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FAILURE OF EFFORTS OF GENIUS.

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oblivion, and was at the mercy of every pilferer." He has elsewhere added, that in no shape did it contribute in any assignable degree to the emancipation of the press.

Lord Erskine has never been surpassed as a pleader before a jury, and we may compare with the above his mode of handling the same question. A specimen is subjoined:—

"From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of government, by the help of which the great commonwealths of mankind have founded their establishments; much less any of those useful applications of them to critical conjunctures, by which, from time to time, our own constitution, by the exertions of patriot citizens, has been brought back to its standard. Under such terrors, all the great lights of science and civilization must be extinguished; for men cannot communicate their free thoughts to one another with a lash held over their heads. It is the nature of everything that is great and useful, both in the animate and inanimate world, to be wild and irregular,—and we must be contented to take them with the alloys which belong to them, or live without them. Genius breaks from the fetters of criticism, but its wanderings are sanctioned by its majesty and wisdom when it advances in its path— subject it to the critic, and you tame it into dulness. Mighty rivers break down their banks in the winter, sweeping away to death the flocks which are fattened on the soil that they fertilize in the summer: the few may be saved by embankments from drowning, but the flocks must perish for hunger. Tempests occasionally shake our dwellings, and dissipate our commerce; but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which without them would stagnate into pestilence. In like manner Liberty herself, the last and best gift of God to his creatures, must be taken just as she is; you might pare her down into bashful regularity, and shape her into a perfect model of severe scrupulous law, but she would then be Liberty no longer; and you must be content to die under the lash of this inexorable justice which you had exchanged for the banners of Freedom."

In this passage, the orator appeals, in general language, to the fruits of unrestricted mental energy, assuming that these are so far evident that they need only be recalled to mind; he rebuts the common objections against Liberty, drawn from its abuses, by analogies from the material world; and, finally, he affirms his main theme in energetic language. It would have greatly strengthened his case with an English jury to have

cited the prosperity of England as growing with its successive acquisitions of freedom.

Let us now contrast these declamatory passages with the arguments that really procured the abolition of the censorship in 1693. We find, from Macaulay, that Blount, a notorious and unscrupulous writer of the time, laid a trap to ruin the licenser Bohun, a high Tory and high Churchman, by sending him an anonymous pamphlet full of high Tory and high Church principles, but with the title prefixed, "King William and Queen Mary, Conquerors." Bohun fell into the snare, licensed the pamphlet, and, in a few hours, discovered that the title-page had set all London in a flame; while, in four days, the House of Commons summoned him to the bar, and sent him to prison. The incident roused attention to the inexpediency of the censorship, which had hitherto passed unchallenged by the influential voices in Parliament. "But," says Macaulay, "the question had now assumed a new aspect; and the continuation of the Act was no longer regarded as a matter of course.

"A feeling in favor of the liberty of the press, a feeling not yet, it is true, of wide extent, or formidable intensity, began to show itself. The existing system, it was said, was prejudicial both to commerce and to learning. Could it be expected that any capitalist would advance the funds necessary for a great literary undertaking, or that any scholar would expend years of toil and research on such an undertaking, while it was possible that, at the last moment, the caprice, the malice, the folly of one man might frustrate the whole design? And was it certain that the law which so grievously restricted both the freedom of trade and the freedom of thought had really added to the security of the State? Had not recent experience proved that the licenser might himself be an enemy of their majesties, or, worse still, an absurd and perverse friend; that he might suppress a book of which it would be for their interest that every house in the country should have a copy, and that he might readily give his sanction to a libel which tended to make them hateful to their people, and which deserved to be torn and burned by the hand of Ketch? Had the government gained much by establishing a literary police which prevented Englishmen from having the History of the Bloody Circuit, and allowed them, by way of compensation, to read tracts which represented King William and Queen Mary as conquerors?"

Two years after the feeling in favor of the liberty of the press, which was fostered by the considerations quoted, had

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arisen, the obnoxious Licensing Act was condemned in the House of Commons and removed from the statute-books. At first, however, there was opposition from the Lords, and a conference took place between the Houses, at which the Commons defended their resolution. The paper they presented containing their reasons is described thus by Macaulay: "They pointed out, concisely, clearly, forcibly, and sometimes with a grave irony which is not unbecoming, the absurdities and iniquities of the statute which was about to expire. But all their objections will be found to relate to matters of detail. On the great question of principle, on the question whether the liberty of unlicensed printing be, on the whole, a blessing or a curse to society, not a word is said. The Licensing Act is condemned, not as a thing essentially evil, but on account of the petty grievances, the exactions, the jobs, the commercial restrictions, the domiciliary visits, which were incidental to it." After mentioning some of their petty, but convincing reasons, Macaulay adds, "Such were the arguments which did what Milton's Areopagitica had failed to do." Locke, it is said further in a note, is believed to have drawn up the paper. Macaulay goes on: "If this were so, it must be remembered that Locke wrote, not in his own name, but in the name of a multitude of plain country gentlemen and merchants, to whom his opinions touching the liberty of the press would probably have seemed strange and dangerous. We must suppose, therefore, that, with his usual prudence, he refrained from giving an exposition of his own views, and contented himself with putting into a neat and perspicuous form arguments suited to the capacity of the parliamentary majority."

87. We come now to the Means Of PERSUASION. The Means of Persuasion may be stated, in general terms, as the assimilating of the object desired with the prvncvples of action of those addressed.

The hearers are possessed of certain active dispositions,— tastes, likings, convictions, beliefs, or opinions, and the speaker must bring the object sought under the sweep of one or more of these; in other words, he must represent it as constituting

the very occasion for these active impulses to operate. See the example just quoted.

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Pitt's memorandum to George III, on Fox's East India Bill, describing it as a plan to take more than half the royal power, and by that means disable his Majesty for the rest of his reign," was a highly persuasive appeal.

88. For persuasive address, a thorough acquaintance with the subject is a chief requisite.

By being acquainted with a subject in all its bearings, we are qualified to adduce whatever there is in it to conciliate the good will of the hearers. People generally are most persuasive in their own walk; as the phrase is, "they have most to say themselves."

for

With a knowledge of the subject, and a knowledge of the hearers, the power of fitting the one to the other will depend on force of mind and extent of attainments and resources. Oratory consists, not in adducing a few of the obvious points of connection between the end desired and the convictions of those addressed, but in exhausting the whole range of pertinent considerations, near and remote.

It is necessary to persuasive force to be able to vary the language and illustrations. A fact that is inert when stated in one form, may strike home when put in another form. For example, Paley remarks, as an objection to the theory of moral sentiments, that there are no maxims in morality which "are absolutely and universally true; in other words, which do not bend to circumstances." The latter expression is an equivalent of the former, but more effectual for the purposes of the argument.

Many instances might be cited of verbal ingenuity in reconciling what seemed a hopeless clash between a speaker and his hearers. The following is from Burke's speech to his constituents at Bristol, where he vindicates the exercise of his own free judgment in Parliament, and reconciles it with his duties to his constituents themselves:—

"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest corre

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spondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his But, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

This may be compared to sailing in the wind's eye.

The ingenuity of the following retort of Whateley merits admiration:—"I have seen in a professedly argumentative work, a warning inserted against the alleged unsound doctrine contained in the Article 'Person' in Appendix to the Logic; which being unaccompanied by any proofs of unsoundness, may be regarded as a strong testimony to the unanswerable character of the reasons I have there adduced."

"Tyranny," says Chatham in his speech on the expulsion of Wilkes from the House of Commons, "tyranny is detestable in every shape; but in none is it so formidable as where it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants."

None of these surpasses in felicity Shelley's apology for the excesses of the first French Revolution:—" If the Revolution had been in every respect prosperous, then misrule and superstition would lose half their claims to our abhorrence, as fetters which the captive can unlock with the slightest motion of his fingers, and which do not eat with poisonous rust into the soul."

89. Everything relative to Persuasion comes under the principle just stated; nevertheless, for the full illustration of that principle, and for bringing out the variety of minute considerations pertinent to Oratory, it is proper to view the subject under the three following aspects:

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