the energy of their ancient republican virtue in the hearts of the Greeks. These were the express objects; to accomplish which, the great Grecian orator exercised his ELOQUENCE. He discerned the true interests of Greece: he pursued them steadily to the care of promoting them, he sacrificed all the sordid cares of private interest and base-minded ambition.

Review the orations of CICERO.-How very inferior in purity and elevation of DESIGN to DEMOSTHENES, does he not, incontestibly, appear? Even when, with almost all the vigilance and ineludible penetration of a God, he probes the soul, and detects the guilt of a Catiline; the prejudices and arts of the devoted member of a party, are not less conspicuous amid the thunder of his harangues, than the sublime beneficence and integrity of the patriot. In the speeches of the prosecution against Verres, you see chiefly the

young man striving to raise himself to political and oratorical importance, as the advocate of a splendid and popular cause. In the invectives against Anthony, personal resentment and party-zeal are much more apparent than the generous spirit and the sublime views of pure enlightened patriotism, discerning and preferring nothing but the public good.

The speeches in the historical works of Tacitus and Livy, are merely the exercises of men of letters, writing to obtain the fame of literature and elegance; actuated, indeed, by virtuous principles; but making no direct application of their powers and efforts of persuasion, to accomplish any great, immediate good in active life.

Hooker and Chillingworth, entitled much more to the reputation of Orators, than many of those to whom it has been attributed, may, perhaps, be justly named in rivalship with Demosthenes, for the purity, the sublimity, and

VOL. I.

*e'

the

the enlightened comprehension of DESIGN, with which they composed their two immortal works. Those works were addressed, to produce immediate effects on the opinions by which active life is guided. They were written without selfish interests, without religious bigotry, without party prejudice. They carry with them a demonstration that must have been accompanied with ardent conviction in the minds of their authors. Such authors are truly worthy to be named in comparison with Demosthenes.

It may be doubted, whether even the virtuous and enlightened genius of PASCAL was exercised, in the admirable Lettres Provinciales, with a sacred purity of intention equal to that of Hooker and Chillingworth. He wrote with the prejudices of Jansenism, with the party-spirit of a devoted friend to the Society of Port-Royal. Otherwise considered, those Letters are composed with a force and art of persuasive ELOQUENCE, worthy of the best productions of the fairest age in the history of this art.

Had the parliamentary harangues of the great Earl of CHATHAM even been published by himself; and polished for the press with all the elaborate pains in composition, of a Demosthenes or a Cicero; yet, at least in the praise of exalted purity of design, they must not have been ranked with the works of a Demosthenes, a Chillingworth, and a Hooker. Chatham was a great and good man.-Peace to his ashes Immortal honour to his name! But, the love of power, the spirit of contention, the pride of over-bearing genius, the lust of popular applause, cannot be denied, even by his greatest admirers, to have acted as leading principles in prompting his ELOQUENCE.

To the late Mr. BURKE, the praise of ELOQUENCE and

Virtue are signally due. But, he was the orator of a party. He accepted employment for a piece of bread among the Aristocratical Whigs: and he devoted himself to their service, with a sincerity and zeal which embraced all their interests and prejudices. In all his parliamentary harangues, in all his other treatises, he gives but theories contrived to justify party opinions, enthusiastic fancies, or even popular errors in practical science, which he had, before, hastily conceived, or inconsiderately taken up. In discernment of the real good of his country, and in unbiassed prosecution of that only, he must be confessed, by his warmest admirers, to fall infinitely short of the great orator of the Greeks.

Still less can the praise of unblemished purity of design, be attributed to the author of these Letters of JUNIUS. To overthrow a ministry, to gratify and sway the minds of a populace, to oppose a system for the abolition of national distinctions and party prejudices, to indulge secret disgusts, jealousies or resentments rankling at his heart, to obtain the praise of unrivalled excellence in literary composition, were probably the leading purposes with which this author wrote. He co-operated, but without true patriot design, for the redress of wrongs which the long reign of Aristocratical Whiggism, and, lately, the inexperienced zeal of Toryism, had inflicted on the constitution. In his invectives against particular persons, he descended into a malignity of attack, which, however effectual toward the ends he had in view, was utterly incompatible with exalted rectitude of design. He disdained not to mingle in the miserable bustle of ochlocracy, with as much readiness for wild mischief as if he had been, in truth, a man of weak understanding,

2. But, in that design which adapts all the means as happily as possible to the end in view, JUNIUS is inferior to no *e 2 other

other orator of any age. Demosthenes might accommodatė his speeches, to sway the resolutions of the Athenians, with a knowledge of human nature, and of the utilities of public and private life, less various and profound than was requisite to accomplish those effects of confounding or persuading, which JUNIUS's Letters were to produce. Cicero, in the conceit of oratorical splendour, in a fondness for illustrations from the fashionable philosophy, and in dear effusions of egotism, often forgets the proper object of persuasion which he ought to have held steadily and keenly in view. Rousseau is, at times, feebly tedious in digression, illustration, and egotism. William Allen's famous pamphlet of Killing no„ Murther, has pointed and energetic passages, but possesses no enviable merits, as a whole. Burke is digressive, pompous in illustration, ever apt to forget the uses for the shew of ELOQUENCE. He provokes, instead of overpowering and soothing the prejudices which oppose his success. seems ever a stranger to that pertinency and propriety of ELOQUENCE which accommodate themselves to time, place, ignorance, and humour,-effecting more by this accommodation, than by figure or argument.

He

YES; JUNIUS is, of all orators ancient or modern, he who keeps the most steadily in view the object of his ELOQUENCE. A few sacrifices he indeed makes to personal vanity, and to the pride of conscious ability and success. These are not many: and, deducting them, you shall leave nothing which is not addressed almost with the consummate skill of a divinity, to effect that purpose of persuasion for which it is employed. In his first Letter, he wished to alarm administration, to assume the character of a presiding demon, in regard to the discontents of the people and the malice of faction,-to shew, at once, that depth of understanding, and that energetic vehemence of passion, which

were

were requisite to make even persons of a character of intel-, lect superior to that of the multitude, gladly rank themselves. behind him, as their leader. Such were, obviously, his purposes. Is there a line in his Introductory Letter which does not tend, in the strongest and most direct manner, to consummate them? In the Letters between JUNIUS and Sir William Draper, is strikingly exemplified the difference between the ELOQUENCE of a man of business and a mere rhetorician. Even when writing in his own defence, Draper continually wanders aside in search of figures and elegancies, which, when found, only mar his purpose. JUNIUS uses no metaphors, except such as enter essentially and directly into the accomplishment of his design: he employs no figures, but such as perfectly amalgamate with his arguments. Whenever the shew of ornament and the burst of passion have not a tendency to enforce conviction, he haughtily disdains them, and writes with the very plainness of a merchant's ledger. In his invectives, he had in view to confound and terrify the persons against whom they were employed,--to dignify, by repeating in the language of ELOQUENCE, the malicious jealousies, prejudices, and clamours of the vulgar,—and to assert the authority of a leader, by furnishing arguments and topics of complaint infinitely more powerful than any which the rest of his party could find for themselves. Not a line, not a sentiment occurs in them, which has not this tendency. Another might have been seduced, in the execution of particular parts, from a due attention to the main design; but JUNIUS never, for a moment, sacrifices his primary object to any matter of subordinate importance. Even when outrageous in abuse, to a degree that could not but offend the delicate and virtuous, he is not so, as being hurried away by his own feelings, but because the tone of the prejudices and feelings of the English multitude was not to be otherwise moved to his purpose. In

the