Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/370

 366 KIRWAN. The following passage, extracted from the Chironomia of the Rev. Gilbert Austin, the contemporary of Mr. Kir wan, himself an accomplished scholar and critic, an emi nent teacher of oratory, and a liberal and eloquent preacher of the established church, is a just and honourable tribute to the subject of this memoir. “The learned Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, Bourdaloue, Massillon, and we may add, Fléchier, in France, excelled in pulpit eloquence; and in Holland, amongst the reformed, Saurin. “To this, Great Britain has to compare the manly vigour, the correct reasoning, and the pure gospel excellence of many of her preachers; but little of eloquence. Her time is not yet arrived. No great pulpit orator, among her many learned and pious divines, has been celebrated in Great Britain. ONE has appeared in Ireland. That he is a great orator, the manner in which he is attended will alone evince. He, to use the expression of our great parliamentary orator, (Mr. Grattan) “ has broken in upon the slumbers of the pulpit.’ He is truly an extraordinary preacher: but yet cannot be esteemed a model for general imitation. His genius is too much sui generis, ardent, and uncontrolled; his manner zealous and decided; his doctrine rigid: but his composition is excellent; his arrangements, luminous; his invention, happy; his style, pure, and ad mirably varied, often most simple, often magnificent. His figures are always just and frequently sublime; his me mory is perfect; h i s fluency, uninterrupted; his voice well managed; his action, though not altogether graceful, yet various and energetic. The eloquence o f the pulpit has never among u s been carried t o such perfection; nor have we heard o f any preacher i n Great Britain t o b e compared with him i n this respect.” And i n a note, after quoting the description o f a con summate orator from Cicero, d e Char. Orat. cap. 84, Mr. Austin adds,- “All these circumstances, and others stronger than these, (perhaps owing t o the greater rarity o f perfect ora tors amongst us,) attend the great preacher alluded t o .