Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/416

 Some Hints on Public Speaking.

379

SOME HINTS ON PUBLIC SPEAKING. WHEN old George Stephenson, the engineer, was on one of his visits at Drayton, Sir Robert Peel's place, says a writer in the " Law Journal," an animated discussion took place between the old en gineer and Ur. Buckland, on one of his favorite theories as to the formation of coal. But the result was that Dr. Buckland, a much greater master of tongue fence than Mr. Stephenson, completely silenced him. Next morning, before breakfast, when he was walking in the grounds, Sir William Follett, the eminent lawyer, came up and asked him what he was thinking about. "Why, Sir William, I am thinking over that argument I had with Buckland last night. I know I am right, and that if I had only the command of words which he has, I'd have beaten him/' " Let me know all about it," said Sir William, " and I'll see what I can do for you." The two sat down in an arbor, and the astute lawyer made himself thoroughly acquainted with the points of the case, entering into it with all the zeal of an advocate about to plead the dearest interests of his client. After he had mastered the subject, Sir William rose up, rubbing his hands with glee, and said : " Now I am ready for him." Sir Robert Peel was made acquainted with the plan, and adroitly intro duced the subject of the controversy after dinner. The result was that in the argu ment which followed, the man of science was overcome by the man of law, and Sir William Follett had at all points the mastery over Dr. Buckland. " What do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert, laugh ing. " Why," said he, " I will only say this, that of all the powers above and under the earth, there seems to me to be no power so great as the gift of gab." The " gift of gab," or the art of speaking,

must always have an interest for lawyers as professional advocates. It is not merely for a knowledge of law that a client pays his lawyer. He pays him for his power of put ting his case persuasively, for his courage, his address, his conduct of the case, — in a word, for his advocacy. When Stephenson called it the " gift of gab," he was using a popular phrase, but one which has an ele ment of truth. It is a gift. The orator — the supreme orator — is born, not made. So John Bright thought, so many others have thought; but those who have read the life of Demosthenes, or Cicero, or Curran, or Lord Brougham, and noted the infinite pains which they bestowed on the cultiva tion of their natural gifts and the curing of their natural defects, will see that there is as much, if not more, in art than in nature. We all know the stories of Demosthenes haranguing the wild sea waves, to familiarize himself with the stormy Ecclesia, of his putting pebbles in his mouth to cure his stammering; but it is not so well known that his first attempt to speak was a com plete failure, that he shut himself up for two or three months together in a subterra nean. chamber in order to practice decla mation, that he wrote out Thucydides eight times to form his style, that he studied all the best rhetorical treatises, that he recited, under the direction of an actor, long passages from Sophocles and Euripides, that he ran uphill daily to strengthen his lungs and his voice. "Sic itur ad astra" Unquestionably, all these things, the whole art of rhetoric, is far too much neglected by modern speakers; indeed, it is not too much to say that neither in England nor America are there any orators extant as the ancients understood an orator, or even as Pitt or Canning, or Brougham understood the word. The Americans,