this advantage, I am of opinion, that were the state in danger, or some great public interest at stake, which drew the serious attention of men, an oration in the spirit and strain of Demosthenes would have more weight, and produce greater effects, than one in the Ciceronian manner. Were Demosthenes's Philippics spoken in a British assembly, in a similar conjuncture of affairs, they would convince and persuade at this day. The rapid style, the vehement reasoning, the disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, which perpetually

animate them, would render their success infallible over any modern assembly. I question whether the same can be said of Cicero's orations; whose eloquence, however beautiful, and however well suited to the Roman taste, yet borders oftener on declamation, and is more remote from the manner in which we now expect to hear real business and causes of importance treated t.

In comparing Demosthenes and Cicero, most of the French critics incline to give the preference to the latter. P. Rapin the Jesuit, in the parallels which he has drawn between some of the most eminent Greek

In this judgment I concur with Mr. David Hume, in his Essay upon Eloquence. He gives it as his opinion, that of all human productions, the Orations of Demosthenes present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection.

and