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The voice of this man happily corresponds with his genius; easily, by its compass and flexibility, accommodating itself to the several passions which he wishes to convey. It is a clear medium by which he is enabled to transfuse his spirit into his hearers, and kindle in their hearts an enthusiasm in defence of liberty, which, like the Greek fire, is not afterwards to be extinguished.

When his soul is inflamed with the frantic excesses of tyranny, the darkness on his brow gives notice of the tempest that is gathering; while the lightning in his eye, an unerring precursor, announces the thunder that is to follow. His invective is keen, is terrible, is desolating. The great lords of the court tremble on their benches, surrounded by guards, and clad in purple and ermine, whilst, like a minister of divine wrath, he denounces against them the vengeance of Heaven, and the curses of posterity. The spies of the government have been known to faint under his examination, alleging that they were unable to bear the fire of his eloquence, and the torture of his interrogatories.

He is small of stature, and of a visage sallow and wan: but when he opens his lips, his personal defects vanish; his stature reaches the clouds, and he appears to be alone grace. ful and lovely in the creation. You are under a species of enchantment similar to what Horace alludes to in his Art of Poetry, when the skilful dramatist transports you sometimes to Thebes and sometimes to Athens. Curran is indeed a magician who enchains the imaginations of his hearers, and the spell is of such potency, that neither wisdom nor ignorance have any charm to resist it.

When he harangues in defence of the rights of mankind, the most bigoted are in love with liberty and virtue; whilst, with a master hand, he portrays the miseries of Ireland, not a dry eye is to be seen; the court is drowned in tears; corrupt juries, packed and empannelled for the special purpose of condemnation, softened and touched by his eloquence, resign to him their victim; the prison doors fly open at his

I'm his most alebrated speech for Rowan Mechel not seem to have the effect upon the jury that is here descubes he had _ although it was corrupt –

approach; the chains fall from the hands of the victims. He is the angel of mercy, whose lips, touched with fire by the Almighty, whisper hope in the dungeon of despair, and speak deliverance to the captive.

But to form a correct estimate of this wonderful man, you must consider him not merely as an orator, as a man distinguished only in a single walk or department of literature. Men in general have their fort or strong ground in which lies their peculiar excellence and strength. But this is not the case with him; in every thing he is great, in every thing equal. He is, as it were, a centre in the circle of sciences, an attractive and luminous focus, on which rays are incessantly falling from all parts of the orb; a profound mathematician; a logician, acute, subtle, and persuasive; a philosopher, elegantly speculative, and profoundly erudite; a wit, sometimes lashing vice with the wrath and indignation of Juvenal, sometimes tittering at folly with the elegant and courtly irony of Flaccus; a politician, clear-sighted, steady and incorruptible; an orator realizing and transcending the definition of Cicero.

The Whole

Zatter exagerated on?

FROM THE VIRGINIA ARGUS.

THE MONITOR.

IT has been remarked that human nature is the same in every age; that is, I presume, that the judgment and passions of men are, in all ages, to be affected equally by the same causes. Among many arguments which countenance the contrary opinion, the variation of taste on literary subjects presents itself with considerable force. But in no department of the belles lettres is this change more striking

than in that of oratory. Demosthenes and Cicero controlled Athens and Rome by the irresistible force of their eloquence. The passions of their hearers were in their hands, and were guided merely at their discretion. Yet, if we examine their orations, free from those prejudices which we imbibed at school, we shall find nothing in them calculated to transport, dissolve, and sweep along an audience of the present day. We will discover, indeed, the justice of the trite criticism, that Demosthenes is precise and earnest, that Cicero is copious and diffusive. But we shall be struck with the difference between the character of their orations, and that of our modern orations which have been most highly celebrated. Curran and Erskine are, at the present day, what Cicero and Demosthenes were to the ancient world-the models of eloquence. Yet compare the most applauded harangues of the Grecian and Roman orators, with the defences of Stockdale and of Rowan; and you will scarcely be able to persuade yourself that the fame of these men was built on the approbation of a race of beings whose judgment and pas sions were uniform throughout every age. Demosthenes is said to have rejected with disdain every species of ornament. Cicero is pronounced to have been florid: yet it will be found, on inspection, that there is scarcely an instance in any of his orations of an extended figure. His words are metaphorical; but he presents to the fancy no image in all the beau tiful attitudes of which it may be susceptibie. This was not the taste of Rome. Even in the time of Pliny the younger, when the city had advanced in refinements and in luxuries, such remained the austerity of the popular taste on literary subjects, that this orator thought it necessary to defend the boldness of a figure, which, at this day, would scarcely make an impression in common conversation.

Such, however, is not the taste of the present day. We demand the animation of tropes and figures. Such too is the taste of untutored nature. Ossian, who wrote only from the force of native genius, warmed by the rude magnificence

of the scenery around him, is all alive with the boldest metaphor. Such has always been the oriental style. this day, is the style of the Indian orator.

Such, at

Curran and Erskine are remarkable instances of the success of this style. We think, however, that there is a strong distinction between the characters of their minds. Curran

appears to have more fancy; Erskine more judgment. Cur ran awakens all our passions; Erskine gives conviction to the understanding. When we read the defence of Rowan, we tremble with expectation, we glow with resentment, we shudder with horror, we melt with pity, or are wafted to the seventh Heaven on the wings of admiration. While we read the defence of Stockdale, our judgment yields at every step; every paragraph is a strong, an indissoluble link in the chain of conviction; and when the argument closes we pronounce, almost involuntarily, "not guilty." Not that Erskine is destitute of imagination and pathos. He possesses a very high portion of both, and the exertion is always successful. His description of the trial of Warren Hastings, before the British parliament-the crowded brilliant gallerythe masterly exertions of the speakers-the death-like silence and intense sympathy of the audience, form a picture so lively, so strongly drawn, that the whole scene passes immediately before us, and we feel all the agitation of an original spectator. When he speaks of the rigours practised by Hastings in Bengal, and introduces the Indian prince remonstrating against the lawless foot of British depredation," he gives an example of that species of the sublime, arising from sentiment, which is unsurpassed, But Erskine seems generally more anxious to carry his point than to encircle his argument with a blaze of glory. Judgment is the ruling faculty of his mind. Curran, on the contrary, luxuriates in all the richness of fancy, and his argument is often lost amid the efful

*It would appear, that this writer had not seen some of Mr. Erskine's most celebrated speeches, viz. on the trials of the Dean of St. Asaph, Lord George Gordon, Hardy & Co. &c.

gence of his genius. In a word, Erskine is more the logician and man of business. Curran is more the orator and the poet.

Passing to our own country-is it not astonishing that in a republic, the genial element of oratory, we have not a single example of the higher order of eloquence? In Virginia, we have several logicians, but not an orator. Yet the people, having before them no superior instance, have been pleased to bind the laurel around the brow of-let us suppose a character, and call him SULPITIUS. Sulpitius is neither a logician nor an orator. He wants that clear and vigorous penetration which is necessary to distinguish the strong points of a subject, and to arrange them to advantage. Hence that heterogeneous chaos, that prolixity and confusion, which characterize all the offspring of Sulpitius's brain, and which leave the hearer without one strong impression. As an orator he is equally unfortunate. His imagination is jejune in the extreme. Take any one splendid paragraph from the speeches of Curran or Erskine, mark in them the genuine effusion of creative genius! Mark how the figures rise spontaneously from the subject! Observe how they are embellished with all the ornament of unlaboured thought and language, and with what swelling energy they are supported throughout! Compare with these the issue of Sulpitius's mind. The watery, sickly figure just makes its appearance in order to show that it has no business there; and being deserted in the moment of its birth, it sinks and dies in its own weakness; while the impotent genius of Sulpitius, unnerved by the effort, drops, in all the majesty of bathos, into a style, not merely plain, but feeble, cold, and languid; a few moments recruit his imagination, and he travails with some new figure, which, like its predecessor, is doomed to be strangled or forsaken at its birth. A tissue of abortions like these, constitute Sulpitius's title to the name of an orator. Let me warn the youthful candidate for oratorial glory, to beware of considering Sulpitius as having attained the summit of oratory, and of adopting him as his model. In spite