No doubt, an oratorical education could be grounded in a general and equal study of the orators at large, taking the ancients either first or last, according to fancy.  Probably the greater number of students have fallen into this apparently obvious course.  Our present contention is, that it is better to make a thorough study of a proper selection of the greatest speeches, together with the most persuasive unspoken compositions.  This, however, is not all.  We are following the wisdom of the ancients, in insisting on the farther expedient of proceeding to the study of the great examples by the aid of an oratorical scheme.  At a very early stage of Oratory in Greece, its methods began to be studied, and, in the education of the orator, these methods were made to accompany the study of exemplary speeches.

The principles of Rhetoric at large, and of the Persuasive art in particular, have been elaborated by successive stages, and are now in a tolerable state of advancement.  The learner will choose the scheme that is judged best, and will endeavour to master it provisionally, before entering on the oratorical models; holding it open to amendment from time to time, as his education goes on.  The scheme and the examples mutually act and re-act:  the better the scheme, the more rapidly will the examples fructify; and the scheme will, in its turn, profit by the mastery of the details.

[NECESSITY OF AN ORATORICAL ANALYSIS.]

One great use of an oratorical analysis, as supplied by the teachers of Rhetoric, is to part off the different merits of a perfect oration; and to show which are to be extracted from the various exemplary orators.  One man excels in forcible arguments, another in the lucid array of facts; one is impressive and impassioned, another is quiet but circumspect.  Now, the benefit of studying on principle, instead of working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one’s strong points, and disregard the rest.  But it needs a preparatory analysis, in order to make the discrimination.  All that the uninstructed reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great:  this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for an oratorical disciple.

In the hazardous task of pursuing the illustration by naming the examples of oratory most suitable to commence with, I shall pass over living men, and choose from the past orators of our own country.  Without discussing minutely the respective merits of individuals, I am safe in selecting, as in every way suitable for our purpose, Burke, Fox, Erskine, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay.  Burke’s Speeches on America; Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny; Erskine on Stockdale, and on Hardy, Tooke, &c.; Canning on the Slave Trade; Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Denman in the Queen’s Trial; Macaulay on the Reform Bill,—­would comprise, in a moderate compass, a considerable range of oratorical excellence.  I doubt if any member