New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-04-29
THE AFTER DINNER SPEECHES or IuERI.
GINS.

From The LD,idOi, Tciegragh.
IL has often been debated whether It is to climate.
To race t. the influence Of free institutions or to
some other subtle cause that men owe the gltt OF
eloduence and in a little book called Daniel Web
ster and his Contemporaries" 1t ~ stated that the
prince of American orators firm IN his conylc-
ton that a prcdIsposIng cause climate out
weighed all ihe rest If such De the ease, the cit,
mate Of these islands - evidently less calculated
to create good speakers than that of the North
American continent as among us there II not one
man fluent OF tongue against the ten TO whom our
kinsfolk in the United States can point. Take, FOR
instance, that rarest and, To Engsbmen, most
difficult accomplishment of after-dInner oratory.
and who that has attended a public dinner in Lon
don and another III New-lOrk can doubt upon
which side the Atlantic tho superiority IN this
respect lies About quarter OF "A century since
Richard Golden, then at his apOgco "a one OF the
most persuasive and practised speakers in the
House of Commons, CHANGED to pay visit 10 Chi
cago IN order to look after an Investment he had
made in the shares Of the Illinois Central Railroad
There a complimentary dinner was gwen to him. at
which some forty guests were included. Among
them was fairly representative sprinkling Of the
bankers. merchants, lawyers, speculatoTs ana what
not of that wonderful young city and, dinner be-
ing over, speaking freely INDUCED IN, the YER
diet of all present-Engl lshmen and Americans
being that the worst speeches of the evening came
from Richard CObdens lips. People were won't
twenty years since, TO regard Charles Dickens as an
aiter-dlnner speaker almost without superior III
either hemisphere. The last visit OF tho great novelist
to the United STAGES sullced however, to dlsslpate
the illusion under which his cOuntrymen were Ia
boring. FINALLY, gentlemen" remarked Charles
Dickens. at the banquet given to him III New York
on April Is, 1868. - do believe that. from every
honest mind, upon both sides of the Atlantic, there
cannot be absent the conviction that 1t would be
better for this globe to he riveu by an earthquake
fired by a comet. Overrun By an iceberg, and a1an-
dOned to the Arctic fox aud bear than that II
should present the spectacle of these two great ma
tons, each OF which has III Its own way done so
much for freedom, being ever again arrayod the one
against the other"
Compare with the hyperbole of this extravagant.
or to use Americ inism, "hifalutin" elocution,
the easy grace and quiet dignity OF tho speech de-
livered with admirable effect. by tho American Am
bassadOr Mr.. James Russell Lowell, at the dinner
recently gwen by the Institution OF Civil Engineers
There were Englishmen present at that dinner who
again TO employ an Americanlsm-were well cal
culated " to hold up their end of the plank" The
House of Peers was represented by Lord Derby and
Lord Kimberley; the House OF Commons by Mr..
Bright, Sir Richard Cross and Mr. Childers No one
of ordinary culture who CHANGED to hear or to read
the speeches delivered by the English Cabinet MIN
listers would-to use q phrase of which Robert
Southey was very fond-have had his mind
scratched by any one of them. Mr. Bright, indeed,
could not altogether get away from party politics,
even upon that coniessedly 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 irresstiby en-
gagged tho fancy and riveted the attention OF the
hearers