Daniel Webster may, perhaps, be considered to have been as nearly a natural orator as any this country has produced; and yet the students are few indeed that cultivate the art of oratory so laboriously as he did. Even his genius was mainly "science in disguise." He himself told the late Senator Fessenden that those figures and illustrations in his speeches, which had become so famous and been so often quoted, were, like Sheridan's wit, the result of previous study and preparation; and that that passage in his speech, wherein he describes the glory and the power of England—a passage known and quoted the world over—was conceived and fashioned while he was standing on the American side of the Niagara River, listening to the British drum-beats on the Canada shore.
From these examples we may learn that all truly noble orators in every age have trusted, not to inspiration, but to discipline; that great as were their natural abilities, they were much less than the ignorant rated them; that even the mightiest condescended to certain rules and methods of study by which the humblest are able to profit. It is good for the student to read of the studies and labors, the trials and conflicts, the difficulties and triumphs, of such men. It is to the ambitious student as the touch of mother earth was to Antæus in his struggle with Hercules—renewing his strength and reviving his flagging zeal. It rouses him to severer self-denial, to more assiduous study, to more self-sustaining confidence, and leads him to feel, like Themistocles of old, that "the trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep." These examples will teach him that God has set a price on every real and noble achievement; that success in oratory, as in everything else worth succeeding in, can be purchased only by pain and labor; and lastly and mainly, that those who would follow in their steps must give their days and nights to study, and emulate their greatness by emulating their love of labor.
Having endeavored to show that eloquence is not so much the result of natural gifts as of persevering and persistent labor, we now proceed to offer some suggestions as to the best means of improvement in forensic eloquence.
Socrates used to say that "all men are sufficiently eloquent in that which they understand"; but it would have been nearer truth to say that no man can be eloquent on a subject that he does not understand; nor on a subject that he does understand, unless he know how to form and polish his speech. The two essential things to the orator are something to say and a knowledge of how to say it. There is no art that can teach one to be eloquent without knowledge. Attention to style, diction, and all the arts of speech, can only assist the orator in setting off to advantage the stock of materials which he possesses; but the stock, the materials themselves, must be brought from other quarters than from rhetoric. In the first place, the advocate must have a profound knowledge of the law. On this depends his reputation and success, and nothing is of such consequence to him or deserves more his deep and serious study. In no other profession is superficial knowledge sooner detected or more ruthlessly exposed, and however brilliant as a speaker one may be, if it but become known that he is not well grounded in the law, few will choose to commit their cause to him. Besides a knowledge of the general principles of law, another thing highly material to the success of every advocate is a diligent and careful attention to every cause that is intrusted to him, so as to be thoroughly master of all the facts and circumstances relating to it, Cicero has left a very instructive record of the method pursued by him in the preparation of a cause for trial, and which we commend to the careful consideration of every student and lawyer. He 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 witnesses 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 adversary, and that of the judge. He censures very severely those of the profession who decline to take so much trouble; taxing them not only with shameful negligence, but with dishonesty and breach of trust. Quintilian likewise urged the necessity of carefully studying every cause, again and again recommending patience and attention in conversation with clients. "For," said he, "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 defense, from circumstances which to the party himself appeared to be of little or no moment." It is said of Rufus Choate, that he began to study a case the moment it was brought to him, and that he continued to study it till the day of trial.
Besides the knowledge of the law, the advocate must make himself acquainted with the general principles of logic. He must learn how to reason; how to draw conclusions from premises; how to found an argument. Without a knowledge of these things, no matter how copious his diction or elegant his delivery, his speeches will be little more than "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals."
The object of the advocate is chiefly to convince, and to do this he must satisfy the understanding. Solid argument and clear method must, therefore, be used. Nothing can be more erroneous than the idea that mere declamation is eloquence. It may have the show, but never can produce the effect; it "may tickle the ear," but it will never lead a judge to pass that judgment or a jury to adopt that side of the cause to which we seek to bring them. "There is no talent, I apprehend," said Dugald Stewart, "so essential to a public speaker as to be able to state clearly every step of those trains of thought by which he himself was led to the conclusions he wishes to establish." Especially is this true at the bar—the eloquence suited to which is of the calm and temperate kind, connected with close reasoning. Let the advocate take for his motto the advice of Quintilian, "To your expression be attentive; but about your matter be solicitous."
There was much wisdom in the remark of Sir William Jones, that "an elegant method of arranging the thoughts is powerful to persuade as well as to please." William Pitt, being asked how he acquired his talent for reply, answered at once that he owed it to the study of Aristotle's logic in early life, and the habit of applying its principles to all the discussions he met with in the works he read and the debates he witnessed. So it is said of Rufus Choate, "he was a thorough master of logic. He had studied it, not only in detail and immediate application of style and arrangement, but in its essence and origin."
The treatise best calculated to give the student an insight into the rules and principles of logic is that by Dr. Whately. The book recommended for the strengthening of the reasoning faculties is Chillingworth's "The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation," which was written in answer to the arguments of an adversary, and which has for years been considered the most perfect specimen of logical argument. Locke, than whom there could not be a more competent authority, proposes "for the attainment of right reasoning, the constant reading of Chillingworth"; and Lord Mansfield pronounced it the "perfection of reasoning."
Law and logic are the immediate and foundation studies of the advocate, but they are not all. Besides these he must drink deep at the fountains of science, philosophy, history and belles-lettres. These are the handmaids of oratory. They enlarge and liberalize the mind, embellish the style and afford illustrations, ideas, arguments, phrases, words, and last, tho not least, intellectual enthusiasm. There are few occasions, indeed, on which an advocate will not derive assistance from a cultivated taste and extensive knowledge. Their illustrations, allusions and principles, woven in with the weightier matters of the law, will make a pattern which will not fail to please and interest—will throw around the dry and uninteresting legal principles a freshness and charm that will fix the attention and fascinate the hearer.
But perhaps the chief benefit to be derived from their study is the improvement they afford to style and language. Cicero remarked in the third book De Oratore, that "all elegance of language, tho it receive a polish from the science of grammar, is yet augmented by the reading of orators and poets." From this source have all great orators drawn their copious and elegant diction and their polished and graceful style. Erskine is represented by an excellent authority as having spoken the finest and richest English ever spoken by an advocate. For two years prior to his call to the bar, he devoted himself exclusively to the study of literature, and probably no two years of his life were so profitably spent. In addition to his reading in prose, he devoted himself with great ardor to the study of Milton and Shakespeare. His biographers tell us that he committed a large part of the former to memory, and became so familiar with the latter "that he could almost, like Person, have held conversations on all subjects for days together in the phrases of the great English dramatist." Here it was that he acquired that fine choice of words, that rich and varied imagery, that sense of harmony in the structure of his sentences, that boldness of thought and magnificence of expression for which he was afterward so much distinguished. He could have drawn these things from no richer source. To use the words of Johnson, slightly varied, he who would excel in this noblest of arts must give his days and nights to the study of Milton and Shakespeare.