fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that
Addison's failure as a speaker should have had no unfavorable effect on
his success as a politician. In our time, a man of high rank and great
fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold a
considerable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a mere
adventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should
in a few years become successively Under Secretary of State, Chief
Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some oratorical
talent. Addison, without high birth, and with little property, rose to a
post which Dukes, the heads of the great houses of Talbot, Russell, and
Bentinck, have thought it an honor to fill. Without opening his lips in
debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached.
And this he did before he had been nine years in Parliament. We must
look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar
circumstances in which that generation was placed. During the interval
which elapsed between the time when the Censorship of the Press ceased
and the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely reported,
literary talents were, to a public man, of much more importance, and
oratorical talents of much less importance, than in our time. At
present, the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an
argument is to introduce that fact or argument into a speech made in
Parliament. If a political tract were to appear superior to the Conduct
of the Allies, or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the circulation
of such a tract would be languid indeed when compared with the
circulation of every remarkable word uttered in the deliberations of the
legislature. A speech made in the House of Commons at four in the
morning is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speech made on the
Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and
Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, has to a
great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of
Anne. The best speech could then produce no effect except on those who
heard it. It was only by means of the press that the opinion of the
public without doors could be influenced; and the opinion of the public
without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country
governed by Parliaments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial
Parliaments. The pen was the