And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

Unto their issue.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

DIVISION III

CHAPTER V

Persuasion

The influence of oratory is transient that does not persuade men to think and act more nobly. Oratory should make a course of action clear to the minds of the audience. It should convince the intellect, influence the judgment, arouse the emotions, and persuade or move the wills of men.

Recite passages illustrating persuasion. Speak extemporaneously. Be full of resources. Speak with the eloquence born of deep feeling and strong conviction. Inspire with your own lofty idealism. Impress with your own resistless will. Attract with your personality. Have faith in yourself and in your message.

SPEECH ON THE AMERICAN WAR

I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation.

The smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is not necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors.

Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded

and forced upon them? Measures, my lord, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor to do her reverence.

The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us; supplied with every military store, their interest consulted and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy!

and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the British troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility.

You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we do know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot: your attempts will be forever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms—never, never, never!

But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage?-to call into civilized alliance the wild and

inhuman inhabitants of the woods?-to delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment?

But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and Nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country!

My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much upon your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such horrible barbarity. "Which God and Nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and Nature that noble lord may entertain I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity.

What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping knife!—to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.

I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their laws;-upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us

from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of your country and mine to vindicate the national character. LORD CHATHAM.

TRUE ELOQUENCE *

When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain.

Labor

Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, but cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.

The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power; rhetoric is vain; and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities.

Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions

*By permission of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co.