Next, of a great master of eloquence in our own times—Charles James Fox, whom Lord Ossory describes as “one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed.” He was very young when his father, Henry, Lord Holland, finished his political career; but hearing from his childhood a constant conversation upon political subjects and the occurrences in the House of Commons, he was, both by nature and education, formed for a statesman. “His father delighted to cultivate his talents by argumentation and reasoning with him upon all subjects. He took his seat in the House of Commons before he was twenty-one, and very shortly began to show the dawn of those prodigious talents which he has since displayed. He was much caressed by the then Ministry, and appointed a Lord of the Admiralty, and soon promoted to the Treasury. Lord North (which he must ever since have repented) was inclined to turn him out upon some trivial occasion or difference; and soon afterwards the fatal quarrel with America commenced, Mr. Fox constantly opposing the absurd measures of administration, and rising by degrees to be the first man the House of Commons ever saw. His opposition continued from 1773 to 1782, when the Administration was fairly overturned by his powers; for even the great weight of ability, property, and influence that composed the Opposition, could never have effected that great work, if he had not acquired the absolute possession and influence of the House of Commons. He certainly deserved their confidence; for his political conduct had been fair, open, honest, and decided, against the system so fatally adopted by the Court. He resisted every temptation to be brought over by that system, however flattering to his ambition; for he must soon have been at the head of every thing. But I do not know whether his abilities were not the least extraordinary part about him. Perhaps that is saying too much; but he was full of good nature, good temper, and facility of disposition, disinterestedness with regard to himself, at the same time that his mind was fraught with the most noble sentiments and ideas upon all possible subjects. His understanding had the greatest scope I can form an idea of, his memory the most wonderful, his judgment the most true, his reasoning the most profound and acute, his eloquence the most rapid and persuasive.”
Scarcely any person has ever become a great debater without long practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. “During five whole sessions,” he used to say, “I spoke every night but one; and I regret only that I did not speak that night too.”
The model of a debate is that given by Milton in the opening of the second book of Paradise Lost.
Mr. Sharp tells of the first meetings of a society at a public school, in which two or three evenings were consumed in debating whether the floor should be covered with a sail-cloth or a carpet; and better practice was gained in these unimportant discussions than in those that soon followed,—on liberty, slavery, passive obedience, and tyrannicide. It has been truly said, that nothing is so unlike a battle as a review.
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has well illustrated a defect even in great orators, namely, nervousness; he says: “I doubt whether there has been any public speaker of the highest order of eloquence who has not felt an anxiety or apprehension, more or less actually painful, before rising to address an audience upon any very important subject on which he has meditated beforehand. This nervousness will, indeed, probably be proportioned to the amount of previous preparation, even though the necessities of reply, or the changeful temperament which characterises public assemblies, may compel the orator to modify, alter, perhaps wholly reject, what, in previous preparation, he had designed to say. The fact of preparation itself had impressed him with the dignity of the subject—with the responsibilities that devolve on an advocate from whom much is expected, on whose individual utterance results affecting the interests of many may depend. His imagination had been roused and warmed, and there is no imagination where there is no sensibility. Thus the orator had mentally surveyed, as it were, at a distance, the loftiest height of his argument; and now, when he is about to ascend to it, the awe of the altitude is felt.”
The late Marquis of Lansdowne one day remarked to Thomas Moore, that he hardly ever spoke in the House of Lords without feeling the approaches of some loss of self-possession, and found that the only way to surmount it was to talk on at all hazards. He added, what appears highly probable, that those commonplaces which most men accustomed to public speaking have ready cut and dry, to bring in on all occasions, were, he thought, in general used by them as a mode of getting out of those blank intervals, when they do not know what to say next, but, in the mean time, must say something.
Mr. John Scott Russell, the eminent engineer, gives the following practical hints: “In a large room, nearly square, the best place to speak from is near one corner, with the voice directed diagonally to the opposite corner. In all rooms of common forms, the lowest pitch of voice that will reach across the room will be most audible. In all such rooms, it is better to speak along the length of the room than across it; and a low ceiling will, cæteris paribus, convey the sound better than a high one. It is better, generally, to speak from pretty near a wall or pillar, than far away from it. It is desirable that the speaker should speak in the key-note of the room, and evenly, but not loud.”
To be well acquainted with the subject is of prime importance. Malone relates an amusing instance of failure in this respect in one of our greatest orators. Lord Chatham, when Mr. Pitt, on some occasion made a very long and able speech in the Privy Council relative to some naval matter. Every one present was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord Anson, who was by no means eloquent, being then at the head of the Admiralty, and differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, got up, and only said these words: “My Lords, Mr. Secretary is very eloquent, and has stated his own opinion very plausibly. I am no orator; and all I shall say is, that he knows nothing at all of what he has been talking about.”
Mr. Flood, the Irish orator, being told that he seemed to argue with somewhat less of his usual vigour when engaged on the wrong side of the question, happily replied that he “could not escape from the force of his own understanding.” This must be the origin of the shrewd observation, that some clever persons are “educated beyond their own understanding.”
Mr. Brougham, writing to the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay when the latter was at Cambridge University, urged the following, with a view to the great promise for public speaking which Macaulay then possessed, and of which Lord Grey had spoken in terms of the highest praise. “He takes his accounts from his son,” says Mr. Brougham; “but from all I know, and have learnt in other quarters, I doubt not that his judgment is well formed. Now, of course, you destine him for the Bar; and, assuming that this, and the public objects incidental to it, are in his views, I would fain impress upon you (and through you, upon him) a truth or two which experience has made me aware of, and which I would have given a great deal to have been acquainted with earlier in life from the experience of others.