ef, but I think the most experienced
observers will agree that such expressions, if habitual, tend
to diminish and not to increase the just influence of the
lawyer. There was never a weightier advocate before New England
juries than Daniel Webster. Yet it is on record that he always
carefully abstained from any positiveness of assertion. He
introduced his weightiest arguments with such phrases as,
"It will be for the jury to consider," "The Court will judge,"
"It may, perhaps, be worth thinking of, gentlemen," or some
equivalent phrase by which he kept scrupulously off the ground
which belonged to the tribunal he was addressing. The tricks
of advocacy are not only no part of the advocate's duties,
but they are more likely to repel than to attract the hearers.
The function of the advocate in the court of justice, as thus
defined and limited, is tainted by no insincerity or hypocrisy.
It is as respectable, as lofty, and as indispensably necessary
as that of the judge himself.

In my opinion, the two most important things that a young
man can do to make himself a good public speaker are:

First. Constant and careful written translations from Latin
or Greek into English.

Second. Practice in a good debating society.

It has been said that all the greatest Parliamentary orators
of England are either men whom Lord North saw, or men who
saw Lord North--that is, men who were conspicuous as public
speakers in Lord North's youth, his contemporaries, and the
men who saw him as an old man when they were young themselves.
This would include Bolingbroke and would come down only to
the year of Lord John Russell's birth. So we should have
to add a few names, especially Gladstone, Disraeli, John Bright,
and Palmerston. There is no great Parliamentary orator in
England since Gladstone died. I once, a good many years ago,
studied the biographies of the men who belonged to that period
who were famous as great orators in Parliament or in Court,
to find, if I could, the secret of their power. With the
exception of Lord Erskine and of John Bright, I believe every
one of them trained himself by careful and constant translation
from Latin or Greek, and frequented a good debating society
in his youth.

Brougham trained himself for extemporaneous speaking in the
Speculative Society, the great theatre of debate for the University
of Edinburgh. He also improved his English style by translations
from the Greek, among which is hi