The statement of the fact, however, sinks before the statement of the law, which requires immeasurably higher powers, and is a rarest gift, being in all great masters one and the same thing,—­in lawyers, nothing technical, but always some piece of common sense, alike interesting to laymen as to clerks.  Lord Mansfield’s merit is the merit of common sense.  It is the same quality we admire in Aristotle, Montaigne, Cervantes, or in Samuel Johnson, or Franklin.  Its application to law seems quite accidental.  Each of Mansfield’s famous decisions contains a level sentence or two, which hit the mark.  His sentences are not always finished to the eye, but are finished to the mind.  The sentences are involved, but a solid proposition is set forth, a true distinction is drawn.  They come from and they go to the sound human understanding; and I read, without surprise, that the black-letter lawyers of the day sneered at his “equitable decisions,” as if they were not also learned.  This, indeed, is what speech is for, to make the statement; and all that is called eloquence seems to me of little use, for the most part, to those who have it, but inestimable to such as have something to say.

Next to the knowledge of the fact and its law, is method, which constitutes the genius and efficiency of all remarkable men.  A crowd of men go up to Faneuil Hall; they are all pretty well acquainted with the object of the meeting; they have all read the facts in the same newspapers.  The orator possesses no information which his hearers have not; yet he teaches them to see the thing with his eyes.  By the new placing, the circumstances acquire new solidity and worth.  Every fact gains consequence by his naming it, and trifles become important.  His expressions fix themselves in men’s memories, and fly from mouth to mouth.  His mind has some new principle of order.  Where he looks, all things fly into their places.  What will he say next?  Let this man speak, and this man only.  By applying the habits of a higher style of thought to the common affairs of this world, he introduces beauty and magnificence wherever he goes.  Such a power was Burke’s, and of this genius we have had some brilliant examples in our own political and legal men.

Imagery.  The orator must be, to a certain extent, a poet.  We are such imaginative creatures, that nothing so works on the human mind, barbarous or civil, as a trope.  Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.  They feel as if they already possessed some new right and power over a fact, which they can detach, and so completely master in thought.  It is a wonderful aid to the memory, which carries away the image, and never loses it.  A popular assembly, like the House of Commons, or the French Chamber, or the American Congress, is commanded by these two powers,—­first by a fact, then by skill of statement.  Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won.