The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-05-25
The Aftsr-Dianar Speeches of Americans.

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The Aftsr-Dianor Speeches Of Americans.
| 1t has often been debated whether it
| is to climate, to race, TO the influence
| of free institutions. or to some other
| subtle cause, that men owe the gift of
| eloquence. and in a little book called
Daniel Webster and His Contempora-
| Ties' it Is stated that the prince of Am
| erican orators was firm in his conviction
that, as a predisposing cause, climate
| outWeighed all the rest. Ii such be the
case. the climate of these islands is evil
IDENTITY less calculated to create good
speakers than that of the North Ameri-
can Continent, as among US there is not
one man fluent of tongue against ten to
| whom our kinsfolk in the United States
can point Take, for instance. that rar-
| est and, to Eng1ishmen. most difficult
accomplishment of after-dinner oratory,
and who that has attended apHbfic dim
ner in London and another in New
York can doubt upon which side the
Atlantic the superiority in this respect
lies? About quarter of century since
Richard Golden, then al his apogee as
one of the most persuasive and prac-
teal speakers in the HouseUf Commons,
CHANGED to pay a visit to Chicago, in
order to look after an Investment he had
made in the shares of the Illinois Cen
trail Railroad. There a complimentary
dinner was given 10 him, Mt which some
forty guests We're included. Among
them was fairly representative sprink-
hing of the bankers, merchants, lawyers,
spectators, and what not of that Won
derful young city; and, dinner being
over, speaking was freely INDUCED in,
the verdict of all present -Englishmen
Il A Eae.SxN hot ffa xsf
speeches of the evening came from
Richard Cobden's lips People were
wont, twenty years since, to regard
Charles Dickens as an after-dinner
speaker almost without a superior in
either hemisphere The last visit of the
great novelist to the United States suf-
feed, however, To dissipate the Illusion
under which his countrYmen We're labor
ing Finally, gentlemen. remarked
Charles Dickens, at the banquet given
to him in New York on April Is, 1868.
Il do not believe that, from every honest
mind. upon both s4des of the Atlantic,
there cannot be absent the conviction
chat it would be better for this globe to
be riven by an earthquake, fired by
comet overrun by an iceberg, and
abandoned to the Arctic FOX and bear, than
that it should present the spectacle of
these two great nations, each. of which
has in its own way done SO much for
freedom, being ever again afraye6@the
one against the other. -
Compare with the hyperbole of this
extrayagant, or, to use an American
ism, ''hifalutina elocution, the easy
grace and quiet dignity Of the speech
delivered, with admirable effect, by the
American Ambassador, Mr. James Rus
sell Lowell. at the dinnerrecentfy given
by the Institution of Civil Engineers.
There were Enghshmen present at that
dinner who-again to employ an Ameri-
canism--were well calculated ito hold
up their end of the plank. The House
OF Peers was represented by Lord Der
by and Lord Kimberley; the House of
Commons by Mr.. Bright, Sir Richard
Cross and Mr.. Childers. No one of or
binary culture who CHANGED to hear or
to read the speeches delivered by the
English Cabinet Ministers would-to use
a phrase of which Robert Southey was
veIy fond--have chad his mind scratch
ed by any one of them. Mr.. Bright.
indeed, could not altogether get away
from party politics, even upon that con-
fessedly neutral ground. But when Mr.
Lowell rose. there was in the accents,
the delivery. the voice, the manner. and
still more in the words of the speaker,
that which irresistibly engaged the fancy
and riveted the attention OF the hear
'ers. - From the London Telegraph.