which, carefully reviewing and employing the rules and arguments which Aristotle has left us, he has also clearly defined his own notions of an orator, as to himself, his hearers, the occasion, and the subjectmatter; he has thus taught us most beautifully both by precept and example. The treatise De Oratore, is a dialogue, as are also his other rhetorical works, all which are of the greatest importance to the student of Rhetoric, in its historical bearings; in the Oratoria Partitiones, we have the best rules for the proper arrangement of the parts of the discourse so as to produce the desired effect upon his audience : and in the dialogue on famous orators, called Brutus, we have slight sketches of famous Greek and Roman orators down to his own day. But Cicero had always in view an audience, oral language, with all the aids of presence and occasion, and thus we find his very extended and valuable rhetorical treatises, not of practical application in this day of paper and print.

Quintilian, who was himself a professor of Rhetoric in the early days of the Roman empire, has defined Rhetoric to be "Scientia bene dicendi" (the science of speaking well), a meaning too broad entirely, since to speak well implies to speak correctly, thus invading Grammar; to think correctly, thus infringing the science of thought, and in part of metaphysics; and to reason correctly, thus implicating Logic, or the art of Reasoning.

If we turn from this unsatisfactory definition of Quintilian himself, to the practice of the schools in his time, we shall find such a wide extension of this branch of learning as his definition would lead us to expect. Rhetoric included among its branches philology-as far as it was known-a term equally vague, law, morals, politics, and other sciences, so that a nominal professor of Rhetoric had the greatest number, and the most important of the elementary studies in his charge. But in later times, as science after science became known and developed, this nomenclature became more real and stable.

During the decline and fall of the Western Empire, Rhetoric rested entirely upon the basis of Cicero and Quintilian, until it too became neglected, corrupted, and despised. The period of the middle ages gives us neither the names nor works of rhetorical writers; and when at length the dawn of the new era began to break in the thirteenth century, poetry and history and oratory seemed to undergo a new birth, and to pass through a weak but growing infancy. With the revival of letters, and the illumination of mind, Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics, Art, in its various forms, were more attractive to the new and ardent seekers for truth than rhetorical forms and systems of difficult rules. Aristotle was still buried; and only a few copies of Cicero existed in the monasteries of Europe.

But, at length, like a glorious inundation of the Nile, Greek letters began to flow westward, and to combat old Gothic traditions and scholastic superstitions; the press multiplied that classical learning, and Rhetoric was once again placed where Cicero and Quintilian had established it as a science.

It is not designed, in this work, to enter into a History of Rhetoric: it would neither be proper nor profitable; but this slight sketch will show that what we call Rhetoric at the present day is a science incident to a new order and condition of things; modified entirely from its Roman form and type, to suit the age, when writing and printing have usurped the place of formal oratory: when the writer may have no advantages of occasion, voice, gesture, magnetic enthusiasm, but must subject his discourse to the cool criticism of those who never saw him, and of those who were farthest from his thoughts when that discourse was prepared.

(8.) Modern errors.

And now, since the derivation of the word gives us, in this view of the subject, no clue to its present technical meaning; we must look to the best usage at the present day, as well as to a just classification of the sciences, for a clear and satisfactory definition, for without this we should do wrong to begin its

study: especially as this is one of a number of words standing for sciences and arts, which, though not exactly confounded together, overlap each other as it were, and thus leave debateable, double-garrisoned grounds on their confines, and give cause of perplexity, confusion, and error. Such are the words Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, and in more recent times, Philology.

Let us endeavour to explain then the true scope of these terms, and thus by elimination determine the exact meaning of Rhetoric.

Before doing this, however, it may not be amiss to remark that much error has crept into text-books of Rhetoric, by a one-sided view induced by a close and partisan study of one author or one modern school. It is for the generally received meaning of the term that we are to look.

As we have seen that a careful study of ancient writers would lead to systems obscure and unprofitable, because too comprehensive; so, a lover of Lord Bacon would find his practice inextricably entangled with the invalid Logic of the Organon, or the undue preponderance of the inductive philosophy: while the intense German student seems to be less concerned to find out the special scope of Rhetoric, than to discern the manner of its approximations to ethics, æsthetics, and metaphysics.

That there have been so many systems, and so

much rhetorical faction, has been of great injury to Rhetoric itself as a science, and has given point to the satire of an English poet, that

"All the Rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools."

If then we would keep clear of such errors, let us proceed to mark clearly the lines which divide Rhetoric from the other arts just mentioned.

(9.) Of the relations subsisting between Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric.

If we examine a written discourse, framed according to the laws of Rhetoric, we shall find it to consist of propositions and arguments, couched in correct language, and appropriately connected, arranged, and adorned for the purposes of conviction and persuasion.

Now what part of this composition belongs to Logic? Manifestly only the reasoning, the simple arguments, as to their validity or invalidity: i. e., the process of passing from two known judgments to a third which is dependent upon them, and grows out of their union. Not the invention of these arguments, which must depend upon a knowledge of the subjectmatter contained in them, and the purpose they are designed to effect, but the simple formula of putting