that he has carefully measured.

After Erskine and Macaulay have yielded their first contribution to the
oratorical student, he could turn with profit to Burke, who has the
materials of oratory in the same high order as Macaulay, but who in the
employment of them so often miscarries--sometimes partially, at other
times wholly. It then becomes an exercise to distinguish his successes
from his failures; to resolve these into their elementary merits and
defects, according to the oratorical scheme. The close study of one or
two orations is still the preferable course; and the most profitable
transition from the Burke sample is to the selected speech or speeches
of some other orator as Canning or Brougham. All the time, the pupil
must be enlarging and improving his analytic scheme, which is the means
of keeping his mind to the point in hand, amid the distraction of the
orator's gorgeous material.

The subsequent stages of oratorical study are much plainer than the
commencement. A time comes when the pupil will roam freely over the
great field of oratory, modern and ancient, knowing more and more
exactly what to appropriate and what to neglect. He will be quite aware
of the necessity of rivalling the great masters in resources of
knowledge on the one hand, and of style on the other; but he will look
for these elsewhere, as well as in the professed orators.

[EXAMPLES OF PERSUASIVE ART.]

Moreover, as the persuasive art is exemplified in men that have never
been public speakers, the oratorical pupil will make a selection from
the most influential of this class. He will find, for example, in the
argumentative treatises of Johnson, in the Letters of Junius, in the
writings of Godwin, in Sydney Smith, in Bentham, in Cobbett, in Robert
Hall, in Fonblanque, in J.S. Mill, in Whately, and a host besides, the
exemplification of oratorical merits, together with materials that are
of value. It is understood, however, that the search for materials and
the acquisition of oratorical form, are not made to advantage on the
same lines, and, for this and other reasons, should not go together.

The extreme test of the principle of concentration as against equal
application, is the acquirement of Style, or the extending of our
resources of diction and expression in all its particulars. Being a
matter of endless minute details, we may feel ourselves at a loss to
compass it by the intensive study of a narrow and select example. Still,
with d