The Irish standard., 1896-10-03
'GRli|BATMEN OR OF BLOQUBNCB
Justin nccarthy's RecoIlections Of
Orators Of the Past and
Present.
Among Them are o'connelI
Bright, rlacaulay and Wendell
Phillips.
Many of Them Who Waxed Sc
Eloquent are now Almost
Forgotten.

ElOqueHL are now ALMOST
Forgotten.
I}have just been reading book bear
| ing the title of Modern Political Ora
tions," edited by Mr.. Leopold Wagner,
and published by Mr. Fisher Unwin. This
book contains speeches of Lord Brough-
am, Macaulay w. J. Fox, Daniel O'Con-
nell, Golden, Bright, Lord Russell, Dis
raeli, Gladstone and number of other
men, some of whom still belong to po-
]itical life. The volume has for me a
great deal of personal interest. l GER
tainly have not heard all of the speak
ers, but I have heard most Of them. /
have heard nearly all the great speeches
of Mr.. Gladstone and Mr.. Disraeli, and
Lord Russell and Mr. Lowe, and re,
member we'll hearing two or three re-
ally powerful addresses from Lord
Broughan. Maoaulay never heard.
Daniel O'Connell once did hear-in a
manner, that is to say.
was once present as schoolboy
when O'Connell delivered an address to
the school in his very latest days-when
an old man sitting bumped up in a chair
muttered some words, not one of which
reached my ears-and that is my only
recollection OF the great orator to whom
Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton devoted such
rapturous praise in his poem "St. Ste
phen's,' and of whom Disraeli said that
no voice ever impressed the house of
commons more in his time than that OF
Sir Robert Peel, excepting only the
thrilling tones of O'Connell."
Golden and Bright, Of course, heard
again and again, and need hardly to
say that MIR. Gladstone's eloquence was
familiar to me. Sir Alexaner Cockburn
heard in some of his finest speeches,
and Sir Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and the
Earl of Ellenborough ''son the Polish in
surrection;" and Robert Lowe, Parnell,
and Bradlaugh, and Lord Randolph
Churchill, and Mr. John Morley, and Mr..
Chamberlain and all others Of our time
The orator seems to be in one sense
something like the actor. He lives only
on memory and tradition. Yet the actor
appears to me in one respect to have the
advantage. If he wins a foremost place
he is remembered, at all events as hav-
ing avon that foremost place. Very few
people living can now remember Edward
Kean, but as we all of us know Kean was
a great actor. Not many people are
aware that Lord Ellenborough and She'll
ranked amongst the greatest public
speakers of their time. w. ]. Fox, the
famous orator of free trade, is almost
altogether forgotten, and yet I have
heard old mem bers Of the house of COM
mons say that they were more enthralled
by his speeches than even those Of Cob
den and Bright.
There seems to be curious caprice
about the fame of an orator. Of course
the voice must naturally count for q
great deal and in voice and manner, w.
J. Fox was all but supreme, and vet he
is practically forgotten. think the
most interesting speaker, If may use
that phrase in a peculiar sense, to whom
I ever listened was Monsieur Thiers. Yet
his voice was bad, his manner was, bad,
his gestures were ungainly, but all the
same he held one Fascinated by the close
ness Of his reasoning and by the readi-
ness and the variety Of his illustrations.
have heard Berryer and I have heard
Jules Favre. Either of these men, If re-
garded as a mere rhetorician, was in
comparably superior to Monsieur Theirs,
but neither could, to my thinking, SO
completely engross the attention of an
audience as Monsieur Theirs, in spite of
all his defects could do.
f think the gretaest orator ever heard
was John. Bright. AS debater, he
could not compare with Gladstone, but
there. were occasions when he reached a
I higher atmosphere than even Mr.. Glad
stone had attained The volume to
which ! am now referring contains
sBright's famous speech ON the ssuspen-
sion OF the habeas corpus act in Ireland,
delivered in the house Of commons Feb.
~, 1866. This IS the speech which con-
LuIllS lllS 2lutuEU1dUlC1 rug
Mr. Bright's belief that .if the majority
OF the people Of Ireland, counted fairly
out, shad their will, and 4 they had the
power they would unmoor the island.
from its fastenings in the Atlantic and
move it; at least two thousand miles to
the. west. '.34 Many of Bright's friends and
admirers thought this the greatest
speech he had ever delivered. q. The late
Mr.. John Blake Dillon, the father Of Mr..
John Dillon Of our time, told me that he
had come to the house OF commons with
an almost hyperbolical iadmirat lion for
the eloquence OF Mr.. Bri light, " hom up to
that time he had never heard, and that
Mr. SBright's speech on that day went far
Sbeyond any estimate he had formed.
s5 L have sometimes in my Owl mind.
scompared the eloqueneess OF Mr.. Bright
wi til that $pf Mr.. Wendell Phillips, the
American orato ]. The men had little In
common except stately presence and Sex-
u,iissite voice. But i have sonnet times
rht that Mr. Nende ~ Phi I'd his
sorasof fT onl1binet to- s. rest ext ents the
sfsIsn snsY ~ the.
S,fy ids ai
SeeSff
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