and very limited duration--the general
character of the Parliamentary eloquence was ineffective.]

Throughout the whole of this review, the same 'moral,' if one might so
call it, would be apparent--viz. that in proportion as the oratory was
high and intellectual, did it travel out into the collateral questions
of less instant necessity, but more durable interest; and that, in
proportion as the Grecian necessity _was_ or was _not_ enforced by the
temper of the House, or by the pressure of public business--the
necessity which cripples the orator, by confining him within the
severe limits of the case before him--in that proportion had or had
not the oratory of past generations a surviving interest for modern
posterity. Nothing, in fact, so utterly effete--not even old law, or
old pharmacy, or old erroneous chemistry--nothing so insufferably dull
as political orations, unless when powerfully animated by that spirit
of generalisation which only gives the breath of life and the salt
which preserves from decay, through every age alike. The very
strongest proof, as well as exemplification of all which has been said
on Grecian oratory, may thus be found in the records of the British
senate.

And this, by the way, brings us round to an aspect of Grecian oratory
which has been rendered memorable, and forced upon our notice, in the
shape of a problem, by the most popular of our native historians--the
aspect, I mean, of Greek oratory in comparison with English. Hume has
an essay upon the subject; and the true answer to that essay will open
a wide field of truth to us. In this little paper, Hume assumes the
superiority of Grecian eloquence, as a thing admitted on all hands,
and requiring no proof. Not the proof of this point did he propose to
himself as his object; not even the illustration of it. No. All that,
Hume held to be superfluous. His object was, to investigate the causes
of this Grecian superiority; or, if _investigate_ is too pompous a
word for so slight a discussion, more properly, he inquired for the
cause as something that must naturally lie upon the surface.

What is the answer? First of all, before looking for causes, a man
should be sure of his facts. Now, as to the main fact at issue, I
utterly deny the superiority of Grecian eloquence. And, first of all,
I change the whole field of inquiry by shifting the comparison. The
Greek oratory is all political or judicial: we have those also; but
the best of our eloquen