The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-21 00:00:00

A PARISIAN DEMOSTHENES.

[From an amusing volume, entitled Rambling Notes amid
Reflections, suggested during a short, visit to Paris, in
Bt7,' ley Sir ARTHUR BROOKS FAULKHSR.]
Of the merits of the speech I hive said I could
form no clear opinion. But there was an affectation
of vehemence which sounded to my ears as any
thing but Demosthenie. The cadence was ex-
tremely monotonous, and seemed to me might have
been acquired at the schools of music and declama-
tion, which one sees so often advertised, and where,
without knowing the fact, but only judging from the
designation of such schools, I should conclude a man
learns to pitch his tone, as some of the ancient
rhetoricians did, to some instrument, and flourish his
philippic in recitative. The President, whose sten-
terophonic voice rolls in volumes through the whole
chamber, (and he is certainly not sparing of its use)
hurries over a quantity of matter without the yetis-
lion of a single semitone, until he comes to the close
of his period, when all at once he practises a most
unharmonious elevation, which baffles all musical
notation, as much as description to convey the least
idea of. Sawing the air with both hands, he accom-
panied the movement with a species of emphatic
nutation, which unlike Jove's, 1 found did net
mean assent, but very much the contrary; if one
(night judge from the manner of the next speaker.
In fact, there is in the delivery of each declaimer so
much of the same sort of sound and gesticulation,
that having heard any given deputy, you may
have a fair notion of the manner of any other. The
vehemence of the parties sometimes rises so high,
that you would suppose a very little more, and they
must be all infallibly by the ears, when, as far as I
could make out, the orator nugis annulus was
purely declaiming de land caprimi. It is quite
proved, I think, by the practice of the Chamber,
chat the habit of speaking from written speeches is
:In insurmountable impediment to an effective ora-
tory. How different from the matter that flows
fresh from the feeling azid*asie taste of such a man
as Mr. Canning! Yetis the Chamber, I think, free
from one great fault, 'bitttoo common. of late years
among the speakers of our own country—l mean
coarse impertinence, a mistake which I have reason
to know has sometimes been occasioned by a false
conception of the vehemence of Demosthenes. At
least 1 knew one instance, and an awful one it was, of
this perversion in an I.P. of our House of Commons,
who so egregiously mistook his model as to think the
whole perfection of thundering his own, because he
could out-do all possible competition in the bitterest
virulence and veriest gall of sarcasm; never, during
this fancied representation of the Athenian, seeming
to recollect of what different materials the Greek
audience was composed, or how far our manners,
and the circumstances of society, exclude such
licence; apparently forgetting also that if Demos-
thenes was coarse, he never brandished his weapon
out of a conceited display, or, yahoo-like, to vent
the feculence of a malignant spirit. Though, like
some of his imitators, the Greek orator was well
known to have

" More appetite for werda than war,"

abuse was not the whole of his art. It was not worked
into his constitution, and established as his ruling
nature, by dint of daily and nightly cultivation. But it
would be doinginjtistice in one of the cases of which
1 more particularly speak, to charge the whole
he viperous vulgarity on Demosthenes. No example,
!iowever imposing, could have the power so success-
fully to pervert the judgment, supposing the heart
naturally kindly and generous, as in that instance.
The fault was originally inherent in his coarse
nature, and evidently must have been cultivated. as
ranch from the pure love of wounding the feelings
of others as the glory of standing single and un-
matched in the achievement. Did you ever know
an orator of this school move the more generous af-
fections. Never; and why ? To draw a tear frurnk
his auditory would be as great a miracle as to shed
one himself; and if you ask me why such sort at
speakers are tolerated even by the all-tolerating
spirit of our House of Commons, I can answer no
other way than by supposing such men afford the
same sort of entertainment that we receive from the
feats of a bull-dog or a prize-fighter. The brutality
of human nature ever delights in the most brutal ex-
hibitions. . Sarcasm is not worn by such men as. a
weapon for self-defence, and to be.drawn only on
occasions of unavoidable necessity, and even then
drawn with reluctance. In their view, badgering is
the whole art of eloquence—to be thought the best
human mastiff in the arena, the neplus,ultra of glory.
And all this I have known to carysrsdihseoei
wnorl
shirt,
'et,rnrhoteoemalt
and
sdnlbt
aeleeyitrili com-
monsnogo7
spoiled by praises in our youth, and the inexcusahle4
ne
n.
ce
igiatslevedsedcentebl
self
-idolatry.
r,pocaali
dnaer:sdernwya parents
rdienTe
impressingt:
Inhmoee tfforli
asruittisiffitl
uponci en
himt y
the whipping.
i .% el
inof
ta
talker
the r
of afbtlhe
description\irha tsyofso,aidfieifriretit;lffacaene
thesh
pe t
uflraongt
many proofs of the pains it cost him to train for the
encounter, and of the value he set upon the victory,
" changing," as an eloquent writer says on the same
subject," the character of a Christian deliberative
assembly into that of a stage for prize-fighters, vio-
lating at once the proprieties of public conduct, and
the rules of social decorum."

DRESS OF A BURMAN SOLDIER,.---" A
olinkgitoeveNr tioletiacieu:athseps:esatr,er:inos.n-
13urman soldier's dress, though plain, is far from unbe-
w
,oming. A black glazed jacket forms the principal vesture.
A silk wrapper is tied round his loins, leaving the limbs
hare. Over the shoulder is thrown ttsilk scarf, and th,
hair, tied in a knot on the top of the head, is encircled by
a re fillet.
izet, powder-horn, and shot-pouch, finish his equipment."
-- Two Years in Ara.
The
Friday night, on the garden gate of A
TKINS,
Esq., of Belvieu; Park, Cashel :
lloAw 18

" DUNARCALLT, JULY 6, 1827.
We are commanded and ordered by our Committ?e
residing at the above place to serve you with this notice,
end if you do not comply with the undermentioned obliga-
tions to treat you according as the law doth require.—
Atkins—we hope this will be a sufficient warning to you to
quit Belview; and after a minute investigation we find that
you have no claim whatsoever on that well-known gentle-
man Mr. Roe's property; and if you don't comply with thc•
above directions, you shall be served u Chadwick was the
other day._l am your friend, " JOHN J. ROCK."
" Here a figure is drawn to reprNent a man in his coffin.'
Carlow Morning Post.