§ 2.

History of

It may be expected that, before I proceed to treat of the Art in question, I should present the Rhetoric. reader with a sketch of its history. Little however is required to be said on this head, because the present is not one of those branches of study in which we can trace with interest a progressive improvement from age to age. It is one, on the contrary, to which more attention appears to have been paid, and in which greater proficiency is supposed to have been made, in the earliest days of Science and Literature, than at any

Aristotle.

Cicero.

subsequent period. Among the ancients, Aristotle, the earliest whose works are extant, may safely be pronounced to be also the best, of the systematic writers on Rhetoric. Cicero is hardly to be reckoned among the number; for he delighted so much more in the practice than in the theory of his art, that he is perpetually drawn off from the rigid Philosophical analysis of its principles, into discursive declamations, always eloquent indeed, and often highly interesting, but adverse to regularity of system, and frequently as unsatisfactory to the practical student as to the Philosopher. He abounds indeed with excellent practical remarks, though the best of them are scattered up and down his works with much irregularity; but his precepts, though of great weight, as being the result of experience, are not often traced up by him to first principles; and we are frequently left to guess, not only on what basis his rules are grounded, but in what cases they are applicable. Of this latter defect a remarkable instance will be hereafter cited.

Quinctilian is indeed a systematic writer; but cannot be considered as having much extended Quinctilian. the Philosophical views of his predecessors in

this department. He possessed much good sense, but this was tinctured with pedantry; - with that alagovela αλαζονεία as Aristotle calls it, which extends to an extravagant degree the province of the Art which he professes. A great part of his work indeed is a Treatise on education generally; in the conduct of which he was no mean proficient; for such was the importance attached to public speaking, even long after the downfall of the Republic had cut off the Orator from the hopes of attaining, through the means of this qualification, the highest political importance, that he who was nominally a Professor of Rhetoric, had in fact the most important branches of instruction intrusted to his care.

Many valuable maxims however are to be found in this author; but he wanted the profundity of thought and power of analysis which Aristotle possessed.

The writers on Rhetoric among the ancients whose works are lost, seem to have been numerous; but most of them appear to have confined themselves to a very narrow view of the subject; and to have been occupied, as Aristotle complains, with the minor details of style and arrangement, and with the sophistical tricks and petty artifices of the Pleader, instead of giving a masterly and comprehensive sketch of the essentials.

Among the moderns, few writers of ability have turned their thoughts to the subject; and but little has been added, either in respect of matter, or of system, to what the ancients have left us. It were most unjust however to leave unnoticed Dr. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric: a work which

Campbell.

does not enjoy indeed so high a degree of popular favour as Dr. Blair's, but is incomparably superior to it, not only in depth of thought and ingenious original research, but also in practical utility to the student. The title of Dr. Campbell's work has perhaps deterred many readers, who have concluded it to be more abstruse and less popular in its character than it really is. Amidst much however that is readily understood by any moderately intelligent reader, there is much also that calls for some exertion of thought, which the indolence of most readers refuses to bestow. And it must be owned that he also in some instances perplexes his readers by being perplexed himself, and bewildered in the discussion of questions through which he does not clearly see his way. His great defect, which not only leads him into occasional errors, but leaves many of his best ideas but imperfectly developed, is his ignorance and utter misconception of the nature and object of Logic; on which some remarks were made in my treatise on that Science. Rhetoric being in truth an off-shoot of Logic, that Rhetorician must labour under great disadvantages who is not only ill-acquainted with that system, but also utterly unconscious of his deficiency.

§ 3.

From a general view of the history of Rhetoric, two questions naturally suggest themselves, which on examination will be found very closely connected together: first, what is the cause of the careful and extensive cultivation, among the ancients, of an Art which the moderns have comparatively neglected; and secondly, whether the former or the latter are to be regarded as

the wiser in this respect;-in other words, whether Rhetoric be worth any diligent cultivation.

With regard to the first of these questions, the answer generally given is, that the nature of the Gov- Assiduous ernment in the ancient democratical States caus

cultivation

of Rhetoric by the an

cients.

ed a demand for public speakers, and for such speakers as should be able to gain influence not only with educated persons in dispassionate deliberation, but with a promiscuous multitude; and accordingly it is remarked, that the extinction of liberty brought with it, or at least brought after it, the decline of Eloquence; as is justly remarked (though in a courtly form) by the author of the dialogue on Oratory, which passes under the name of Tacitus: "Quid enim opus est longis in Senatu sententiis, cum optimi cito consentiant? quid, multis apud populum concionibus, cum de Republicâ non imperiti et multi deliberent, sed sapientissimus, et unus? ”

This account of the matter is undoubtedly correct as far as it goes; but the importance of public-speaking is so great, in our own, and all other countries that are not under a despotic Government, that the apparent neglect of the study of Rhetoric seems to require some further explanation. Part of this explanation may be supplied by the consideration, that the difference in this respect between the ancients and ourselves is not so great in reality as in appearance. When the only way of addressing the public was by orations, and when all political measures were debated in popular assemblies, the characters of Orator, Author, and Politician, almost entirely coincided; he who would communicate his ideas to the world, or would gain political power, and carry his legislative schemes in

The ancients hearers rather than readers.

to effect, was necessarily a Speaker; since, as Pericles is made to remark by Thucydides, "one who forms a judgment on any point, but cannot explain himself clearly to the people, might as well have never thought at all on the subject."* The consequence was, that almost all who sought, and all who professed to give, instruction, in the principles of Government, and the conduct of judicial proceedings, combined these, in their minds and in their practice, with the study of Rhetoric, which was necessary to give effect to all such attainments; and in time the Rhetorical writers (of whom Aristotle makes that complaint) came to consider the Science of Legislation and of Politics in general, as a part of their own Art.

Much therefore of what was formerly studied under the name of Rhetoric, is still, under other names, as generally and as diligently studied as ever.

Disavowal of

It cannot be denied however that a great difference, though less, as I have said, than might at first sight appear, does exist between the ancients and the moderns in this point; that what is strictly and properly called Rhetoric, is much less studied, at least less systematically studied, now, than formerly. Perhaps this also may be in some measure accounted for from the circumrhetorical stances which have been just noticed. Such is among the the distrust excited by any suspicion of Rhetorical artifice, that every speaker or writer who is anxious to carry his point, endeavours to disown or to keep out of sight any superiority of skill; and wishes to be considered as relying rather on the strength of his cause, and the soundness of his views, than on his inge

studies

moderns.