figures are always just, and frequently sublime. His memory is perfect, his fluency uninterrupted, his voice well managed, his action though not altogether graceful, yet various and highly energetic. The eloquence of the pulpit has never among us been carried to such perfection, nor have we heard of any preacher in Great Britain to be compared with him in this respect.* The peculiar character of the church of England does not encourage the preacher to assume to himself that sort of authority with which the Roman Catholic considers himself invested, and deprives him of many topics which are to the other fruitful in eloquence." The English preacher addresses his equals on subjects equally important to all, with a tempered sobriety of discussion, which influences the understanding, but does not excite the feelings. A sermon, with us, is an appeal to the equal reason of our hearers, and to their equal information; the Scriptures and their interpretation are open to all alike, and we invite them to draw at the source."" And so great is the Our great preacher has been removed to a better world since the above tribute was paid to his extraordinary talents. It might be improved, but I leave it as originally written. 'November 19th, 1805. 16 He is also deprived of many of those topics which are to the other fruitful in eloquence. Except in express discourses on evidences, the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel are referred to with modesty and reserve, and its sanctions are looked upon with awe. The language upon these subjects is chastened and restrained, and were it on them to be dogmatic, to break out into any attempt at the sublime, it would rather create disgust. The controversial discourses long persisted in, have also given a cast rather of dialectics than of eloquence to many of the earlier pulpit compositions of the church of England. This is charged to our account, but need be so no longer; those questions are at rest. 17 Not so the French preachers; they broadly and directly undertake proofs of all those +Such are fasting, pennance, virginity, martyrdom, and all the opinions which lead to seclusion from the common duties of life, the high-wrought enthusiam that shuts up in the cloister, and drives into the desert, which makes of men more than men, and affords topics for enflaming the imagination upon ideal perfection. beauty and moral excellence of many of the best discourses of our English preachers, that if the alternative were to be chosen, either of writing in the manner of the best French preachers, or of adhering to the style of the best among our own, we ought not to hesitate a moment to determine not to make any change. But we are not put to this alternative; it is possible to unite the excellence of both manners, if we choose to undertake the necessary labour. All that is most desirable in pulpit eloquence might be acquired by our preachers, by a little addition to the zeal and ardour of their manner," and by doctrines which are most controverted, in such a manner as to overturn the faith of those they address, if they can reason at all. Let any man accustomed to the good sense and strict reasoning of the English divines, and the unassuming sobriety of their discussion, the dropping word that penetrates the hardest heart, look into any of the celebrated French preachers, particularly Bourdaloue upon the mysteries which he talks of much, or any other doctrine which he undertakes to prove, and he will probably rest contented with the manner of his own church. 18 The French composition in sermons turns upon quaint deductions from the mysteries of the Christian Religion, and upon severe and rigid ductrines built upon hard interpreta tions of Scripture; on these grounds they are most offensive to an English reader. Where their preachers take the broad and true grounds of the morality of the Gospel, they are often highly and truly eloquent; they always write in the form of orations. The English preachers, instead of the form of an oration, almost universally confine themselves to that of a dissertation. If the subject be argumentative, it is dry; if doctrinal, it turns upon evidences; if upon morals, it is well enforced, sometimes, floridly and poetically, but seldom rhetorically: it has every excellence except this. The French preachers on their mysterious doctrines are miserable reasoners, borrowing their best arguments from the authority of the fathers, and their other arguments from conceits and forced interpretations. 19 I should have read it ten times better, sir, answered Trim, but that my heart was so full. That was the very reason, Trim, replied my father, which has made thee read the sermon as well as thou hast done; and if the clergy of our church, continued my father, addressing himself to Dr. Slop, would take part in what they deliver, as deeply as this poor fellow hath done,-as their compositions are fine,-[I deny it, quoth Dr. Slop]—I maintain it, that the eloquence of our pulpits, with such subjects to inflame it, would be a model for the whole world :-But, alas! continued my father, and I own it, sir, with sorrow, that, like French politicians in this respect, what they gain in the cabinet they lose in the field. due attention to rhetorical composition, and rhetorical delivery.20 Both must go together: and both united to truth and good sense, would be attended with every desirable effect. They would awaken the inattentive, stimulate the fastidious, engage the public feelings, and take away from our churches the reproach of coldness and languor." How powerful this ardor is to excite others, may be observed in the zeal with which sectaries are attended who have often nothing else to recommend their discourses. The timid, the feeble, and the ignorant may be addressed in the language of terror: but a people whose minds are cultivated with all that knowledge and art can give, a nation of philosophers, requires to be influenced in another manner; they must be convinced by reason and evidence; they must be persuaded by an appeal to those feelings which are originally wrought into the texture of the human breast; "Twere a pity, quoth my uncle, that this should be lost. I like the sermon well, replied my father, 'tis dramatic,-and there is something in that way of writing, when skilfully managed, which catches the attention.-We preach much in that way with us, said Dr. Slop.—I know that very well, said my father, –but in a tone and manner, which disgusted Dr. Slop full as much as his assent, simply, could have pleased him.-Tristram Shandy, c. 17, Vol. II, p. 212. so Une observation assez singuliere, c'est que le commun des auditeurs regarde encore plus le predicateur qu'il ne l'écoute: les yeux ont leur maniere d'entendre, et fatiguent moins que l'ouie. Il importe donc de peindre la parole et de parler aux yeux. Besplas. Eloquence de la Chaire, p. 345. 23 In point of sermous, 'tis confest Our English clergy make the best; But this appears, we must confess, Not from the pulpit but the press. They manage with disjointed skill, The matter well, the manner ill; Byron and they must be excited by the taste of high wrought composition, and by that just and magnificent eloquence which adorns the truth, and is capable of charming the ear of refinement itself."2 The paucity of orators in the fertile and magnificent field of religious discourses, particularly in Great Britain and Ireland, induces enquiry into the probable causes. Want of talents cannot be among those causes, because no where are higher talents to be found. Neither can they be owing to deficiency in learning and taste, for it may with truth.be asserted that Great Britain is the foremost in literature of all the nations upon earth: of which the works of learning that daily issue from the press give incontrovertible proof. The want of example, is the principal cause; and consequently the difficulty of breaking away from the beaten path, in favour of which, habit is prejudiced. But more of this deficiency in eloquence is to be attributed to the custom of reading the sermons, which has obtained exclusively in the church of England." The compo 22 Tria autem præstare debet pronunciatio: conciliet, persuadeat, moveat; quibus natura cohæret, ut etiam delectet. Conciliatio fere aut commendatione morum, (qui nescio quomodo ex voce etiam atque actione pellucent) aut orationis suavitate constat. Persuadendi vis asseveratione, quæ interim plus ipsis probationibus valet. An ista (inquit Callidio Cicero) si vera essent sic a te diccrentur ? et, tantum est, ut inflammares nostrós animos, somnum isto loco vix tenebamus. Fiducia igitur appareat et constantia, utique si auctoritas subest. Movendi autem ratio aut in representandis est, aut imitandis affectibus. Quint. 1, xi. c. 3. . 23 Pliny the younger had been desired by his friend Cerealis to read an oration of his before some of his friends. He is aware of the disadvantages, and thus represents them, 7. ii. ep. 19. Cereali suo. Neque enim me præterit, actiones, quæ recitantur; impetum, omnem calorem ac prope nomen suum perdere. ad hoc, dicentis gestus, incessus, discursus etiam, sition is suited to the talent of reading, which is not always highly improved, and the reading again is suited to the composition. Thus they mutually influence each other, and fashion has bound up in chains of ice, the warmth and the eloquence of our country. We do not always hear a sermon read impressively, but seldom indeed delivered rhetorically. To relinquish altogether the custom of reading sermons, would perhaps be on the whole an injurious innovation; even were it practicable. Reading is well calculated for examining the evidences of religion, for the discussion of moral duties, and for the explanation of difficult passages in Scripture. But without attempting any alteration in this so long established mode, it might be possible, were a change made only in the form of the pulpit, to bring about a most advantageous improvement to the style of preaching so as to place the reading of a discourse almost upon the footing of equal advantage with the delivery of it from memory. The pulpit, in its present form (as has been already observed), is most unfavourable for delivery." If then, instead of such a mass of buildingas is seen to encumber our churches-the clerk's desk, surmounted by the reading desk, and that by a towering omnibusque motibus animi consentaneus vigor corpris. Unde accidit ut hi qui sedentes agunt, quamvis illis maxima ex parte supersint eadem quæ stantibus, tamen hoc quod sedent quasi debilitentur et deprimantur. Recitantium vero præcipua pronunciationis adjumenta, oculi, manus, præpediuntur, quo minus mirum est, si auditorum intentio languescit, nullis extrinsecus aut blandimentis capta aut aculeis excitata. This whole passage, particularly the latter part, is a complete description of the English preacher, in ordinary. 24 Parte ferox, ardensque oculis, et sibila colla n. 5, 277. |