to solicit their good will in the moment of their animosity, instead of conciliating their kindness only exasperates their indignation. On such occasions the only possible chance of success, of which the speaker can avail himself, is to begin by diverting his hearers from their own thoughts. He must appease them with excuses; soothe them with apologies. He must allure the attention of their minds from objects of their aversion to images, in which they take delight; from characters, whom they despise or hate, to those, whom they love and revere. The real purpose of his discourse must sometimes be concealed; sometimes even disguised. An occasional incident occurring at the moment; a humorous anecdote, ingeniously pointed to the purpose; a smart retort or repartee, arising from the opponent's recent conclusion; an allusion to some object of sympathy to the audience; an address to the natural love of novelty, or to the taste for satire; all these may furnish the variety of expedients, which the speaker must seize with the suddenness of instinct, to commence a discourse by insinuation.

The introduction, whether direct or oblique, should be simple and unassuming in its language; avoiding all appearance of brilliancy, wit, or pol

ished elegance. These are graces, the display of which tend rather to prepossess the audience against a speaker, than in his favor. They raise that sort of temper, with which we observe a handsome person admiring himself before a glass. The natural kindness towards beauty is lost in the natural disgust at vanity. To excite the admiration of his audience the speaker must cautiously forbear to discover his own. But he may throw into it the whole powers of his mind, by energy of thought and dignity of sentiment; for nothing can so forcibly propitiate his hearer both to himself and to his discourse, as the exhibition of ideas, which command respect without the appearance of a solicitude to obtain it.

The introduction should avoid vulgarity; that is, a character, which would render it equally suitable for many other occasions, as for that, upon which it is used. It should not be com non nor convertible; that is, capable of being employed with little or no variation to the purpose of the speaker's antagonist, as usefully as to his own. It should not be too long; charged with no heavy redundancies; incumbered with no superfluous repetitions. It should shun all appearance of incongruity or of transposition; that is of tenden

cies opposite or even obviously varient from those of the discourse, which it precedes. Most of all should it beware of such a violation of these rules, as to spend itself upon purposes different from those of engaging the attention, the confidence, and the kindness of the hearer. To say that it ought to avoid exciting contrary emotions in his mind would be to suppose the speaker had lost his

senses.

In all cases where the speaker and his subject. are both fully known, as most frequently happens in our judicial courts, and in our deliberative assemblies, a formal exordium is generally unnecessary, and often improper. On some occasions of great urgency the omission of all introduction becomes itself a beauty of a high order, as you see exemplified in a distinguished manner by the first of Cicero's orations against Catiline. To this example the sublimest of poets must have alluded in that passage, where he compares the arch enemy, satan, practising in his temptation of Eve the arts of an orator of ancient times.

As when of old some orator renown'd

In Athens, or free Rome, where eloquence

Flourish'd (since mute) to some great cause addrest,
Stood in himself collected, while each part,

Motion, each act won audience, ere the tongue,
Sometimes in height began, as no delay

Of preface brooking, through his zeal of right.
So standing, moving, or to height up grown,
The tempter all impassion'd, thus began.

P. L. IX. 670.

As the magnitude of the cause, and the crisis of the moment point the judgment of the speaker to the cases, which exclude a regular exordium, they serve to indicate, that an elaborate introduction is most peculiarly adapted to demonstrative and pulpit discourses. The speaker stands alone. His subject generally depends upon his choice, and until announced by himself is generally unknown to his audience. There is something new to introduce, and no sudden or unexpected pressure of circumstance can lop away the preliminaries of custom. Indeed in the practice of modern oratory it may be laid down as a general rule, that extemporaneous speeches seldom can require, and written orations as seldom can forbear the formalities of a rhetorical exordium.

LECTURE XVIII.

NARRATION.

In the composition of a formal oratorical discourse the narration is the part, which immediately succeds the exordium. The object of the introduction being, as in my last lecture I explained, to conciliate the attention, the kindness, and the docility of the audience, when that has been accomplished, or at least attempted, so far as the situation and circumstances of the speaker have rendered it expedient, his next object must obviously be to give a general exposition of the facts, upon which he purposes to raise his argument.

The term itself, narration, is doubtless so well understood by you all, that it would derive no additional clearness or precision in your minds from a definition. But, in considering its application to the several classes of oratory, we shall find its char