man and an orator, his name ranks among the most famous in our history, independent of the brilliant literary reputation which places him among the best classics of our Augustan age. Much of his rhetorical fame may certainly be ascribed to the merit of his written works; but had he never composed a page, he would still have come down to our times as one of the most able and eloquent men of whom this country could boast.

"They who look down upon even the purely ethical and purely metaphysical writings of Bolingbroke, would do well to show us any statesman or any orator, except perhaps Cicero, who in any age has brought to the senate the same resources of moral science, which even the failures of Bolingbroke, as a professed author on these subjects, prove him to have possessed; and it is hardly necessary to remark how vast an accession of force to his eloquence, whether in its argumentative, its pathetic, or its declamatory department, would have been gained by even far less skill, capacity, or practice, than he had as a moral philosopher, a student of the nature of the mind, or an expert logician.

"Accordingly, when all these accomplishments, joined to his strong natural sagacity, his penetrating acuteness, his extraordinary quickness of apprehension, a clearness of understanding, against which sophistry set itself up in vain, as the difficulties of the most complicated subjects in vain opposed his industry and his courage, with a fancy rich, lively, various beyond that of most men, a wit exuberant and sparkling, a vehemence of passion belonging to his whole temperament, even to his physical powers, came to be displayed before the assembly which he was to address, and when the mighty armentaria cali' were found under the command of one whose rich endowments of mind and whose ample stores of acquired virtue resided in a person of singularly animated countenance, at once beautiful and expressive, and made themselves heard in the strains of an unrivalled voice, it is easy to comprehend how vast, how irresistible must have been their impression.

"But all agree in describing the external qualities of his

oratory as perfect. A symmetrical, beautiful, and animated countenance, a noble and dignified person, a sonorous and flexible voice, action graceful and correct, though unstudied, gave an inexpressible charm to those who witnessed his extraordinary displays as spectators or critics, and armed his eloquence with resistless effect over those whom it was intended to sway, or persuade, or control. If the concurring accounts of witnesses, and the testimony to his merits borne by his writings, may be trusted, he must be pronounced to stand, upon the whole, at the head of modern orators. There may have been more measure and matured power in Pitt, more fire in the occasional bursts of Chatham, more unbridled vehemence, more intent reasoning in Fox, more deep-toned declamation in passages of Sheridan, more learned imagery in Burke, more wit and humour in Canning, but, as a whole, and taking in all rhetorical gifts, and all the orator's accomplishments, no one, perhaps hardly the union of several of them, can match what we are taught by tradition to admire in Bolingbroke's spoken eloquence, and what the study of his works makes us easily believe to be true."

St. John devoted much time to the study of metaphysics -a study which he thought absolutely essential to the man who seeks to make the minds of others acknowledge his own mind's dominion.

He recognised the fact that the law is a science, worthy of the most assiduous study, and the standard of excellence which he set for the legal profession was high, as will be seen from the following passage from his dissertation on the Study of History: "There have been lawyers that were orators, philosophers, historians: there have been Bacons and Clarendons, my lord. There will be none such any more, till, in some better age, true ambition, or the love of fame, prevails over avarice, and till men find leisure and encouragement to prepare themselves for the exercise of this profession, by climbing up to the vantage ground, so my Lord Bacon calls it, of science; instead of grovelling all their lives below, in a mean, but gainful application to all

the little arts of chicane. Till this happen, the profession of the law will scarce deserve to be ranked among the learned professions; and whenever it happens, one of the vantage grounds to which men must climb, is metaphysical, and the other historical, knowledge. They must pry into the secret recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws; and they must trace the laws of particular states, especially of their own, from the first rough sketches to the more perfect draughts, from the first causes or occasions that produced them, through all the effects, good and bad, that they produced."

St. John was well read in both ancient and modern history. He says upon the study of history:

"Man is the subject of every history; and to know him well we must see him and consider him, as history alone can present him to us, in every age, in every country, in every state, in life, and in death. History, therefore, of all kinds, of civilised and uncivilised, of ancient and modern nations, in short, all history that descends to a sufficient detail of human actions and characters, is useful to bring us acquainted with our species, nay, with ourselves. To teach and to inculcate the general principles of virtue, and the general rules of wisdom and good policy, which result from such details of actions and characters, comes for the most part, and always should come, expressly and directly into the design of those who are capable of giving such details; and therefore whilst they narrate as historians they hint often as philosophers, they put into our hands as it were, on every proper occasion, the end of a clue that serves to remind us of searching, and to guide in the search of that truth which the example before us either establishes or illustrates. If a writer neglects this part, we are able, however, to supply his neglect by our attention and industry, and when he gives us a good history of Peruvians or Mexicans, of Chinese or Tartars, of Muscovites or Negroes, we may blame him, but we must blame ourselves much more if we do not make it a good lesson of philosophy. This being the general use of history, it is not to be neglected. Every one

may make it who is able to read and to reflect on what he reads, and every one who makes it will find in his degree the benefit that arises from an early acquaintance contracted in this manner with mankind. We are not only passengers and sojourners in this world, but we are absolute strangers at the first steps we make in it. Our guides are often ignorant, often unfaithful. By this map of the country which history spreads before us, we may learn, if we please, to guide ourselves. In our journey through it we are beset on every side. We are besieged sometimes even in our strongest holds. Terrors and temptations, conducted by the passions of other men, assault us, and our own passions, which correspond with these, betray us. History is a collection of the journals of those who have travelled through the same country and been exposed to the same accidents, and their good and their ill success are equally instructive. In this pursuit of knowledge an immense field is spread to us general histories, sacred and profane; the histories of particular countries, particular events, particular orders, particular men; memorials, anecdotes, travels. But we must not ramble in this field without discernment or choice, nor even with these must we ramble too long.

"As soon as we have taken this general view of mankind, and of the course of human affairs in different ages and different parts of the world, we ought to apply, and, the shortness of human life considered, to confine ourselves almost entirely in our study of history to such histories as have an immediate relation to our professions, or to our rank and situation in the society to which we belong. Let me instance the profession of divinity as the noblest and the most important."

The foregoing extract is worthy of the closest study.

Sir Edward Creasy, a recent English writer, says of St. John: "I unhesitatingly place him at the head of all the prose writers in our language."

The beauty and propriety of his images and illustrations are never introduced for mere purposes of adornment, but to support the arguments they adorn. In a letter to Wind

may be thought to have surpassed them: the names of Demosthenes and Cicero stand, at this day, unrivalled in fame; and it would be held presumptuous and absurd to pretend to place any modern whatever in the same, or even in a nearly equal rank.

"It seems particularly surprising that Great Britain should not have made a more conspicuous figure in eloquence than it has hitherto attained; when we consider the enlightened, and, at the same time, the free and bold genius of the country, which seems not a little to favour oratory; and when we consider that, of all the polite nations, it alone possesses a popular government, or admits into the legislature such numerous assemblies as can be supposed to lie under the dominion of eloquence. Notwithstanding this advantage, it must be confessed that, in most parts of eloquence, we are undoubtedly inferior, not only to the Greeks and Romans by many degrees, but also to the French. We have philosophers, eminent and conspicuous, perhaps, beyond any nation, in all the parts of science. We have both taste. and erudition in a high degree. We have historians, we have poets of the greatest name; but of orators, of public speakers, how little have we to boast! And where are the monuments of their genius to be found! In every period we have had some who made a figure, by managing the debates in parliament; but that figure was commonly owing to their wisdom, or their experience in business, more than to their talent for oratory; and unless in some few instances, wherein the power of oratory has appeared, indeed, with much lustre, the art of parliamentary speaking rather obtained to several a temporary applause, than conferred upon any a lasting renown. At the bar, though questionless, we have many able pleaders, yet few or none of their pleadings have been thought worthy to be transmitted to posterity, or have commanded attention any longer than the cause which was the subject of them interested the public; while in France, the pleadings of Patru, in the former age, and those of Couching and D'Aguesseau, in later times, are read with pleasure, and are often quoted as examples of eloquence