The sacred flame of freedom has burned in the hearts of the Anglo-Saxon race through all the centuries of our history, and this spirit of freedom is reflected in our language and in our oratory.  There never have been wanting English orators when English liberty seemed to be imperiled; indeed, it may be said that the highest oratory has always been coincident with the deepest aspirations of freedom.

It is said of Pitt,—­the younger, I believe,—­that he was fired to oratory by reading the speeches in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost.’  These speeches—­especially those of Satan, the most human of the characters in this noble epic,—­when analyzed and traced to their source, are neither Hebrew nor Greek, but English to the core.  They are imbued with the English spirit, with the spirit of Cromwell, with the spirit that beat down oppression at Marston Moor, and ushered in a freer England at Naseby.  In the earlier Milton of a thousand years before, whether the work of Caedmon or of some other English muse, the same spirit is reflected in Anglo-Saxon words.  Milton’s Satan is more polished, better educated, thanks to Oxford and Cambridge, but the spirit is essentially one with that of the ruder poet; and this spirit, I maintain, is English.

The dry annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are occasionally lighted up with a gleam of true eloquence, as in the description of the battle of Brunanburh, which breaks forth into a pean of victory.  Under the year 991, there is mention of a battle at Maldon, between the English and the Danes, in which great heroism must have been displayed, for it inspired at the time one of the most patriotic outbursts of song to be found in the whole range of English literature.  During an enforced truce, because of a swollen stream that separated the two armies, a messenger is sent from the Danes to Byrhtnoth, leader of the English forces, with a proposition to purchase peace with English gold.  Byrhtnoth, angry and resolute, gave him this answer:—­

“Hearest thou, pirate, what this folk sayeth?  They will give you spears for tribute, weapons that will avail you nought in battle.  Messenger of the vikings, get thee back.  Take to thy people a sterner message, that here stands a fearless earl, who with his band wilt defend this land, the home of Aethelred, my prince, folk and fold.  Too base it seems to me that ye go without battle to your ships with our money, now that ye have come thus far into our country.  Ye shall not so easily obtain treasure.  Spear and sword, grim battle-play, shall decide between us ere we pay tribute.”

Though the battle was lost and Byrhtnoth slain, the spirit of the man is an English inheritance.  It is the same spirit that refused ship-money to Charles I., and tea-money to George III.

The encroachments of tyranny and the stealthier step of royal prerogative have shrunk before this spirit which through the centuries has inspired the noblest oratory of England and America.  It not only inspired the great orators of the mother country, it served at the same time as a bond of sympathy with the American colonies in their struggle for freedom.  Burke, throughout his great speech on Conciliation, never lost sight of this idea:—­