olence of
prejudice, the arrogance, and, above all, the levity of the national
mind--presented, to an orator the most favourite, a scene like that of
an ocean always rocking with storms; like a wasp always angry; like a
lunatic, always coming out of a passion or preparing to go into one.
Well might Demosthenes prepare himself by sea-shore practice; in which
I conceive that his purpose must have been, not so much (according to
the common notion) to overcrow the noise of the forum, as to _stand
fire_ (if I may so express it) against the uproarious demonstrations
of mob fury.

This quality of an Athenian audience must very seriously have
interfered with the intellectual display of an orator. Not a word
could he venture to say in the way of censure towards the public
will--not even hypothetically to insinuate a fault; not a syllable
could he utter even in the way of dissent from the favourite
speculations of the moment. If he did, instantly a roar of menaces
recalled him to a sense even of personal danger. And, again, the mere
vivacity of his audience, requiring perpetual amusement and variety,
compelled a man, as great even as Demosthenes, to curtail his
arguments, and rarely, indeed, to pursue a theme with the requisite
fulness of development or illustration; a point in which the superior
dignity and the far less fluctuating mobility of the Roman mind gave
an immense advantage to Cicero.

Demosthenes, in spite of all the weaknesses which have been arrayed
against his memory by the hatred of his contemporaries, or by the
anti-republican feelings of such men as Mitford, was a great man and
an honest man. He rose above his countrymen. He despised, in some
measure, his audience; and, at length, in the palmy days of his
influence, he would insist on being heard; he would insist on telling
the truth, however unacceptable; he would not, like the great rout of
venal haranguers, lay any flattering unction to the capital distempers
of the public mind; he would point out their errors, and warn them of
their perils. But this upright character of the man, victorious over
his constitutional timidity, does but the more brightly illustrate the
local law and the tyranny of the public feeling. How often do we find
him, when on the brink of uttering 'odious truth,' obliged to pause,
and to propitiate his audience with deprecatory phrases, entreating
them to give him time for utterance, not to yell him down before they
had heard his sente