heightened and adorned by occasional touches of Irish pathos or fancy. And Mr Grattan, though he made his appearance in the united parliament without having possessed exactly the same advantage, had enjoyed the benefit of a long service as the leader of opposition in Ireland, and must necessarily have learnt, from the experience of that troublesome honour, how much more powerfully divisions are influenced by argument than by poetry. After such a probation, and with the clear-sighted understanding which he possessed from nature, it was not to be supposed, that he would rush into idle and speculative declamation, to the neglect of the main business in hand. Nor, in point of fact, do we remember to have detected him in such aberrations. But still his eloquence differed from that of Burke and of Sheridan, in that it was not, like theirs, an English style adorned and heightened with poetical ornaments; but a style naturally Irish, reduced and chastened to purposes of practical utility. We seldom remember to have witnessed a more universal sentiment of admiration in an audience, than that which manifested itself on the night of his first speech in the English House of Commons. This sentiment, if possible, he has heightened rather than diminished by his subsequent exertions.

If we were to point out any one characteristic of his style, as distinguishing it more particularly than the rest, we should select his propensity to antithesis. Whatever may be the objections to this seductive vice in writing, its use and effect in speaking are, we apprehend, too obvious to be questioned. A reader may be cloyed by it in a long treatise, and then it must alienate instead of securing him, but in speaking, where it is so extremely difficult to fix the hearer, the most useful arts are those which lay the strongest temporary hold upon his attention. Mr

Grattan's employment of antithesis is singularly striking and brilliant, and arms his sentences with a point which penetrates wherever it is aimed. These polished and epigrammatic passages are, however, often interspersed with others of a loftier and more interesting character; for it is one of the greatest charms of his eloquence, that it displays a heart of rare and genuine benevolence. There is, in his speeches, an impassioned earnestness of virtue, a noble simplicity of feeling and principle, which all the flimsy romancers of a whole century would never reach, in their fullest flow of sensitive commonplace. With such an honesty of nature, with such a warmth of heart,with a judgment thus matured by practice, with an imagination so lively,and with so exquisite a polish of diction,-Mr Grattan has occupied an eminence in the united parliament, scarcely less distinguished than that which he possessed in the legislature of his native island.

The last-risen of the luminaries in that great constellation, of which we have been thus endeavouring to furnish some account, is Mr Canning.

Having neither acquaintance nor connexion, direct nor indirect, with this eminent statesman, we shall not fear to be convicted of partiality, when we declare it as our firm opinion,-an opinion, not made up hastily, nor without careful observation,-that of all the speakers whom it has ever been our good fortune to hear, Mr Canning possesses, in the highest perfection, the greatest number of those qualifi cations which constitute a first-rate orator. With the argumentative wit, the classical polish, and the lively feeling peculiar to himself, he unites the analytical logic of Mr Fox, and the comprehensive scope, lucid arrange ment, and splendid potentiality of phrase, which distinguished the style of Mr Pitt. Nullum fere eloquentia

genus non tetigit: nullum, quod tetigit, non ornavit.

All this is the more extraordinary, because we remember Mr Canning, after he had been several years in parliament, not only not a first, but scarcely even a second-rate speaker. We remember him, injudicious in his argument, and intemperate in his declamation; and scarcely even able to at tain the animation necessary to fix the attention of the house, without lash ing and spurring himself into an artificial heat. We certainly little expect ed, at that time, to see him, what we conceive him at present to be, the most consummate orator of the cultivated age in which he flourishes.

A great command of language is apt to betray the speaker into one of these two vicious habits, either a measured melody, so regularly recurring as to become unpleasing by its monotony; or a rush of language without modulation, degenerating into familiar and conversational solecism. But Mr Can ning's fluency is free from both these defects. It is harmonious without

monotony, and easy without negligence. Sometimes, for a few succes sive sentences, the roundness and fulness of the melody remind us of Mr Pitt's sonorous majesty: then, as the tenour of the argument demands a simpler or lighter treatment, the unstudied happinesses, or the terse humour, of the " elder time,” interweave themselves in the phraseology; and the charms of each style are relieved, not by a contrast of barrenness and poverty, but by a change of excellence. To those who are not experimentally acquainted with the almost magical effect of Mr Canning's oratory, this praise may appear excessive. We have but one apology to offer our conviction of its strict justice. In an advocate, it might be more prudent to be less panegyrical; but we have here no duty to perform, except to our read

ers; and that duty bids us speak what we believe to be truth, without modification or reserve.

We have thus presented, as we flatter ourselves, a tolerably faithful, though a brief, account of the state of oratory in the British House of Commons, during the zenith of Mr Windham's fame. The powers of those minds, which death has now snatched from the world, we have endeavoured to illustrate by characteristic quotations, as well as by general analyses of style and we have described with the strictest impartiality, the speakers who still remain to their country, although we have thought it premature to present particular specimens of their matter or manner. We shall conclude with a review of the oratorical talents of Mr Windham himself, and with such selections from authenticated copies of his speeches, as appear to us the best calculated to convey to our readers a just conception of his style, both in thinking and in expressing himself.

That great and leading principle of his politics, his jealousy of the honour and virtue of his country, was perpetually displaying itself in the strain of his eloquence, to which it imparted a lofty and sustained animation. Thus, in his speech on the peace of Amiens, after a few general reasonings upon the gain and loss of wars, he exclaims,

"We are not, according to the present fashion, to fall to calculating, and to ask ourselves, what is the value at market of such and such an object, and how much it will cost us to obtain it. If these objects alone were at stake, I should admit the principle in its full force; and should be among the first to declare, that no object of mere pecuniary value could ever be worth obtaining at the price of a war; but when particular points of honour are at stake, as at Nootka or the Falkland Islands, (without enquiring whe

ther, in those cases, the point of ho nour was either well chosen or rightly estimated ;) and still more where general impression, where universal estimation, where the conception to be formed of the feelings, temper, power, policy, and views of a great nation, are in question, there, to talk of calculating the loss or profit of possessions, to which these considerations may be attached, by their price at market, or the value of their fee simple, is like the idea of Dr Swift, when he is comparing the grants to the Duke of Marlborough with the rewards of a Roman conqueror, and estimates the crown of laurel at two-pence."

Again, in the same speech, we have a fine specimen of spirited morality: "However true it may be, that the example of France ought to serve as the strongest antidote to its poison, and that it does so in fact in the minds of many, yet it is equally true, that, in another view, and to many other persons, it operates in a directly contrary way, not as a warning, but as an incitement. What I am now speaking of is, however, not the danger of the political principles of France, but the still surer and more dreadful dan

ger of her morals. What are we to think of a country that, having struck out of men's minds, as far as it has the power to do so, all sense of religion, and all belief of a future life, has struck out of its system of civil policy, the institution of marriage? That has for mally, professedly, and by law, established the connexion of the sexes upon the footing of an unrestrained concubinage? That has turned the whole country into one universal brothel? That leaves to every man to take, and to get rid of a wife, (the fact, I believe, continues to be so) and a wife, in like manner, to get rid of her husband, upon less notice than you can, in this country, of a ready-furnished lodging?

"Do we suppose it possible, that with an intercourse subsisting, such as, we know, will take place between Great Britain and France, the morals of this country shall continue what they have been? Do we suppose that when this " Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes," when that "revolutionary stream," the Seine, charged with all the colluvies of Paris, with all the filth and blood of that polluted city, shall have turned its current into the Thames, that the waters of our fair domestic flood can remain pure and wholesome as before? Do we suppose these things can happen? Or is it, that we are indifferent whether they happen or not; and that the morals of the country are no longer an object of our concern?"

The quality of Mr Windham's eloquence, which we regard as the next in value, is the logical connection and judicious disposition of his arguments. of that excellence, however, it would obviously be impossible to comprise a specimen in these pages, inasmuch as such merits are, in their very nature, diffused through an entire speech, and perceptible only by observation of its tenour as a whole.

Perhaps, for a popular assembly, the style of Mr Windham was sometimes too metaphysical; but on many occasions his philosophy was usefully exercised, in clearing the way for his argument, and raising the curiosity of the house.

"The great division of mankind," says he in his speech on the peace of Amiens, " into those who were formed to govern, and those who were born only to obey, was never more strongly exemplified than by the French nation, and those who have sunk, or are sink. ing, under their yoke. Let us not suppose, therefore, that, while these qualities, combined with these purposes, shall continue to exist, they will ever cease, by night or by day, in peace or

in war, to work their natural effect,to gravitate towards their proper centre; or that the bold, the proud, the dignified, the determined, those who will great things, and will stake their existence upon the accomplishment of what they have willed, shall not finally prevail over those, who act upon the very opposite feelings; who will "never push their resistance beyond their convenience;" who ask for nothing but ease and safety; who look only to stave off the evil for the present day, and will take no heed of what may befal them on the morrow. We are therefore, in effect, at war at this moment; and the only question is, whether the war, that will henceforward proceed under the name of peace, is likely to prove less operative and fatal, than that which has hitherto appeared in its natural and ordinary shape."

It has become a fashion to say, that the eloquence of the House of Commons is rapidly waning,-that a dark age is come upon us, and that no rays of early genius are dawning to revive the glories that are gone. If

it entered into the plan of the present article to analyse and pourtray the powers of the leading speakers of the present day, we should have little difficulty in refuting this prejudice. We would solicit the " laudatores temporis acti" to reflect, that orators, who, in the time of Mr Pitt and Mr Fox, had not enjoyed the opportunity and practice essential to excellence, and who were therefore, at that period, inferior and inconsiderable men, have since improved and ripened their fa culties. We could illustrate from various instances, and especially from the last two years of Mr Perceval's life, the satisfactory axiom, that great oc casions are sure to kindle great talents. And we might finally console the apprehensions of our readers, by specifically reminding them, that the voice of Mr Grattan is not yet mute; that Mr Canning is in the full maturity of his genius; and that the early and brilliant eloquence of Mr Ward affords additional assurance of a legitimate succession to the honours of the de parted great,

"

THE subject of the present brief memorial will be long distinguished among those whom the elasticity and ardour of genius have raised to distinction from an obscure and humble origin. JOHN LEYDEN was descended from a family of small farmers, long settled upon the estate of Cavers, in the vale of Teviot, a few miles from Hawick. He loved to mention some traditional rhymes, which one of his ancestors had composed, and to commemorate the prowess of another, who had taken arms with the insurgent Cameronians, about the time of the Revolution, and who distinguished himself by his gallantry at the defence of the churchyard of Dunkeld, 21st August, 1689, against a superior body of Highlanders, when Colonel Cleland, the leader of these warlike enthusiasts, was slain at their head. John Leyden, residing in the village of Denholm, and parish of Cavers, Roxburghshire, and Isa bella Scott, his wife, were the parents of Dr Leyden, and still survive to deplore the irreparable loss of a son the honour alike of his family and country. Their irreproachable life, and simplicity of manners, recommend.

VOL. IV. PART II.

ed them to the respect and kindness of their neighbours, and to the protection of the family of Mr Douglas of Cavers, upon whose estate they resided.

John Leyden, so eminent for the genius which he displayed, and the extensive knowledge which he accumulated during his brief career, was born at Denholm, on 8th September, 1775, and bred up, like other children in the same humble line of life, to such country labour as suited his strength. He was ten years of age before he had an opportunity of attending even the reading school, and as the death of his first teacher, William Wilson, school-master at Kirktown, soon after took place, the humble studies of the future poet, antiquary, and orientalist, were adjourned till the subsequent year, (1786) when a Mr W. Scott taught the same school. But the sacred fire had already caught to the ready fuel which nature had adjusted for its supply. The ardent and unutterable longing for information of every description, which characterized John Leyden as much as any man who ever lived, was now roused and upon the watch. The rude traditionary tales and ballads of