The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-02-05
BURKE, THE ORATOR.
DIXON'S LAST NOVEL. -.
By DR. THEODORE BRYANT KINGsBURY.

greatest philosophical statesman in
ali tho world. Edmund Burke, / am
disposed to moderate some express
sions. | claimed that he surpassed
all orators. and his speeches wera
greater than all the speeches OF tile
anclents or the moderns. | Go not
lessen my exalted admiration Of the
Incompatible Burke, eut l write 10
say | am not capable of forming j
correct Judgment of the great Greek
orators or of estimating wisely their
t.Xtant speeches. j have to read them
In TRANSACTIONS, being in the alleged
condition OF Shakespeare as given ny
his scholarly and highly gifted con-
temporary Rare Ben JonSorl---
knowing small Latin and less
Greek" No one can properly appre-
ciate or appraise poetry or eioauence
in translation. Perhaps it is for that
reason that haze SO long preferred
Milton to Dante, and several English
poets Tennyson especially. and also
Wordsworth, to Goethe. But % re-
turn to oratory. The most laudatofy
expressions concerning Greek ele-
quence are found in the pages Of
creek scholars of other nations and
critics of learning and high abilities.
All we'll informed readers know Of
the vast renown of the greatest creek
orators--The mistocles, Pericles, .Aes-
chimes. Lysias, Demosthenes. Flo
ouence at Athens was consurl0lata,
greater than that OF Rome, ana pos
sibly even greater than THAI of Lon
don, when Chatham. Burse, hN,
Pitt. Sheridan and other VERY ia
nous speakers, men Of stlaost re
sistless eloquence, who. AZ Milton
wrote of the greatest Greeks,
Welded at will that fierce demos
crate.
Shook the arsenal, and fu.nlinel ever
Greece
10 Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. :
I can not see the wealth and ooW-
or and exec lence of Greek eioGuencc
in translation as l see the great
qualities of Burke when | read his
masterful oratory. The marFeiiouS
powers, and the exquisite finish ON
Greek orations are SOMEWHAT lost
upon me- which are so apparent 20
the masters of the Crack language
who are also eminent for critical H.
sight and judgment. II you would
really correctly value any productiou
OF genius and consummate sRlti an,
art, you must read IT In the ofiginal
tongue. and have 1t verbatim ana
literatim and punctuatim as 1t was
spoken. The great historian Thu
cidides reports speeches of the very
lustrious Pericles. but they rail- 10
convey the right impression To even
the Greek reader, and mucn less 10
the English reader of translation into
his language and idiOm. And why 'iid
Thucidides fail? He is not charged
with inventing or nealecting the real
line of argument, but he fails 10 re-
produce the manner while giving at
tention TO the matter. And this WAS
done not through designed neglecF.
but because the historian had his plan
and style, and he made orations con-
form TO his own requirements. Lord
Macaulay--and no one is better quail
fled for opinion here--says that Ihu-
cid;des has not lattenlpted TO preserve
the style of the eminent Greek ora
tor. l quote: Throughout his work,
every speech on every subject. what
ever may have been the character or
the dialect of the speaker Is IN ex-
actIy the same form. The grave
King of Sparta. the famous dema-
,gue ct A,herk the general encour-
gine his army the captive supp1cat-
ing for his life. all are represented as
speakers in one UNMARRIED style--a
e,u a moreover. wholly unfit for ora
torical purposes" But more than this,
to show what an imperfect vehicle is
the report of Thucidjdes: His mode
OF reasoning is singularly eliptlcal,
i'm reality most consecutive, Yet III 3P~
pearance often ipcoherent. His mean
ing in itself sufficiently perplexing, IS
compressed into the fewes. possip G
words His great fondness for an
tithetical expression has not a little
conduced 10 this effect" This seems
TO show how insufficient is the great
historian as reporter OF an orator,
and what are the real points iii his
STYLE His own style is severely "oin-
= The orat.r seeks
more luminous, expanding expression
lou cSaxy hat a
such speeches were ever really del1v-
red. that the Greeks themselves would
not have understood them, and that
even rhe greatest Roman orator,
Cicero, himself a master of Greek,
complained of their obscurity. so l
conclude that l cannot institute a
reasonable q wise compar son between
the greatest modern orators and the
uost splendid Of the men of eloquence
in Greece hundreds of years before
Christ. / write to make one more
quotation from Macaulay. He appre-
ciates fully the grandeur, the spien-
dor of the highest Greek eloquence,
and notes q peculiar fact in connec-
ton with it--that it was produced III
comparative degradation and up
heavaIs Let us have his own words
as he writes of Athens. not in her
greatest power and glory" but when
..tha Athenian character and the
Athenian empire had sunk to de-
gradation." "At the time when the
little commonwealth achieved those
victories" in oratory. (which twenty
five eventful centuries have left uu-
equalled, eloQuence was In its IN
fancy. During these disas-
trous and gloomy years oratory wsss
advancing towards its highest excel
}ence. And it was when the moral.
the political, and the military charac-
ter of the people was most utterly de-
graded, it was when the viceroy of a
Macedonian sovereign gave law to
Greece, that the courts of Athens Wit
messed the most splendid contest OF
elouuence that the world has ever
known" Demosthenes was the great
est OF Greek orators, but was not
comparable to Pericles in statesman
ship and wisdom as a ruler Ii Is
certainly most remarkable that Greek
oratory reached its climax at time of
demora 'ization, disorder. and general
gloom. Says our great authority:
There is, indeed, remarkable CO.
Incidence between the progress of the
art of war and that of the art of
oratory among the Greeks" So we