"Quem mirabantur Athenæ

Torrentem, et pleni moderantem fræna theatri."

JUV. SAT. X.

DEMOSTHENES has been styled, by one second only to himself in the gift of eloquence, "the Prince of Orators," and the rank which Tully conferred, the common consent of the learned of all succeeding ages has amply confirmed. How delightful would it be,

were we able to add, that while a "Prince among Orators," he was also a "Prince among Men." But truth, always most stubborn when it treats of great examples, shuts its book on the willing encomium. In the life of this Prince of Orators we see unhappily exemplified almost every thing which is a reproach to the reputation of this noble faculty, ORATORY. Every thing which is most calculated to

make its importance to the interests of society undervalued and despised. We see in Deinosthenes the first great instance of an orator without courage; an orator without honesty; an orator without principle. We see in the story of his life, eloquence alternately exalted and debased; now exerted for the noblest of purposes; the next moment silenced for the basest. We see a man whose philippics seem animated by the purest spirit of patriotism, afterwards sacrificing the honour of his country for a paltry bribe. We see a man who is a very hero in rousing others to fight bravely for their rights, the veriest poltroon himself in the field. We see finally a man who made it the pride of his life to animate others to die for their country, pusillanimously flying from the evils which environ him, and resolved to die for himself alone, seeking the coward's refuge in a suicide's grave. But, gentle reader, we forget that our business is not to expatiate, but to narrate.

His dastardly flight from the battle of Cheronæa--His skulking from the presence of Alexander, when commissioned to propitiate his clemency--

We dwell not on these facts; they are circumstances which display more of the weakness than of the wickedness of human nature.

When Harpalus, one of Alexander's officers, after betraying his master, and purloining his treasures, made his escape to Athens, it became a question with the Athenians whether they should give the traitorrobber shelter? Demosthenes, to whose opinion the people looked up with reverence, declared at first that they ought on no account to disgrace the character of the republic by affording refuge to one so infamous.

A day was appointed for the solemn decision of the matter, and in the mean time Harpalus, sensible how much his success depended on gaining over "the Prince of Orators" to his side, sought and obtained an opportunity of shewing Demosthenes the precious store of goodly things of which he had robbed his royal master. The orator was particularly struck with the sight of a massy golden cup, and poising it in his hand, he asked Harpalus, "What was its weight?" Harpalus replied, "To you it shall weigh twenty talents." When Demosthenes had departed, the cup was accordingly sent after him to his house, along with twenty talents in money. Next day, when the

case of Harpalus came on for consideration, Demosthenes appeared in the assembly with his throat muffled up, and when called on to speak, he made signs that he had lost his voice!

To the honour of Athens, this act of abominable venality was not allowed to pass unpunished. It was the cause of a fine of fifty talents being imposed on the orator, to avoid the payment of which he fled to Ægina, where he remained in exile until an emergency in the affairs of the republic produced his recal.

Demosthenes once observed to Phocion, who was at the head of a party of orators whom Philip had bribed over to his interest, that "the Athenians would one day murder him in a mad fit." "Take care," replied Phocion, "That they do not murder you in a sober one."

The warning was prophetical. The Athenians, as the price of their reconciliation with Antipater, were obliged to pass a decree, condemning Demosthenes to death. The orator fled for refuge to the temple of

Neptune at Celaura; but, inwardly convinced that no place could afford him a sanctuary from such vengeance as pursued him, he drank of poison, and died.

ISOCRATES.

The character of Isocrates persents the rare combination of a man, who, devoid of fear, is recorded to have passed through a long life, without having made an enemy of a single individual, by the boldness of his eloquence. When Theramenes, proscribed by the thirty tyrants, took refuge at the altar, Isocrates generously volunteered to plead in his defence at the hazard of his own life; and after the death of Socrates, when all his disciples, struck with dismay, fled into distant parts, Isocrates alone had the courage to appear in mourning in the public streets of Athens.

PERICLES.

The eloquence of Pericles, which his countrymen were wont to designate by the attribute of " thunder and lightning," must have mingled a wondrous share of the persuasive in its power over the passions. When Thucydides, the Milesian, one of his great opponents in state matters, was asked by Archidamus, King of Sparta, which was the better wrestler, Pericles or himself? "It is in vain," replied Thucydides, "to wrestle with that man. As often as I have cast him to the ground, he has as stoutly denied it; and when I would maintain that he had got the fall, he would as obstinately maintain the reverse; and so efficaciously withal, that he has made all who heard him, nay, the very spectators, believe him.”

EXTEMPORANEOUS ORATORY.

Gorgias of Leontium is the first orator we read of who possessed the gift so much prized in modern times, and so distinctly characteristic of modern eloquence--the gift of extemporaneous speaking. He made it his boast, that in a public assembly, he could on the instant declaim as fluently on any subject which might be proposed to him, as persons who had pondered over the subject ever so long, in gloomy caves, or by the wild sea-shore. This faculty of the Leontine orator exposed him, however, to a great disadvantage in the race of immortality with his contemporaries; a disadvantage from which the more recent of his successors in the same path have been happily exempted. There were no reporters in those days; and of the first of extempore speeches not one is now extant.

That the world has lost something by their passing into oblivion, we may fairly conclude from the effects which some of them are recorded to have produced. In the war between his native city, Leontium, and Syracuse, the citizens of the former sent Gorgias and Tesias as ambassadors to the Athenians, to supplicate their assistance. On their arrival at Athens, about the year 427, B. C., Gorgias made such an artful address to the passions of the Athenian people, on the grievances which he made them suppose they had suffered from the Syracusans, and on the advantages which they might reap from an alliance with his countrymen, that he prevailed on them to rush headlong into a war, that proved in the end more fatal to them, than any war in which they had ever engaged.