Year: 1860

counsel any imitation. but only an imbibine of the same spirit. Secondly, l know iron experience that nothing is half so successful

 in these time (bad though they bel as what has been formed on the Greek models. ] use a very poor instance in giving my owr experience, but do assure you that both ir courts of law and Parliament, and even tc taobs, have never made so much play (to use very modern phrase) as when I was translating from the Greek. I com posed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in the Lords, after reading and re- beating Demosthemes for three or four weeks and 1 composed it twenty times over at least and it certainly succeeded in very extraor. diuary degree, and far above any merits of it's own. This leads me to remark that, though speaking, with writing beforehand, is very we'll until the habit of easy speech is acquired, yet after that he can never write too much; this is quite clear It is laborious no doubt, and it is more difficult, beyond comparison, than speaking off-hand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any rate it is necessary to acquire the habit uf correct dction. But I go further, and say, even to the end of mans life he must pre- pare, word for word, most of his finer pass ages. Now, wonId he be great orator or no? In other words, would he have almost absolute power of doing good to mankind, in a free country or no? So he will this, he must follow these rules.

 Believe me truly yours, H. BRouGnAM"

 Here many of you may be ready to say, am but humble farmer or mechanic, and have no such lofty aspirations as this letter recommends. l shall enjoy no such advantages as Macauley did. I shall never shine in scnates, or in any public station j; so that the advice is not for me"

 Perhaps not, but how do you know? A great many young men have risen from the humbest circumstances, to posts of honor and usefulness, which they never dreamed of at your age, as I shall show in my next number and why should you take it for granted, that it is impossible for you What has been done can be done, and will be done by thousands, of no better prospects in car ly life than yours.

 At any rate, some of you are enjoying, have enjoyed educational privileges, which justify high hopes for the future, if you do yourselves justice, and ifyour aspirations are to make the most of your talents and educa- tion in doing good-in serving God and your generation, he may give you larger opportu- mites, than it has entered into your hearts to anticipate.

 You will never inherit the aristocratic ti- ties of Brougham and Macauley, Cat least I hope not but that will not hinder you from reaching eminenees as high, as if you conld You will not be called to defend the Queen of England under cruel prosecu- tion, as Brougham was but you may have great public responsibilities laid upon you :; and though no occasion may require you to compose the peroration of any speech twen- ty times, as he tells you he did, you will find that the only way to make the most promi- nent passages effective, you must, as he adds, even to the end of life, prepare them word for word beforehand. So did our Webster, so, I will venture to say, do our most distinguished orators and dcbaters now on the stage. Here and there spontaneous flash thrills our every nerve But for the most part, the finest periods which seem to the hearers to be thrown off from the spur of the moment, have been laboriously com posed, corrected and re-correctcd in the study. Nothing is highly finished without a great deal of labor Brougham and Ma cauley were among the hardest working men in the world.

 THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS.