OBSERVATIONS ON ELOQUENCE.

THE practice of speaking is the distinctive mark which, next to reason, elevates mankind above the brute creation. Quintilian, indeed, seems to rank it above the reasoning faculty, as the criterion of human superiority; but we ought to recollect that he was more a rhetorician than a reasoner. He exclaims, "If we have received from Providence nothing better than the use of speech, what is there which we ought to cultivate with greater zeal and earnestness? What object is more worthy of our ambition than that of excelling other men in the particular faculty which alone raises them above the level of the brutes?"

Of the origin of speech we took notice on a former occasion; we now proceed to that higher and more dignified kind which bears the denomination of eloquence. The word literally means speaking out; and he who thus exerts himself is expected to rise above plain statement and ordinary remark, to speak with fluency and force, to use figurative and metaphorical diction, and illustrate arguments by those embellishments which are not

deemed necessary in familiar or private conversation.

Cicero had so high an opinion of eloquence, that he considered it as the greatest of all human pursuits. A genuine orator, according to him, ought to be one of the wisest of mankind, a proficient in every science, and a master of all human learning: but it is unreasonable to expect such perfection in any finite being, nor is it necessary that an orator should be allaccomplished. Let him be acquainted with human nature and with the springs of action; let him possess something more than that "little learning which is a dangerous thing;" let him attentively study the subject on which he intends to expatiate; and with these preparations, if he should be endowed with ordinary talents, we may be assured that he will not make a despicable figure. He will be able to persuade and to enforce; he may make an effective impression upon his auditors; and he may even (though it is what he ought to avoid) "make the worse appear the better cause."

The attractions and advantages of eloquence are well described by Thomson in the following lines, addressed to the late earl of Chesterfield:

those who recollect, or have read, the parliamentary speeches of the earl of Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Canning; and even if we allow it to be in general well-founded, the difference is chiefly to be attributed to the cool and reasoning character of a British senatorial audience, less likely to require or to endure vehement appeals to the imagination or the passions. When Burke, in imitation of the Roman practice of enlisting sensible objects in the excitement of emotion, produced a revolutionary dagger, and threw it on the floor of the house of commons, ridicule was the only effect of the orator's practical display of aristocratic indignation.

Judicial eloquence, or the pleading of

sup

causes and the attack or defence of posed criminals, used to call forth all the zeal of the Roman character. The first men in the state were proud of acting as advocates without remuneration, and exerted themselves as strenuously for the lowest citizen, as if their own lives had been at stake. Erskine, perhaps, was more an imitator of the Roman advocates than any of his contemporaries at the bar, and the impression which he made upon a jury was consequently forcible,-much greater, indeed, than he could at any time make on the members of the legis

lature.

There is another species of eloquence which is more particularly cultivated at the present time in England than at any former period; we mean convivial oratory. At every public dinner, and sometimes at private entertainments, the custom of drinking to the health of an individual leads to a complimentary speech in return for the honor of notice. This practice necessarily induces previous study on the part of unfledged speakers, that they may not subject themselves to ridicule. A good speech is sometimes heard at these meetings; but the general effect of the custom is an effusion of cant or an exposure of imbecility.

Some may expect that theatrical eloquence should here be noticed; but that does not properlyform a part of our subject. It may be asked, "Is not a player a speaker?" "Yes," we answer-" he speaks the words which are assigned to him; but he is merely a reciter, not an orator, for eloquence refers to the delivery of those thoughts and conceptions which rise in the speaker's own mind. Let it not be supposed, however, that we undervalue the merits of the histrionic race.

Roscius

was admired by the Romans for the talent and skill with which he embodied the ideas of the dramatist; and many English performers have raised themselves to celebrity by displaying an intimate acquaintance with the workings of the heart and the movements of passion.

THE YELLOW DWARF.

"A delicate monster."-Shakspeare. In a sterile and mountainous region, masses of rock were scattered over the plain, like the fragments of an antediluvian world; hollows were scooped, as by the hands of giants, threatening peril to the incautious passenger; moss and lichen flourished amidst the rank unwholesome grass, forming an abode for the adder and the spider. One leafless tree alone towered in the wilderness, a beacon of desolation. It had been tempest-riven and withered, none knew how long, and it swayed and groaned in the blast with a strange and wild sound. Yet this dismal spot had a human inhabitant, a creature formed, like the scene in which he dwelt, in horror and in deformity. The few whom necessity impelled over the plain directed many a hurried glance toward his dwelling, and instinctively avoided all approaches to it. He was a dwarf,-an abortion of nature in her most splenetic mood, an object of strong disgust, an outcast from society. His age was unknown; many in the adjacent hamlets remembered him as the terror of their boyhood, and their fathers had made him a subject of converse before their birth. He was not only the wonder but the dread of the whole country; yet no one could accuse him of doing evil or mischief. He mingled not in the avocations of the rustics, in their violence or their sports.

He was one of those finger-posts, which Nature has created to direct man to the knowlege of her power; his deformity was a mark for public scorn, and he did not wrestle with his destiny. He would sit for hours beneath the blasted tree, watching the storm-clouds gathering like armed hosts, and would smile as the thunder growled out a signal for aerial warfare. With the first flash of the lightening he would spring to the summit of one of the rocky piles, clap his dry bony hands, and howl out a welcome to the tempest. This was his hour of communion with external objects; he could not hold communion with the summer sunshine, or the fresh

spring; for what had he to do with beauty or with enjoyment? the hour of darkness and of horror was his! he could act as the spirit of the whirlwind and the genius of the storm; but he could not sympathise with light and harmony.

The dwarf was clad in a vest and mantle of yellow serge; and over hair which, had time less whitened it, would have been undistinguishable in tint from its covering, he wore a high conical cap, adorned with a profusion of yellow feathers; his sandals were girt on with thongs of the same hue, and his whole appearance was grotesque and fantastic. Yet this creature had feelings, and passions, and attachments, stunted, perhaps, for he had been pitied, spurned, or despised. He was a man of another region; but he spoke the language of the country which he had adopted,-spoke it with a polish which savored of high breeding and of long use; but it was a stranger-tongue in which he howled out his greeting to the thunder and to the blast. His terrific features were then convulsed with a powerful and overwhelming joy, and his accents were those of other years, and of other scenes, the spell-tones of memory, the seal set by feeling on early associations and withered hopes. The utterance of such language was his carnival, and the bruised spirit, in breathing it forth, bounded from the pressure of the world's contumely. But, when the storm had abated and the clouds rolled off in dark masses to the ocean, the dwarf's passion subsided into calmness as gradually as the horizon which extended above his head; his chin fell heavily on his heaving breast, his spread hands became clenched, then relaxed, and hung lifeless at his side; his discolored eyeballs expanded, darkened, and finally turned slowly and heavily earthward; and he cowered beneath the brightening light.

It was after an hour of tempest and of feverish excitement, that the dwarf retreated into the narrow chamber which he had selected as an asylum. There was still a fitful flashing of the light grey eye, with a tremulous motion about the lip, which betrayed an internal struggle. Suddenly the storm again burst forth, only more violent from its late restraint, and, as a broad and bright flash lighted up the heavens, the rude latch of his door was raised, and a light figure appeared. The dwarf started up instinc

an

tively, and faced the intruder; but neither spoke. The door stood open, and the night-blast swept drearily through the hovel. Another awful peal followed a splendid burst of lightening, which flickered for a second ere it faded; and, in that fleeting interval, the dwarf had distinguished that his unbidden guest was a slight and graceful youth, in a garb half warlike and half courtly. Hair bright and silvery as moonlight fell in profusion upon his shoulders, and a long plume of blended white and azure floated over his countenance. There was evident shrinking of the spirit perceptible in the compressed lips and rigid attitude of the intruder; but he overcame this weakness, and stood firmly before his grim and frowning host. Coldly and proudly did the dwarf ask his motive for this unwelcome visit, and the enquiry was answered in a foreign tongue,-in the loved accents of another land! The dwarf started; he clasped his narrow forehead convulsively with his huge hand, and paused; but it was merely the pause of an instant. Hurriedly he trimmed his lamp; dexterously he produced a light by a simple and rapid process; and, when he had effected the ignition of some decayed grass hastily torn from his rude couch, the flame was soon communicated to a faggot placed upon the hearth, so as to shed a broad clear light over the hut. As the blaze brightened, the dwarf threw up his arms, and shrieked in a shrill tone; the stranger started, and glanced suspiciously toward the open door.

The host then motioned his guest to a low stool, and lay down at his feet. The lamp cast its reflection full on the stranger, and the dwarf gazed on him until his brow grew dark and his eye lurid."Thou art come," at length he muttered slowly, "from a land of roses :-what would'st thou of one who has cast off the blossoms, and retained the thorns as his only portion?"-" First I would learn whether he repays the world's bitterness with pardon or with hate?"→→→ "With hate-deep, deadly, and impla cable-fathomless as the ocean's depths

measureless as its waters. Thou art young, new to passion and to life: to thee I cannot tell my hatred, for thou wilt not be able to picture it to thy spirit."-" And yet," said the stranger falteringly, “it is a glorious world!"

A long wild laugh rang through the hut, and the guest started up. "Aye!”

cried the dwarf, as he grasped the mantle of the youth, and forced him back into his seat: "glorious it may be for those who, like thee, are young and well-formed; but for me, and persons of my stamp (if indeed Nature has cursed other victims with such a semblance) it is bitter, loathsome, and ungenial. Thou art of the sterling coinage of the world, stripling; thou wilt pass current like a golden noble; but I am a base counterfeita mockery, meant to cheat mortality into a sense of her own nothingness! What had I done that the brand of deformity should be stamped upon my brow-that the seal of outlawry should be set on my spirit? I had feelings like other men, hopes, passions, and impulses like them; but my feelings have been outraged, my hopes blasted, my passions mocked, and my impulses urged to evil!-Why was I to be scourged through the world-defrauded of my birth-right-hunted from my most secret baunts-scoffed at in my affections, and sacrificed to the fancied superiority and unfeeling arrogance of others? And dost thou tell me that it is a glorious world?-It has light, but I have lived to feel that light odious; it has music, but it breathes only for the happy; it has flowers, but they are prized only for their beauty; it has a thousand lures to joy, and hope, and greatness, but they are false; and, beyond all these, it has women, the very light, and music, and flowers, and lure of all-and they are creation's falsehood!"

The dwarf sprang up as he ceased speaking, and closed the door of the hovel, which he secured by a rude bar of unhewn timber; and then resuming his station, he thus continued: "Listen to me. I was the child of tears and wishes: my parents were wealthy, and of noble blood; four years had beheld them united, and yet they were childless. "Give us but a son, and we shall be blessed beyond the common lot of mortality,' murmured the ill-judging couple, and a son was granted to their prayers." Again a wild laugh pealed through the hut. "I am that son ;-I am the heir of that haughty house-in my infancy I was pillowed on down-now I am couched on moss: in my youth I was lodged in a palace-now I burrow in a den. I had a heart; but it might be a mockery, for what had such a thing as I to do with gentleness? I was spurned for a fair faced stripling-for one like thee spurned with open loathing and with

bitter jests; and desired to consult my mirror, and to choose a mate after its dictates; but I scorn to enter into a detail of my sufferings. I have sworn to pursue the hated family of my chief enemies even to ruin; it is for this I live. They are the world's wonder; they exist in an atmosphere of delight, and they too have a son-not one after my present fashion, but a glorious creature, radiant with youth;-a thing to marvel at."-"Oh! restore him to their arms!" implored the stranger earnestly; "I have sought thee to work out his liberation-I will remain, and be thy slave-I will toil for thee."-" Peace!" impatiently interposed the dwarf; "thy head is lighter than the plume which decks it. Do I look like one for whom any would toil, or do I need such service? And what," he added, "if the youth be lost? is it my duty to find and to produce him? May not the pampered stripling of six feet wander from his rosewreathed paths to the wilderness, and I remain unchallenged?" There was a hollowness, in the tone of the mysterious being, which seemed to render reply impossible; it was not even attempted; but the stranger-youth, humbly kneeling, seised the hand of the dwarf. "Spare him, spare him!" murmured the low soft voice; 66 spare him for my sake-for the sake of his affianced bride?"-" His bride!" shrieked the dwarf his bride! let me look on thee;"-and he rudely tore off the plumed cap which had veiled her countenance, and fixed his eyes on her, with a blank and withering stare.— "All that nature had designed of beautiful, when she first modeled woman, was concentrated in that form and face; the glow of affection struggled with the paleness of feminine timidity upon her cheek; heaven's own azure was in her eyes, and passion had lighted them with new fire; she was a thing to worship.-And thou wast to be his bride (resumed the dwarf, convulsively) to sit at his board, and preside at his revels! I could look on thee until mine eye-strings would crack, and yet thou art but a woman, fair and false. Thou would'st not have dared the storm and the night-hour, and defied one whom the world calls monster, for such as I am -no, no; thou hast attached thyself to the radiant countenance and the graceful limb-to one who can look on nature and proudly confess himself her son-poor minion" and he passed his coarse aukward hand over her lustrous hair, and