Speaking from Prepared Notes.

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the propositions in the speech may be of the best possible kind and suitable for any essay, they must not be too numerous to be all thoroughly consumed. How many propositions an orator can thus burn up in a speech, so as to leave only their ashes on the platform after having dispersed the bulk of them in the form. of exhilarating gas through the brains and being of his audience, depends on the quantity of fire which the orator carries about with him. The most powerful orations we have ever heard, however, have always consisted of a few ideas or principles in a state of intense combustion. Even practised speakers, it is known, err sometimes in preparing too much. Then, in the moment of delivery, the oratorical instinct shows itself in teaching them what to reject. They do so remorselessly, omitting two-thirds perhaps of what they intended to say, and substituting what occurs to them there and then. A novice, on the other hand, behaves differently. He cannot part with his fine passages ;' he remembers that there is a splendid image or a crushing sarcasm just a little in advance of him; he hurries on to get to it; and, when he does get to it, he is in the position of the poor tailor who, having won an elephant at a raffle, could neither leave the brute nor get anybody to take it off his hands. Sometimes a real orator makes a mistake of this kind. Every one knows the story of Burke's taking the carving-knife from under his coat and dashing it down on the floor of the House, to give effect to an appeal. The act was, doubtless, sublime in the rehearsal; but in the performance it did not do at all.

3. Another variety of oratory is when a discourse is committed to memory and delivered as it was learnt. This was the general practice of the ancient Greek and Roman orators, including Demosthenes and Cicero; and in ancient treatises on oratory, memorization is always distinguished as one of the parts of the orator's art. It has been the practice also of many of the greatest modern pulpit orators, as Bourdaloue and Massillon; and it is the practice of some of our best Parliamentary speakers on important occasions. Of orations that have taken a permanent place in literary history, as well as affected social history, nearly all have been of this kind, and for very obvious reasons. difficulty of committing to memory an entire discourse which one has previously composed on paper, is, as all experience shows, not so great as might at first appear. A few readings generally suffice for the practised speaker and preacher, even when he means to deliver the discourse verbatim. In such a case, it might seem as if all that was left as peculiar to the orator proper was his manner of delivering the discourse before the audience. But it is not so. In this species of oratory the maxim clarescit

The

urendo' is still valid; the only difference being that here the oratorical faculty or process is distributed over two momentsthe moment of cogitation or preparation, and that of delivery. In the written preparation of his speech in his study, the orator may be discerned. As has been already explained, the cogitation must be of the oratorical kind, and in obedience to those peculiar processes of mental association which regulate speech intended for an assembly; and the art of such cogitation depends on the possession of so much experience, that the vivid apprehension or the counterfeit presentment' of the audience shall act like its real presence. Peep into the room of an orator while he is writing his speech, and you will see him gesticulating, pacing up and down, attitudinizing perhaps before a looking-glass, ringing his sentences, one by one, like so many crown-pieces, to try if they will do, directing his eyes to the candlestick and addressing it as 'Mr. Speaker,' or fixing them on his grandfather's portrait as upon some imaginary bald head whom he expects to see in the front of the gallery. If, as modern physiology teaches, the imagination of a situation has for its physical equivalent in the human system an exact reproduction of the same nervous currents, though in a feebler degree, which attended the experience of the situation itself, there is no difficulty in seeing how the orator in his room can accurately anticipate his sensations in the pulpit or on the platform, and invent in accordance with them. Nor does it require much critical skill to distinguish, as regards even matter, between a composition intended to be spoken and one intended to be read. Orators acquire a peculiar cast of thought, distinguishing them from ordinary writers; and an orator himself will write differently if he is not to speak what he has written. What is required of the speaker from memory as distinct from the speaker from mere notes, is that his art of oratorical cogitation shall be more absolutely perfect. If he is to speak exactly what he takes with him, what he takes with him. must be absolutely of the right kind. It requires much and frequent practice to attain to such a perfect pre-apprehension of the conditions proper to thought intended to be publicly spoken. But it often is attained. There are men who ascend the pulpit or stand up in Parliament and deliver verbatim, and yet tellingly, what they have prepared and got by heart. Sometimes, by such a close adherence to what was prepared, there may be a loss of those casual and unforeseen effects which the actual incidents of any particular assemblage render possible to the extempore speaker. But there are obvious and splendid compensations. Among these, besides the higher quality of the matter, its greater logical connectedness, and the like, there is one compensation

Speaking from Memory.

483

having reference to the act of delivery itself. In the act of delivering a discourse from memory, the orator, being relieved from the care and anxiety involved in the invention of what he has to say, has his whole skill and energy let loose on the seemingly inferior but really momentous business of how he will say it. Inventio, Dispositio, Elocutio, Memoria, Pronuntiatioi. e., Invention, Arrangement, Style, Recollection, and Deliverysuch, according to Cicero, are the five essential portions of the orator's art; and seeing that, when a discourse is prepared beforehand, the three first of these processes, and part of the fourth, are already gone through in private, all that remains to be gone through in the face of the audience is the rest of the Memoria and the final feat of the Pronuntiatio. But, as the Pronuntiatio itself is a matter of so much importance (corresponding, in fact, with that Action, action, action,' which Demosthenes declared to be the all in all of the orator), and as it is susceptible of all degrees of better or worse, according to the attention given to it, it is a great thing for the orator at the moment to be able to concentrate his energy upon it alone. In delivering a discourse from memory, this may be done; if the speaker is sure of his memory, so as to have no anxiety on that head, all his oratorical excitement is expended in the Pronuntiatio. One might think that, as, in speaking by rote, this becomes but a mere mechanical process of repetition, the mind and the circumstances at the time would have little to do with success in it. But it is not so. The orator even pronounces' better or worse according as he is roused or perturbed; and consequently, the delivery of a memorized discourse on any particular occasion is dependent on the amount of excitement or perturbation supplied to the orator by the incidents of the occasion. Any one who has heard the same orator deliver the same oration twice, must know how dependent the orator is on external stimuli for his energy in elocution. Nay, it is a curious fact, that agitation from any quarter acts upon the orator as a stimulus while he is speaking his prepared harangue. His mind may even be wandering, may be thinking of something else than his own discourse; yet, if there is anything perturbing in these alien thoughts, that also is auxiliary. It is told of Bourdaloue, that, never having acquired confidence in his memory, and yet not feeling himself competent to speak except from memory, he was always in agony in the pulpit lest his memory should fail him; and yet not only was this not apparent, but those who knew the fact believed that, by a kind of transmutation of forces, the agony went to the benefit of his elocution, so that the audience was never more thrilled and breathless than when the preacher hardly knew what he said.

4. A fourth variety of oratory is when the discourse is not only prepared beforehand, but is read from the paper in the presence of the audience. This is by no means an uncommon form of oratory. In some deliberative assemblies orators read their speeches; the practice of reading sermons is all but universal; and sometimes at a public meeting a gentleman insists on his right of reading what he has to say. Then, in public lecturing, reading from manuscript is by far more frequent than any other plan. Respecting the propriety of the plan in most kinds of lecturing, and on various occasions where the exercise is still more properly that of oratory, there can be no doubt; but its propriety in general has been more questioned and is more questionable. It is the most miserable sight in the world to see a dull fellow with spectacles on stooping down over the readingdesk before a thousand people who can only see the crown of his head, never lifting his eyes, but holding the leaves of his manuscript with one hand, and preaching for three-quarters of an hour into his pocket-handkerchief, which he holds in the other. Such preaching is not to be tolerated, and little wonder that, out of revenge against it, the public have contracted a dislike to the habit of reading sermons. The dislike, however, is perhaps not quite fair. It admits of doubt whether the men who, when they read their sermons, seem to be reading them to their pocket-handkerchiefs, would have been very much more interesting or effective as preachers, if they had learned to commit their sermons to memory. A preacher who reads badly shows by that very fact that he is deficient in the oratorical gift; and, at all events, there have been examples of men in whom the practice of reading from the manuscript has not been inconsistent with the most transcendent powers of oratory. The British pulpit at the present day, both English and Scotch, furnishes many instances; and there are many more in the past history of oratory. Mirabeau delivered some of his tremendous speeches from the manuscriptsome of them even from the manuscripts of other persons handed to him just as he was ascending the tribune; and, though Dr. Chalmers now and then interpolated an extempore burst or a bit of familiar exposition in the course of his harangues, all his greatest speeches, with only one memorable exception, and all his great sermons without any exception, were read openly from his papers or note-books. In his case, at least, there was no incompatibility between the use of the paper and the highest and most unparalleled effects of oratory. In the country-parts of Scotland there is now, and there always has been, a strong popular prejudice against read sermons; but wherever Dr. Chalmers went, the prejudice was waived in his case as a matter of course. One

Read Speeches.

485 old woman in Fifeshire gave an excellent reason for this. Being taunted with the fact that she, who would not bear read sermons from any one else, would yet walk a dozen miles at any time to hear Dr. Chalmers preach, if he chanced to be in the neighbourhood, she justified herself by saying, 'Ay, ay, the Doctor reads; but O, it's fell readin' thon! Now the old woman's distinction between reading' and fell reading,' is exactly the distinction between less and more of the oratorical energy. The difference between the orator who has prepared his discourse by heart, and the orator who reads is that, in the one case the final and allimportant act of Pronuntiatio is from the memory, in the other it is from the manuscript. If the Pronuntiatio from the manuscript can be fell' enough, there ought to be no objection to it. There are perhaps reasons which prevent it from being so in general. The act of reading fixes both body and mind in an attitude unfavourable to the action upon them of those miscellaneous perturbing and rousing incidents which affect the disengaged speaker. Some orators overcome the difficulty; and not being slaves to the paper,' as the Scotch say, are able, while they read, to yield themselves up also to the full sensation of the place and the circumstances. In the case of Dr. Chalmers, it is worth remarking that the manuscripts from which he read were always, or nearly always, in short-hand. This permitted him, as it seemed, to take in a larger number of words per glance, as his eye crossed the paper, and so to have a larger proportion of his attention free for the aspect of his audience. Indeed, unless one was near him so as to observe the fact, it was difficult to know that he was reading. A favourite plan of his in a public meeting was to post himself where he could, as it were casually, rest his left hand, with his note-book in it, on the back of a chair or some such slight support, leaving his body, and especially his right arm, free for movement and gesticulation. Then, moving his head and shoulders in a peculiar acquired curve, one point of which brought him within eyeshot of the paper, he took his glances cunningly at regular intervals, delivering the result of each in a corresponding volley. It is needless to say that in his case there was never any chance that the matter he brought with him should be found unsuitable for the purposes of oratory. No man ever exemplified better than he did the peculiar genius, and, we might even say (using the word in a high sense), the peculiar knack of oratorical cogitation. With a mind very scientific in its structure and tendencies, so that, as we have said, he was never happy and never felt himself capable of proceeding unless he had some generalization or some principle in his hands; with much also of the poet in his feelings and habits of thought-he