necessity in his heart, how speedily he will find vent for it, and with the applause of the assembly!  This balance is observed in the privatest intercourse.  Poor Tom never knew the time when the present occurrence was so trivial that he could tell what was passing in his mind without being checked for unseasonable speech; but let Bacon speak, and wise men would rather listen, though the revolution of kingdoms was on foot.  I have heard it reported of an eloquent preacher, whose voice is not yet forgotten in this city, that, on occasions of death or tragic disaster, which overspread the congregation with gloom, he ascended the pulpit with more than his usual alacrity, and, turning to his favorite lessons of devout and jubilant thankfulness, “Let us praise the Lord,” carried audience, mourners, and mourning along with him, and swept away all the impertinence of private sorrow with his hosannas and songs of praise.  Pepys says of Lord Clarendon, with whom “he is mad in love,” on his return from a conference, “I did never observe how much easier a man do speak when he knows all the company to be below him, than in him; for, though he spoke indeed excellent well, yet his manner and freedom of doing it, as if he played with it, and was informing only all the rest of the company, was mighty pretty.” [Diary, I. 469.]

This rivalry between the orator and the occasion is inevitable, and the occasion always yields to the eminence of the speaker; for a great man is the greatest of occasions.  Of course, the interest of the audience and of the orator conspire.  It is well with them only when his influence is complete; then only they are well pleased.  Especially, he consults his power by making instead of taking his theme.  If he should attempt to instruct the people in that which they already know, he would fail; but, by making them wise in that which he knows, he has the advantage of the assembly every moment.  Napoleon’s tactics of marching on the angle of an army, and always presenting a superiority of numbers, is the orator’s secret also.

The several talents which the orator employs, the splendid weapons which went to the equipment of Demosthenes, of AEchines, of Demades, the natural orator, of Fox, of Pitt, of Patrick Henry, of Adams, of Mirabeau, deserve a special enumeration.  We must not quite omit to name the principal pieces.

The orator, as we have seen, must be a substantial personality.  Then, first, he must have power of statement,—­must have the fact, and know how to tell it.  In any knot of men conversing on any subject, the person who knows most about it will have the ear of the company, if he wishes it, and lead the conversation,—­no matter what genius or distinction other men there present may have; and in any public assembly, him who has the facts, and can and will state them, people will listen to, though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse and ungraceful, though he stutters and screams.