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somewhat less accurate, are expressed with equal force and elo

quence.

Je n'ai rien vu de barbare dans ce peuple; au contraire, ses formes ont quelque chose d'élégant et de doux qu'on ne retrouve point ailleurs. Jamais un cocher russe ne passe devant une femme, de quelque âge ou de quelque état qu'elle soit, sans la saleur, et la femme lui répond par une inclination de téte, qui est toujours noble et gracicuse. Un vieillard, qui ne pouvoit se faire entendre de moi, me montra la terre, puis le ciel, pour m'indiquer que l'une seroit bientôt pour lui, le chemin de l'autre. Je sais bien qu'on peut m'objecter, avec raison, de grandes atrocités que l'on rencontre dans l'histoire de Russie; mais, d'abord, j'en accuserois plutôt les boyards, dépravés par le despotisme qu'ils exerçoient ou qu'ils souffroient, que la nation elle-même.' III. 212.

Les Russes ne passent jamais devant une église sans faire le signe de la croix, et leur longue barbe ajoute beaucoup à l'expression religieuse de leur physionomic. Ils portent pour la plupart une grande robe bleue, serrée autour du corps par une ceinture rouge ;l'habit des femmes a aussi quelque chose d'asiatique, et l'on y remar que ce goût pour les couleurs vives qui nous vient des pays où le soleil est si beau, qu'on aime à faire ressortir son éclat par les objets qu'il éclaire. Je pris en peu de temps tellement de goût à ces habits orientaux, que je n'aimois pas à voir des Russes vêtus comme le reste des Européens. III. 206.

Le caractère de ce peuple est de ne craindre ni la fatigue, ni les souffrances physiques; il y a de la patience et de l'activité dans cette nation, de la gaîté et de la mélancolie. On y voit réunis les contrastes les plus frappans, et c'est ce qui peut en faire présager de grandes choses; car d'ordinaire, il n'y a que les êtres supérieurs qui possèdent des qualités opposées; les masses sont, pour la plupart,

d'une seule couleur.

Les Russes ont, selon moi, beaucoup plus de rapports avec les peuples du midi, ou plutôt de l'orient, qu'avec ceux du nord. Ce qu'ils ont d'Européen tient aux manières de la cour, les mêmes dans tous les pays; mais leur nature est orientale.' III. 209, 210.

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L'accueil des Russes est si obligeant, qu'on se croiroit, dès le premier jour, lié avec eux, et peut-être au bout de dix ans ne le seroit-on pas. Le silence russe est tout-à-fait extraordinaire; ce silence porte uniquement sur ce qui leur inspire un vif intérêt. Du reste, ils parlent tant qu'on veut; mais leur conversation ne vous apprend rien que leur politesse; elle ne trahit ni leurs sentimens ni leurs opinions. On les a souvent comparés à des François ; et cette comparaison me semble la plus fausse du monde. La flexibilité de leurs organes leur rend l'imitation en toutes choses très facile; ils sont Anglois, François, Allemands, dans leurs manières, selon que les circonstances les y appellent; mais ils ne cessent jamais d'être Russes, c'est-à-dire impétueux et réservés tout ensemble, plus capables de passion que d'amitié, plus fiers que délicats, plus dévots que vertueux,

plus braves que chevaleresques, et tellement violens dans leurs désirs, que rien ne peut les arrêter lorsqu'il s'agit de les satisfaire. Ils sont beaucoup plus hospitaliers que les François; mais la société ne consiste pas chez eux, comme chez nous, dans un cercle d'hommes et de femmes d'esprit, qui se plaisent à causer ensemble. On se réunit comme l'on va à une fête, pour trouver beaucoup de monde, pour avoir des fruits et des productions rares de l'Asie ou de l'Europe; pour entendre de la musique, pour jouer; enfin pour se donner des émotions vives par les objets extérieurs, plutôt que par l'esprit et l'âme: ils réservent l'usage de l'un et de l'autre pour les actions et non pour la société. D'ailleurs, comme ils sont, en général, très-peu instruits, ils trouvent peu de plaisir aux conversations sérieuses, et ne mettent point leur amour-propre à briller par l'esprit qu'on y peut montrer. La poésie, l'eloquence, la littérature, ne se rencontrent point encore en Russie; le luxe, la puissance et le courage sont les principaux objets de l'orgueil et de l'ambition; toutes les autres manières de se distinguer semblent encore efféminées et vaines à cette nation.-Un homme de beaucoup d'esprit disoit que la Russie ressembloit aux pièces de Shakspeare, où tout ce qui n'est pas faute est sublime, où tout ce qui n'est pas sublime est faute.' ÍII. 221–223.

But we must not indulge farther in these seducing quotations; and indeed must here break off, somewhat abruptly, our account of this interesting publication. The Dramatic essays which fill one volume, appear to us the least worthy of their authorwhose vocation indeed does not seem to have been for poetry. There is a translation of Prior's Nut-brown Maid, and another of one of Mr Bowles's Elegies; but nothing from Lord Byron, who is mentioned however in the Biography to have been the god of her idolatry. There are some prose pieces which are of great merit, and several of them very curious, as belonging to the early periods of the Revolution--we would specify particularly a little pamphlet, entitled, A quels signes peut on connoître quelle 'est l'opinion de la majorité de la nation?' published in 1792and which contains many suggestions still applicable to that nation, and likely to be applicable to it for many years to comic. It is, in fact, the difficulty of answering the question contained in this title, that renders all the political movements of the French people and government so full of uncertainty and peril.

It is an affliction, certainly, to be at the end of the works of such a writer-and to think that she was cut off at a period when her enlarged experience and matured talents were likely to be exerted with the greatest utility, and the state of the world was such as to hold out the fairest prospect of their not being exerted in vain. It is a cousolation, however, that she has done so much;-and her works will remain not only as a

VOL. XXXVI. NO. 71.

F

brilliant memorial of her own unrivalled genius, but as a proof that sound and comprehensive views were entertained, kind affections cultivated, and elegant pursuits followed out, through a period which posterity may be apt to regard as one of universal delirium and crime,-that the principles of genuine freedom, taste and morality, were not altogether extinct, even under the reign of terror and violence-and that one who lived through the whole of that agitating scene was the first, luminously to explain, and temperately and powerfully to impress, the great moral and political lessons which it should have taught to

mankind.

ART. V.

Euvres Completes de Demosthene et d'Eschine, eu Grec et en Français. Traduction de L'ABBE AUGER de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Paris. Nouvelle edition, revué et corrigée par J. PLANCHE, Professeur de Rhetorique au College Royal de Bourbon. Tomes III. IV. V. VI. et VII. Paris, Verdière. 1820.

IN N our former article upon the two first volumes of this work, we promised to resume our remarks upon the merits of the French translation, and to lay before the reader some specimens of an English version. But before we proceed to this conclusion of the discussion into which the appearance of Mr Planche's book has led us, we must be permitted to dwell yet a little upon a topic, in itself truly inexhaustible,-the prodigious merit of the immortal original. And we pursue this discourse the rather in these times, when a corrupt or a careless eloquence so greatly abounds, that there are but few publick speakers who give any attention to their art, excepting those who debase it by the ornaments of a most vicious taste. Not, indeed, that the two defects are often kept apart; for some men appear to bestow but little pains upon the preparation of the vilest composition that ever offended a classical ear, although it displays an endless variety of far-fetched thoughts, forced metaphors, unnatural expressions, and violent perversions of ordinary language;-in a word, it is worthless, without the poor merit of being elaborate; and affords a new instance how wide a departure may be made from nature with very little care, and how apt easy writing is to prove hard reading.

Among the sources of this corruption, may clearly be distinguished as the most fruitful, the habit of extempore speaking, acquired rapidly by persons who frequent popular assemblies, and, beginning at the wrong end, attempt to speak

before they have studied the art of oratory, or even duly stored their minds with the treasures of thought and of language, which can only be drawn from assiduous intercourse with the ancient and modern classics. The truth is, that a certain proficiency in publick speaking may be attained with nearly infallible certainty by any person who chuses to give himself the trouble of frequently trying it, and can harden himself against the pain of frequent failures. Complete self-possession and perfect fluency are thus acquired, almost mechanically, and with little or no reference to the talents of him who becomes possessed of them. If he is a man of no capacity, his speeches will of course be very bad; but, though he be a man of genius, they will not be eloquent. A sensible remark, or a fine image, may frequently occur; but the loose and slovenly and poor diction, the want of art in combining and disposing his ideas, the inability to bring out many of his thoughts, and the utter incompetency to present any of them in the best and most efficient form, will deprive such a speaker of all claims to the cha racter of an orator, and reduce him to the level of an ordinary talker. The same man, had he never spoken in publick, would have possessed the same powers of convincing or expounding, provided he were only called upon to exert them in conversation with one or two persons. Perhaps the habit of speaking may have taught him something of arrangement, and a few of the simplest methods of producing an impression; but beyond these first steps he cannot possibly proceed by this empirical process; and his diction is sure to be much worse than if he never had made the attempt,clumsy, redundant, incorrect, unlimited in quantity, but of no value. Such a speaker is never in want of a word, and hardly ever has one that is worth having. Sine hâc quidem conscientiâ' (says Quintilian, speaking of the habit of written composition) illa ipsa extempore dicendi facultas, inanem modo loquacitatem dabit, et verba in labris 'nascentia.' (X. iii.)

It is a very common error to call this natural eloquence; it is the reverse; it is neither natural nor eloquence. A person under the influence of strong passions or feelings, and pouring forth all that fills his mind, produces a powerful effect on his hearers, and frequently attains, without any art, the highest beauties of rhetoric. The language of the passions flows easily; but it is concise and simple, and the opposite of that wordiness which we have been describing. The untaught speaker, who is also unpractised, and utters according to the dictates of his feelings, now and then succeeds perfectly; but, in those instances, he would not be the less successful for having studied

the art; while that study would enable him to succeed equally in all that he delivers, and give him the same control over the feelings of others, whatever might be the state of his own. Herein, indeed, consists the value of the study; it enables a man to do at all times what Nature only teaches upon rare occasions.

Now, we cannot imagine any better corrective to the faults of which we are complaining in the eloquence of modern times, than the habitual contemplation of those exquisite models which the ancients have left us; and especially the more chaste beauties of Greek composition. Its perfect success, both in moving the audience to whom it was addressed, and the readers in all ages who studied it, cannot be denied; its superiority to all that has ever been produced in other countries is confessed. There may be some use, therefore, in observing how certainly it was the result of intense labour-labour previously bestowed to acquire the power, and the utmost care used in almost every exercise of that power. Without somewhat both of this discipline, and this sedulous attention, it would be as vain to think of emulating those divine originals, by dint of a habit of fluent speech attained through much careless practice, as to attempt painting like Raphael, without having learned to draw, and by the help of some mechanical contrivance.

The extreme pains which the most illustrious of the Greeks bestowed upon their compositions, are evinced by all the accounts transmitted to us of the course of education deemed requisite to form an orator, and by the well known anecdotes of the steps by which both Demosthenes, and, after his example, Cicero, and some of his contemporaries, trained themselves to rhetorical habits. But the ancient writers have left us some still more striking illustrations of this matter. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the exquisite finish given by Isocrates and Plato to their style, compares their works rather to pieces of fine chasing or sculpture, than of writing- realois dλæ γλυπίοις και τοξεύτοις εοικότας λογους. (De Struct. Orat. Sect. 25.) Perhaps the minuter workmanship of chasing, the sort of gemengraving which this seems to imply, may be thought more descriptive of the elaborate compositions of Isocrates, who was said to have employed more years in writing the panegyric on the Persian War alone, than Alexander took to conquer all Asia. Let it, however, be remembered, that this excessive labour, though allowed to have unfitted him for the forensic war(palestræ quam pugnæ magis accommodatus')-was never deemed incompatible with the highest excellence in oratory, at least with the cultivation of all its graces. 'Omnes dicendi veneres spelatus est,' says Quintilian (X. i. 3.); and Cicero

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