distrust, who envy him. If you will exert yourselves as your honour and your interest require, you will not only discover the weakness and insincerity of his confederates, but the ruinous condition also of his own kingdom. For you are not to imagine, that the inclinations of his subjects are the same with those of their prince. He thirsts for glory; but they have no part in this ambition. Harassed by those various excursions he is ever making, they groan under perpetual calamity; torn from their business and their families; and beholding commerce excluded from their coasts. All those glaring exploits, which have given him his apparent greatness, have wasted his natural strength, his own kingdom, and rendered it much weaker than it originally was. Besides, his profligacy and baseness, and those troops of buffoons, and dissolute persons, whom he caresses and constantly keeps about him, are, to men of just discernment, great indications of the weakness of his mind. At present his successes cast a shade over these things; but let his arms meet with the least disgrace, his feebleness will appear, and his character be exposed. For, as in our bodies, while a man is in apparent health, the effect of some inward debility, which has been growing upon him, may, for a time, be concealed; but as soon as it comes the length of disease, all his secret infirmities show themselves, in whatever part of his frame the disorder is lodged: so, in states and monarchies, while they carry on a war abroad, many defects escape the general eye; but, as soon as war reaches their own territory, their infirmities come forth to general observation.

Fortune has great influence in all human affairs; but I, for my part, should prefer the fortune of Athens with the least degree of vigour in asserting your cause, to this man's fortune. For we have many better reasons to depend upon the favour of Heaven than this man. But, indeed, he who will not exert his own strength, hath no title to depend either on his friends, or on the gods. Is it at all surprising that he, who is himself ever amidst the labours and dangers of the field; who is every where; whom no opportunity escapes; to whom no season is unfavourable; should be superior to you, who are wholly engaged in contriving delays, and framing decrees, and inquiring after news. The contrary would be much more surprising if we, who have never hitherto acted as became a state engaged in war, should conquer one who acts, in every instance, with indefatigable vigilance. It is this, Athenians! it is this which gives him all his advantage against you. Philip, constantly surrounded by his troops, and perpetually engaged in projecting his designs, can, in a moment, strike the blow where he pleases. But we, when any accident alarms us, first appoint our Trierarchs: then we allow them to exchange by substitution: then the supplies are considered; next, we resolve to man our fleet with strangers and foreigners; then find it necessary to supply their place ourselves. In the midst of these delays, what we are sailing to defend, the enemy is already master of; for the time of action is spent by us in preparing; and the issues of war will not wait for our slow and irresolute measures.

Consider then your present situation, and make such provision at

the urgent danger requires. Talk not of your ten thousands, or your twenty thousand foreigners; of those armies which appear so magnificent on paper only; great and terrible in your decrees, in execution weak and contemptible. But let your army be made up chiefly of the native forces of the state; let it be an Athenian strength to which you are to trust; and whomsoever you appoint as general, let them be entirely under his guidance and authority. For ever since our armies have been formed of foreigners alone, their victories have been gained over our allies and confederates only, while our enemies have risen to an extravagance of power.'

The orator goes on to point out the number of forces which should be raised, and the places of their destination; the season of the year in which they should set out; and then proposes in form of his motion, as we would call it, or his decree, for the necessary supply of money, and for ascertaining the funds from which it should be raised. Having finished all that relates to the business under deliberation, he concludes these orations on public affairs, commonly with no longer peroration than the following, which terminates the first Philippic; I, for my part, have never, upon any occasion, chosen to court your favour by speaking any thing but what I was convinced would serve you. And on this occasion, you have heard my sentiments freely declared, without art, and without reserve. I should have been pleased, indeed, that, as it is for your advantage to have your true interest laid before you, so I might have been assured, that he who layeth it before you would share the same advantage. But, uncertain as I know the consequence to be with respect to myself, I yet determined to speak, because I was convinced that these measures, if pursued, must prove beneficial to the public. And, of all those opinions which shall be offered to your acceptance, may the gods determine that to be chosen which will best advance the gene

ral welfare!'

These extracts may serve to give some imperfect idea of the manner of Demosthenes. For a juster and more complete one, recourse must be had to the excellent original.

LECTURE XXVIII.

ELOQUENCE OF THE BAR-ANALYSIS OF CICERO'S ORATION FOR CLUENTIUS.

I TREATED in the last lecture of what is peculiar to the eloquence of popular assemblies. Much of what was said on that head is applicable to the eloquence of the bar, the next great scene of public speaking, to which I now proceed, and my observations upon which, will therefore be the shorter. All, however, that was said in the former lecture must not be applied to it; and it is of importance, that I begin with showing where the distinction lies.

In the first place, the ends of speaking at the bar, and in popular assemblies, are commonly different. In popular assemblies, the great object is persuasion; the orator aims at determining the hearers to some choice or conduct, as good, fit, or useful. For accomplishing this end, it is incumbent on him to apply himself to all the principles of action in our nature; to the passions and to the heart, as well as to the understanding. But, at the bar, conviction is the great object. There, it is not the speaker's business to persuade the judges to what is good or useful, but to show them what is just and true; and of course, it is chiefly, or solely, to the understanding that his eloquence is addressed. This is a characteristical difference. which ought ever to be kept in view.

In the next place, speakers at the bar address themselves to one or to a few judges, and these, too, persons generally of age, gravity, and authority of character. There they have not those advantages which a mixed and numerous assembly affords for employing all the arts of speech, even supposing their subject to admit them. Passion does not rise so easily; the speaker is heard more coolly; he is watcl.ed over more severely, and would expose himself to ridicule, by attempting that high vehement tone, which is only proper in speaking to a multitude.

In the last place, the nature and management of the subjects which belong to the bar, require a very different species of oratory from that of popular assemblies. In the latter, the speaker has a much wider range. He is seldom confined to any precise rule; he can fetch his topies from a great variety of quarters; and employ every illustration which his fancy or imagination suggests. But, at the bar, the field of speaking is limited to precise law and statute. Imagination is not allowed to take its scope. The advocate has always laying before him the line, the square, and the compass. These, it is his principal business to be continually applying to the subjects under debate.

For these reasons, it is clear, that the eloquence of the bar is of a much more limited, more sober and chastened kind, than that of popular assemblies; and for similar reasons, we must beware of considering even the judicial orations of Cicero or Demosthenes, as exact models of the manner of speaking which is adapted to the present state of the bar. It is necessary to warn young lawyers of this; because, though these were pleadings spoken in civil or criminal causes, yet, in fact, the nature of the bar anciently, both in Greece and Rome, allowed a much nearer approach to popular eloquence, than what it now does. This was owing chiefly to

two causes:

First, Because in the ancient judicial orations, strict law was much less an object of attention than it is become among us. In the days of Demosthenes and Cicero, the municipal statutes were few, simple, and general; and the decision of causes was trusted, in a great measure, to the equity and common sense of the judges. Eloquence, much more than jurisprudence, was the study of those who were to plead causes. Cicero somewhere says, that three

months study was sufficient to make any man a complete civilian; nay, it was thought that one might be a good pleader at the bar, who had never studied law at all. For there were among the Romans a set of men called pragmatici, whose office it was to give the orator all the law knowledge which the cause he was to plead required, and which be put into that popular form, and dressed up with those colours of eloquence, that were best fitted for influencing the judges before whom he spoke.

We may observe next, that the civil and criminal judges, both in Greece and Rome, were commonly much more numerous than they are with us, and formed a sort of popular assembly. The renowned tribunal of the Areopagus at Athens consisted of fifty judges at the least.* Some make it to consist of a great many more. When Socrates was condemned, by what court it is uncertain, we are informed that no fewer than 280 voted against him. In Rome, the Prætor, who was the proper judge both in civil and criminal causes, named, for every cause of moment, the Judices Selecti, as they were called, who were always numerous, and had the office and power of both judge and jury. In the famous cause of Milo, Cicero spoke to fifty-one Judices Selecti, and so had the advantage of addressing his whole pleading, not to one or a few learned judges of the point of law, as is the case with us, but to an assembly of Roman citizens. Hence all those arts of popular eloquence, which we find the Roman orator so frequently employing, and probably with much success. Hence tears and commiseration are so often made use of as the instruments of gaining a cause. Hence certain practices, which would be reckoned theatrical among us, were common at the Roman bar; such as introducing not only the accused person dressed in deep mourning, but presenting to the judges his family, and his young children, endea vouring to move them by their cries and tears.

For these reasons, on account of the wide difference between the ancient and modem state of the bar, to which we may add also the difference in the turn of ancient and modern eloquence, which I formerly took notice of, too strict an imitation of Cicero's manner of pleading would now be extremely injudicious. To great advantage he may still be studied by every speaker at the bar. In the address with which he opens his subject, and the insinuation he employs for gaining the favour of the judges; in the distinct arrangement of his facts; in the gracefulness of his narration; in the conduct and exposition of his arguments, he may and he ought to be imitated. A higher pattern cannot be set before us; but one who should imitate him also in his exaggeration and amplifications, in his diffuse and pompous declamation, and in his attempts, to raise passion, would now make himself almost as ridiculous at the bar, as if he should appear there in the Toga of a Roman lawyer.

Before I descend to more particular directions concerning the eloquence of the bar, I must be allowed to take notice, that the

*Vide Potter, Antiq. vol. i. p. 102.

foundation of a lawyer's reputation and success, must always be laid in a profound knowledge of his own profession. Nothing is of such consequence to him, or deserves more his deep and serious study. For whatever his abilities as a speaker may be, if his knowledge of the law be reckoned superficial, few will choose to commit their cause to him. Besides previous study, and a proper stock of knowledge attained, another thing highly material to the success of every pleader, is, a diligent and painful attention to every cause with which he is entrusted, so as to be thoroughly master of all the facts and circumstances relating to it. On this, the ancient rhetoricians insist with great earnestness, and justly represent it as a necessary basis to all the eloquence that can be exerted in pleading. Cicero tells us (under the character of Antonius, in the second book De Oratore) that he always conversed at full length with every client who came to consult him; that he took care there should be no witness to their conversation, in order that his client might explain himself more freely; that he was wont to start every objection, and to plead the cause of the adverse party with him, that he might come at the whole truth, and be fully prepared on every point of the business; and that, after the client had retired, he used to balance all the facts with himself, under three different characters, his own, that of the judge, and that of the advocate on the opposite side. He censures very severely those of the profession who decline taking so much trouble; taxing them not only with shameful negligence, but with dishonesty and breach of trust. To the same purpose Quintilian, in the eighth chapter of his last book, delivers a great many excellent rules concerning all the methods which a lawyer should employ for attaining the most thorough knowledge of the causes he is to plead; again and again recommending patience and attention in conversation with clients, and observing very sensibly, 'Non tam obest audire supervacua, quam ignorare necessaria. Frequenter enim et vulnus, et remedium, in iis orator inveniet quæ litigatori in neutram partem, habere momentum videbantur.+

Supposing an advocate to be thus prepared, with all the knowledge which the study of the law in general, and of that cause which he is to plead in particular, can furnish him, I must next ob

Equidem soleo dare operam, ut de sua quisque re me ipse doceat ; et nequis alius adsit, quo liberius loquatur; et agere adversarii causam, ut ille agat suam; et quicquid de sua re cogitaret, in medium proferat Itaque cùm ille decessit, tres personas unus sustineo, summa animi equitate; meam, adversarii, judices-Nonnulli dum operam suam multam existimari volunt, ut toto foro volitare, e accausa ad causam ire videantur, causas dicunt incognitas. In quo est illa quidem magna offensio, vel negligentiæ susceptis rebus, vel perfidiæ receptis; sed etiam illa, major opinione, quod nemo potest de ea re quam non novit, non tur pissime dicere."

To listen to something that is superfluous can do no hurt; whereas to be ignorant of something that is material, may be highly prejudicial. The advocate will frequently discover the weak side of a cause, and learn at the same time, what is the proper defence, from circumstances which, to the party himself, appeared to he of little or no moment.'