not mean that there is to be no exhibition of life or energy. On the contrary, this is usually a most essential thing in oratory. The precaution refers only to that affected energy or that excess of energy which overshoots its mark.

If we may draw any principle from these observations, it would seem to be that fundamental principle of all literary effort, Be natural; be true to yourself, to your audience, and to your theme. Fine language is well enough if it flows from lips familiar with its utterance. Sentiment is well enough if it springs from the heart. Fervor and enthusiasm are all right so long as they are sincere. Indeed, it is wholly useless to attempt to feign these things. 'Eloquence is not like a glove, to be put on and off at pleasure. Few men can be imposed upon by a display of false sentiment. Assume an emotion you do not feel and the chances are ten to one that the deception will be detected at once and resented. Betray an emotion that the occasion does not warrant and the result will be equally disastrous.

In the particular kind of oratory had in view in the present exercise, namely, the pleading of an advocate at the bar of justice, argument will naturally constitute the staple of the material. But, as the ultimate object is not merely to demonstrate truths, but to persuade juries to act according to those truths, other than purely argumentative elements can not be excluded: the plea is bound to take on more or less of the nature of an appeal. It is difficult to suggest subjects for this work. The best method of getting material is to conduct a mock trial. Another method is to try some historical character before an imaginary tribunal for certain alleged acts of his or hers.

We give below an extract from a speech made by Daniel Webster before a jury in 1830. J. F. Knapp and J. J. Knapp were charged with the murder of Captain Joseph White. J. J. Knapp confessed that one Richard Crowninshield had been hired by them to commit the murder, whereupon Crowninshield committed suicide. The confession was then withdrawn and the Knapps were indicted, with the result that they were convicted and executed. Webster spoke for the prosecution.

Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning or a hand in executing this deed of midnight assassination may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

This is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere, certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibits no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage.

...

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the blood-shot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime,

as an infernal nature, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock by soft and continued pressure till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! .

Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be

confessed, it will be confessed: there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.

EXERCISE LXIII.

ORATORY. THE LEGISLATURE.

Subjects:

Plea for International Copyright.

Needed Postal Legislation.

Restriction of Foreign Immigration. Shall the State License LotDistribution of Public Lands.

teries?

Spoken discourse ranges from the plainest talk to the most elaborate address. At the one extreme will be found the easy, familiar, colloquial style of conversation; at the other the lofty diction that accompanies formal, dignified oratory. But there are certain characteristics that run through all varieties and grades and serve to distinguish them from written discourse. From a mere grammatical and rhetorical standpoint greater looseness of structure is admissible and greater license generally. Occasionally constructions which would not pass in writing may be ventured upon here because the intonation of the voice and the whole manner of the speaker can redeem them from any possible charge of obscurity, weakness, or inelegance. Just as our everyday conversation is full of broken and unfinished sentences, so we may expect to find them in a speech where the speaker is supposed to adopt the suggestions of the occasion and to follow the impulses of his own emotions. Short sentences are to be chosen

rather than long, and all long ones should be simple and straightforward in construction. This is for clearness' sake, for a speaker can take no chances on that score. A reader can go back and read a sentence a second or third time if he does not understand it the first, but an auditor must understand it at once or not at all. For the same reason frequent repetition, which is objectionable in a book, is tolerable and even desirable in a speech. By this is meant a repetition of thought in a new form, though at times the repetition may extend to the words themselves and still be effective. And above all this we shall expect in spoken discourse a greater warmth of utterance, a freer display of emotion, and a fuller infusion of the speaker's personality.

In the last exercise we dealt with oratory as an instrument for protecting society by persuading men to fulfill the intent of the law. In the present exercise we deal with oratory of a broader scope that which

has for its aim the persuading of a recognized body of legislators to make, amend, modify, or repeal the laws by which civil institutions must stand or fall. This means in our country the oratory of the Senate and House of Representatives, of the State Assemblies and Legislatures, and various local Councils and Boards. There are numberless questions continually pressing upon the states and the nation that will afford a rich variety of material for orations. Nearly every city, village, and school-district, too, has under deliberation questions that are just as vital to its prosperity as these larger, national ones-questions of sewerage systems, railway franchises, street-paving contracts, improvement of highways, etc., etc. Or, if you are drawing up a