e brilliant
oration and another, when both made a great sensation at the time, while
only one survived in literature. Probably Charles James Fox was a more
effective speaker in the House of Commons than Edmund Burke, probably
Henry Clay was a more effective speaker in Congress than Daniel Webster;
but when the occasions on which their speeches were made are found
gradually to fade from the memory of men, why is it that the speeches of
Fox and Clay have no recognized position in literature, while those of
Burke and Webster are ranked with literary productions of the first
class? The reason is as really obvious as that which explains the
exceptional value of some of the efforts of the great orators of the
pulpit. Jeremy Taylor, Dr. South, and Dr. Barrow, different as they were
in temper and disposition, succeeded in "organizing" some masterpieces
in their special department of intellectual and moral activity; and the
same is true of Burke and Webster in the departments of legislation and
political science. The "occasion" was merely an opportunity for the
consolidation into a speech of the rare powers and attainments, the
large personality and affluent thought, which were the spiritual
possessions of the man who made it,--a speech which represented the
whole intellectual manhood of the speaker,--a manhood in which
knowledge, reason, imagination, and sensibility were all consolidated
under the directing power of will.

A pertinent example of the difference we have attempted to indicate may
be easily found in contrasting Fox's closing speech on the East India
Bill with Burke's on the same subject. For immediate effect on the House
of Commons, it ranks with the most masterly of Fox's Parliamentary
efforts. The hits on his opponents were all "telling." The _argumentum
ad hominem_, embodied in short, sharp statements, or startling
interrogatories, was never employed with more brilliant success. The
reasoning was rapid, compact, encumbered by no long enumeration of
facts, and, though somewhat unscrupulous here and there, was driven home
upon his adversaries with a skill that equalled its audacity. It may be
said that there is not a sentence in the whole speech which was not
calculated to sting a sleepy audience into attention, or to give
delight to a fatigued audience which still managed to keep its eyes and
minds wide open. Even in respect to the principles of liberty and
justice, which were the animating life of the bill, Fox'