e had been thrown into prison, he would have been
an object of the general sympathy; that the liberty of the press would
have been regarded as in some degree involved in his sufferings; that he
would have found public liberality willing to alleviate his personal and
pecuniary difficulties; and that his punishment would have been
shortened, and his fine paid by the zeal of the national sympathy. Such
are the triumphs of eloquence. Such is the value of having a man of
genius for an advocate. Such is the importance to the man of genius
himself, of resolving to exert his highest powers for his client.
Mackintosh has been called an indolent man; and he has been hitherto but
little known. But he has at last discovered his own faculties, and he
has only to keep them in action to achieve the highest successes of the
bar; to fill the place of Erskine; and if no man can make Erskine
forgotten, at least make him unregretted. This speech also has taught
another lesson, and that lesson is, that the bar can be the theatre of
the highest rank of eloquence, and that all which is regarded as the
limit of forensic excellence, is a gratuitous degradation of its own
dignity. The sharp retort, the sly innuendo, the dexterous hint, the
hard, keen subtlety, the rough common sense, all valuable in their
degree, and all profitable to their possessor, are only of an inferior
grade. Let the true orator come forth, and the spruce pleader is
instantly flung into the background. Let the appeal of a powerful mind
be made to the jury, and all the small address, and practical skill, and
sly ingenuity, are dropped behind. The passion of the true orator
communicates its passion; his natural richness of conception fills the
spirit of his hearers; his power of producing new thoughts and giving
new shapes to acknowledged truths; his whole magnificence of mind
erecting and developing new views of human action as it moves along,
lead the feelings of men in a willing fascination until the charm is
complete. But after such a man, let the mere advocate stand up, and how
feebly does his voice fall on the ear, how dry are his facts, how
tedious his tricks, how lacklustre, empty, and vain are his contrivances
to produce conviction!

Mackintosh wants one grand quality for the jury,--he speaks like one who
thinks more of his argument than of his audience; he forgets the faces
before him, and is evidently poring over the images within. Though with
a visage of the colo