received the science from Greece. To signify the speaker they used the word orator, derived from their own language. Some attempts were made to put in circulation the term oratoria, but they were resisted by their philological critics, and it is expressly censured and rejected by Quinctilian, as irreconcileable with their etymological analogies. (The want of the proper word is most strikingly discovered in the titles of Cicero's rhetorical works. At one time it led him to the necessity of assuming a part for the whole, and of styling four books of rhetoric a treatise upon invention. At another it compelled him tɔ embody the talent itself in the person of the speaker, and denominate his system of oratory, the orator.. The English language however has been less scrupulous in its adherence to the niceties of etymology. It has admitted the term oratory, which the Romans so fastidiously excluded, and annexes to it a modification of idea, distinct from that of the Grecian term, which has also been made English by adoption. Thus accumulating our riches from the united funds of Grecian genius and of Roman industry, we call rhetoric the science, and oratory the art of speaking well.

But to avoid misapprehension, a further explanation of the sense, in which the words are to be understood, appears to be necessary. Speech

is the most ordinary vehicle of communication between men, in all their relations with one another, whether of a public or private nature. By the art or science of speaking well, it is not intended to give rules for a system of private conversation in the domestic intercourse of a family, or in the ordinary associations of business or of friendship. There are doubtless frequent occasions, when the means of oratorical persuasion may be used, as seasonably and as usefully in private, as in public; between two individuals, as before a numerous audience.

Talk logic with acquaintance, that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk,

TAM. SHR.

says one of the characters in Shakspeare to his collegiate friend; and the advice is good. But it is not for this, that an artificial system of eloquence was ever constructed, or ought ever to be taught. A musician of taste and skill will habitually give to his voice, even in ordinary conversation, more

melodious and variegated inflexions, than a person, ignorant of his art; yet this is no reason for him to modulate his voice in conversation by the scale of his gamut. It is unquestionably true, that those move easiest, who have learnt to dance; but this is no reason for entering a room with the steps of a minuet, or walking the streets in a hornpipe. Equally absurd would it be to exercise in the familiar converse of life the practices of an orator by system; and we must be always understood, as having reference to public speaking, when we define oratory, as the art of speaking well.

Oratory then is an art. This point has not been seriously controverted in modern times though among the ancients it was debated with great warmth and ingenuity. A more important question however, which has been agitated in all ages, and will perhaps never be placed altogether beyond the reach of controversy, is, whether oratory can be numbered among the useful arts? Whether its tendencies are not as strong to the perversion, as to the improvement of men? Whether it has not more frequently been made an engine of evil, than of good to the world? Or whether at best it is not one of those frivolous

arts, which consists more in arbitrary, multifarious subdivisions and hard words, than in any real, practical utility. The question is to you, my friends, of so much importance, that in justice to you, to myself, and to the institution, under which I address you, I think a more ample consideration of its merits proper and necessary. Your time

and your talents are precious, not only to yourselves, but to your connexions, and to your country. They ought therefore not to be wasted upon any trifling or unprofitable, and much less to be mispent upon any mischievous pursuit. In the observations, which I shall now submit to you, it is my intention to suggest the peculiar utility of the art, in the situation of this country, and adapted to the circumstances, which may probably call upon many of you for its exercise, in the progress of your future lives.

In the state of society, which exists among us, 30me professional occupation is, to almost every man in the community, the requisition of necessity, as well as of duty. None of us liveth to himself; and as we live to our families, by the several relations and employments of domestic life, to our friends, by the intercourse of more intimate society and mutual good offices, so we live to our

L.

country and to mankind in general, by the performance of those services, and by the discharge of those labors, which belong to the profession we have chosen, as the occupation of our lives. Whatsoever it is incumbent upon a man to do it is surely expedient to do well. Now of the three learned professions, which more especially demand the preparatory discipline of a learned education, there are two, whose most important occupations consist in the act of public speaking. And who can doubt, but that in the sacred desk, or at the bar, the man, who speaks well, will enjoy a larger share of reputation, and be more useful to his fellow creatures, than the divine or the lawyer of equal learning and integrity, but unblest with the talent of oratory?

But the pulpit is especially the throne of modern eloquence. There it is, that speech is summoned to realize the fabled wonders of the orphean lyre. The preacher has no control over the will of his audience, other than the influence of his discourse. Yet, as the ambassador of Christ, it is his great and awful duty to call sinners to repentance. His only weapon is the voice; and with this he is to appal the guilty, and to reclaim the infidel; to rouse the indifferent, and to shame