Burke exerted himself in conversation, and thus improved his powers of language in the method we have recommended. Dr. Johnson says of him in his oracular way:
“Burke is an extraordinary man. His stream of talk is perpetual; and he does not talk from any desire of distinction, but because his mind is full. He is the only man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame he has in the world. Take him up where you please, he is ready to meet you. No man of sense could meet him by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower without being convinced that he was the first man in England.”
MIRABEAU.
The career of Mirabeau more resembles a strange romance than a sober history. He was of a good family, but during his childhood and early manhood his father treated him like a brute. His very appearance was peculiar. His head was of enormous size, his body so much misshapen that his father, who persecuted him for his deformity, declared that he looked more like a monster than a human being. The whole of his early life presents a picture of dreariness and misery exceeding that of almost any other man who has risen to greatness. Several times he was imprisoned—once for three years and a half—by order of his unnatural parent. Finally he began to use his pen, and soon won general admiration. His father, having failed to crush him, now became reconciled, and allowed him to assume the family name, which he had not permitted before. By this time he had a wide experience of vice, and was deeply in debt. His struggles for several years were still severe.
But at length the great revolution came, and he found his true element. The powers of speech which had already been displayed to a limited extent, were now exercised in a noble field. The people soon recognized in him the qualities necessary for a leader, and elected him to the General Assembly of France. Here he was feared and respected by all. He had no party to support him, but worked alone, and often by the mere force of his genius bent the Assembly to his will. During his whole career there, he was not an extremist, and for a time before his death was engaged in upholding the crown and the cause of constitutional government against the party of anarchy and death. This lost him his unbounded popularity with the fickle populace of Paris, and they began to shout for his blood. He was charged in the Assembly with corruption, and treason to the cause of liberty. This only prepared the way for his triumph. The very tree was marked on which he was to be hung. But he did not quail before the storm. When he reached the hall, he found himself in the midst of determined enemies already drunk with blood, and with no friend who dared to speak on his behalf. But the mere force of eloquence prevailed. He spoke in words of such power that the noisy multitude was stilled, and the tide turned.
After this triumph he took part in every measure, and was really the guiding power of the state. The king leaned on him as the only stay of his reign, and the moderate of every party began to look to him as the hope of France. Sometimes he spoke five times in one day, and at the sound of his magical voice the anarchical Assembly was hushed into reverence and submission. But his exertions were beyond his strength. At last he was prostrated. Every hour the king sent to enquire of his health, and bulletins of his state were posted in the streets. It seemed as if the destiny of France was to be decided in his sick chamber. He died, and the whole nation mourned, as well it might, for no other hand than his could hold back the reign of terror. It is indeed a problem whether that terrible tragedy would not have been prevented, if he had but lived a few months longer.
Some of the speeches of this remarkable man were recited, but in these he never attained his full power. A French writer well describes him:
“Mirabeau in the tribune was the most imposing of orators, an orator so consummate, that it is harder to say what he wanted than what he possessed.
“Mirabeau had a massive and square obesity of figure, thick lips, a forehead broad, bony, prominent; arched eyebrows, an eagle eye, cheeks flat, and somewhat fleshy, features full of pock holes and blotches, a voice of thunder, an enormous mass of hair, and the face of a lion.
“His manner as an orator is that of the great masters of antiquity, with an admirable energy of gesture, and a vehemence of diction which perhaps they had never reached.