geance, or compass their sordid ends, forswearing themselves upon the gospels of God, to the end that injustice may prevail and the innocent be destroyed!"

Lord Brougham is also a great master of the art of ridicule, which becomes in his

hands a formidable weapon. He is obviously fond of it, and uses it often with marked effect. But we are bound to say that it is never ill-natured; there is no venom in the point. The wound may pain for a moment,

but it never festers. And there is often an

deputations from the merchants-courteous and pleasing answers from the Board-a speedy importation into Whitehall, to a large amount, of worthy knights representing the City-a quick return cargo of licenses and hints for cargoes-the whole craft and myspropriate perjuries and frauds-new life given tery of that license trade revived, with its ap-. to the drooping firms of dealers in forgery whom I formerly exposed to you-answered by corresponding activity in the Board of Trade, and its clerks-slips of the pen worth fifteen thousand pounds -judicious mistakes vertencies. Why, so happily constituted is -well considered oversights-elaborate inadthe Right Honorable Gentleman's understanding, that his very blunders are more precious than the accuracies of other men; and it is no metaphor, but a literal mercantile proposition to say, that it is better worth our while to err with him than to think rightly with the rest of mankind!"

hilarity in the satirical attack which might make even the victim himself join in the laughter of which he is the object. When the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon had sealed the Continent against the imports of British commerce, and we had tried to retaliate by the Orders in Council, which had the effect of stopping our American trade, and involving us in a quarrel with the United In a review of Lord Brougham's speeches, States, the Ministers advanced the argument it would be unpardonable to omit mention of that a substitute for our former market was his great Oration on Parliamentary Reformfound in our increasing trade with the Span- one of the most elaborate of all his efforts. ish and Portuguese colonies of South Amer- But it is too well known to require more than ica. In point of fact, our North American a brief notice. Nothing but the highlytrade had amounted to thirteen millions wrought state of public feeling could justify sterling a year-while the South American the scene at the close, when sinking on the trade was only one million. By way of illus- ground beside the woolsack, the Lord Chantrating the importance and magnitude of the cellor exclaimed, 'By all you hold most dear commerce we had lost, Mr. Brougham drew-by all the ties that bind every one of us to an amusing picture of the raptures of joy into which Ministers would be thrown if they could command such a market anywhere on the Continent.

"Why, Sir, only conceive an event which should give an opening in the north of Europe or the Mediterranean for but a small part of this vast bulk-some change or accident, by which a thirteenth, aye, or a thirtieth, of the enormous value of British goods could be thrown into the enemy's countries! In what transports of delight would the new President [of the Board of Trade, Mr. Rose] be flung! I verily believe he would make but one step from his mansion to his office all Downing Street, and all Duke's Place would be in an uproar of joy. Bless me, what a scene of activity and business should we see! what Cabinets-what Boards!

What amazing conferences of Lords of Trade! -What a driving together of Ministers!What a rustling of small clerks!-What a mighty rushing of brokers!-Circulars to the manufacturing towns-harangues upon 'Change, performed by eminent naval characters-triumphal processions of dollars and volunteers in St. James' Square!-Hourly

our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you-I warn you-I implore you,-yea, on my bended knees I supplicate you-reject not this bill." This is too theatrical for good taste. It reminds us of the exaggerated manner of the Père Lacordaire in the French pulpit, or of some of the extravagant scenes which have occurred in the French revolutionary assemblies. But the genius of French oratory is essentially different from our own. Let us, however, not be understood to depreciate the eloquence of our neighbors, either in the pulpit or the tribune or at the bar. The country which has produced a Bossuet and a Massillon-a D'Aguesseau, a Berryer, and a Guizot, may well contend with others for the palm of excellence in speech; and it is one of the most melancholy results of the suppression of liberty in France, that her orators are dumb, and that the force of a military despotism, or

*Mr. Baring (afterwards Lord Ashburton) had stated in the House of Commons, that by two mistakes at one time, licenses were rendered so valuable, that he would have given that sum for them.

the restrictions of a jealous police, have | Carnatic, who regards nor land, nor rank, nor crushed into silence the tribune which has connexion, nor open country, nor populous been the scene of so many triumphs of elo-city; but his eye fastens on the time-honored quence and freedom. Quousque tandem?

The speech on Parliamentary Reform has several fine passages, but it is not, throughout, so eloquent as many others delivered by Lord Brougham. It is more in the nature of an exhaustive reply to the arguments that had been advanced in opposition to the bill by Lords Dudley, Winchelsea, Wharncliffe, Harrowby, and Caernarvon, and these were met and parried and retorted with admirable skill. The Earl of Caernarvon, in answer to the question, What Reform had the Opposition to offer if the proposed measure was rejected? had compared the Ministry to some host, who, having set before his guests an uneatable dinner with which they found fault, should ask them, 'What dishes can you dress yourselves?—and thus Lord Brougham took up the illustration :

relics of departed greatness and extinct population-the walls of Sarum and Gatton; he ments, and pointing with his left to a heap of arms his right hand with venerable parchstar pagodas, too massive to be carried along, lays siege to the citadel of the Constitution, the Commons' House of Parliament, and its gates fly open to receive his well-disciplined band."

Few

But our limits compel us to stop. We shall be glad if anything we have said has the effect of making these speeches more generally read. We advise all who wish to qualify themselves as public speakers to study the orations of Lord Brougham. They will find them a storehouse of manly thought, of vigorous argument, and lofty eloquence upon all the great questions of his time. may hope to rival the orator who defeated the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen "My noble friend says that such an answer Caroline, and snapped asunder the chain of would be very unreasonable-for he asks, in- Slavery; but none can fail to profit by the geniously enough, how can the guests dress example. But above all things, let no one a dinner, especially when they have not pos-imagine, that without taking pains and besession of the kitchen?' But did it never stowing labor, he can rise to eminence as an strike him that the present is not the case of Orator. He may be a fluent speaker and an guests, called upon to eat a dinner-it is one of rival cooks, who want to get into our expert debater, but an orator he will not be, kitchen. We are here all on every side if he refuses to copy the example and follow cooks, a synod of cooks (to use Dr. John- the precepts of the great masters of the art. son's phrase) and nothing but cooks; for it is And of all auxiliaries to the tongue, the pen the very condition of our being-the bond of is the best. Cicero tells us, that stilus optiour employment under a common master-mus et præ-stantissimus dicendi effector et that none of us shall ever taste the dishes we the habit of writing passages in a speech will magister; and to use his own beautiful simile, communicate aptness and force to extempore expression, just as the vessel retains her onward way from the impetus previously given, after the stroke of the oar has ceased. Let us, however, not be misunderstood. We by no means intend to advise a habit of writing out the whole of a speech, and getting it off by heart before it is delivered. Not only does this impose too great a load upon the memory, and render the chance of a break

are now dressing. The Commons may taste it; but can the Lords? We have nothing to do but propose the viands. It is therefore of primary importance, when the authority of two classes of rival artists is the main question, to inquire what are our feats severally in our common calling."

And in answer to the extreme and impossible case put by the Earl of Harrowby, of the population of an enfranchised borough of four thousand souls being all paupers, he said that he had a right to put an extreme case on the other side, to illustrate the nature of rep-down almost inevitable, when, from sudden resentations under the rotten borough system; and he instanced the case of the Nabob Wallajah Cawn Bahadur, who " had actually his eighteen or twenty members bought with a price, and sent to look after his pecuniary interests as honest and independent members of Parliament."

nervousness or any other cause, some passage which forms a necessary link in the chain is forgotten;-but it prevents a speaker from feeling, as it were, the pulse of his audience, and varying his style and tone according to the impression which he sees is made upon them. In most cases a written speech is a

"Behold," he said, "the sovereign of the failure from this cause. But the subject

matter should be beforehand wel! and thor- | familiarity with writing and practice in speakoughly digested; there should be the cogi- ing mutually act and react upon each other.* tatio et commentatio insisted upon by Cicero; In conclusion, we may add, that the value and in addition to this, with respect to par- of this collection of Lord Brougham's speeches ticular passages, the assidua ac diligens is enhanced by the historical introductions scriptura. By this means the speaker will written by himself, and prefixed to several of have, laid up in the arsenal of his memory, a them, explaining the occasions on which they supply of weapons ready for any emergency were delivered, and the subjects to which that may arise; and it is almost a truism to they refer. The style of these introductions say, that sentences considered beforehand in is excellent-clear, vigorous, and correctthe laboratory of thought, and submitted to and they are in themselves a very useful concriticism and revision by being embodied in tribution to the history of the nineteenth cenwritten composition, must be more likely to tury. be effective than those which are thrown off hastily in the hurry of debate, when there is no time to pause for the best and most appropriate expression. But, indeed, the habit of composition will have the effect of suggesting to the speaker, at all times, the best word and the best sentence; and will thus assist him whenever the necessity occurs for unpremeditated reply. Cicero amongst the ancients, and Lord Brougham amongst the moderns, have shown with what advantage

*We cannot take leave of the subject of oratory without a passing allusion to the highly important which have enabled him recently to recover from labors and discoveries of Mr. Churchill Babington, Egyptian papyri in the British Museum copious fragments of no less than three of the Orations of Hyperides. The last of these discoveries is the long lost famous entrapios of this orator, being the funeral discourse over Leosthenes and his comrades in the Lamian War, which has just been published with the munificent assistance of the Royal Society of Literature. This work is a real addition to the known remains of Greek oratory, for it puts us most celebrated orations of antiquity. almost entirely in possession of another of the

WATER AT JERUSALEM.-A correspondent of the Christian Era, (Boston,) dating his letter at Jerusalem, says:

"The fountain of Elisha waters the plain of Jericho east and west of the village-and is several miles from the Jordan; and furthermore, there is plenty of water in Jerusalem and neighborhood, where persons could be immersed, without resorting to the Jordan. Take, for instance, the upper pool of Gihon, which is only a few steps or yards from the north-western corner of the city, and measures 310 feet long by 200 feet wide. This pool would measure around it some 10,200 feet, and in depth 14 feet. You may now calculate how much water that pool would hold. I was out to that pool a few days ago, and saw thirty Arabian horses in it drinking water. It is my opinion that 3,000 persons could have been immersed in that ancient pool, without going out of the city. There is also another ancient pool, a few yards from St. Stephen's on the east side of the city, which measures 106 feet 13 inches long west side; the the north side 89 feet; the east side 109 feet; the south side 89 feet; depth at the steps 23 feet 2 inches. Then there is the pool of Siloam on the south side of the city, to which the Savior sent the blind man to wash for the recovery of his sight. (John ix. 7.) In any of the above

named pools, you can easily see that they would be very favorable places to which the people could resort to be baptized; and that in either of them, 3,000 persons could have been immersed without going to the Jordan."

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH IN 1787 During Arthur Young's visit to Paris, in 1787, he visited M. Lomond, a very ingenious and inventive mechanic "who (says Young, in his published "Travels") has made a remarkable discovery in electricity. You write two or three words on a paper; he takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine inclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electrometer, a small fine pith ball; a wire connects with a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment; and his wife, by remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate; from which it appears, he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might be carried on at any distance: within, and without a besieged town for instance; or, for a purpose much more worthy, and a thousand times more harmless, between two lovers prohibited or prevented from any better connection. Whatever the use may be, the invention is beautiful."

From Household Words.
WALKER.

been the usual pronunciation in Queen Elizabeth's time, therefore in departing from that we destroy the wit of Shakspeare. We are further informed that Sheridan was the first to introduce our present pronunciation of the word. It is not an unnatural variation for an Irishman.

It is well known that the meaning of many words has altered considerably since they were first introduced into the English language; indeed, this fact has been fully and cleverly illustrated in the arguments which have been recently heard in favor of a new Another pun of Shakspeare's is considered translation of the Bible; but, perhaps it is not indisputable proof that Rome was Room, in so well known that the pronunciation has his time. The pronunciation of this word been susceptible of equal changes. gives our author no trouble. It was irrevocaWe can obtain an excellent idea of the un-bly fixed; he traces it from Elizabeth to settled state of pronunciation at the com- Anne, and then to Pope, who rhymes it to mencement of the present century, by dip-doom. Pope does not enjoy imdemnity from ping into one of the first editions of Walker, the accusation of torture ascribed to other whom we find laying down the law in a very poets. Indeed, if some words were sounded quaint and querulous manner. Remembering now, as they appear to have been spoken in the very partial spread of education in Walk- the Augustan age of literature, they would er's time, we must not be surprised to find no more than few really correct speakers; still we should hardly have expected that he would have met with so many difficulties as he complains of.

fall on the ear discordantly. Rhymes continually recur in the poems of Dryden, Pope, Gay, and especially in the prologues and epilogues to the plays of that time, which lead to the belief ("Kings not being," according to Byron, "more imperative than rhymes") that, for instance, Are was commonly pronounced as if it were written Air. These lines are from Dryden's Eleonora :

"

He tells us that there are "coxcombs in pronunciation who would carry distinctions farther than they ought to go." That the rule for the adaptation of a word was, that it should be pronounced in direct opposition to the rules of our language. The stage was constantly introducing innovations not at all agreeable to Walker, and the House of Commons was guilty of similar barbarities. Poets, he allows, should have a certain license; but they who, when tortured for a word, often torture a word to ease themselves, are generally guilty of one part only of the cruelty of Procrustes; and that is of shortening such words as are too long for their verse. In this way Cowley crushed many words, and Milton did the same in innumerable instances. Spencer corrupted words for rhyme, and was imitated by Dryden. All these causes together, rendered the English language in such a ruinous condition, that Walker burst out into the following pathetic lamentation: "How hard is the fate of an Englishman, who, to write and speak his own language properly, must not only understand... French, Latin, and Greek, but Hebrew also!"

In this forlorn state of things, Walker urged the reader of his Pronouncing Dictionary, to adhere as closely as possible to antiquity; but his favorite weapon against the perverse independence, prevalent in orthoëpical matters was the analogy of the language.

Antiquity is argued to be in favor of pronouncing Raisins, Reesins; because Shakspeare made Falstaff tell Prince Henry, when asked to give reasons for his conduct that "if raisins were as plentiful as blackberries he would not give him one upon compulsion." Walker thinks this proves reesins to have

Scarcely she knew that she was great or fair,
Or wise, beyond what other women are,
Or (which is better) knew, but never durst
compare."

Again:

"For such vicissitudes in Heaven there are, In praise alternate, and alternate prayer.'

Player is also made to rhyme, very generally, to such sounds. In the prologue to Steele's Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, we are told:

"All that now, or please, or fright the fair,
May be performed without a writer's care,
And is the skill of carpenter, not player."
We should be startled to hear a well-

educated person of to-day pronounce Oil, Ile;
yet rhymes of that kind abound. Pope, in
the first part of his essay on Satire, writes
thus:

Cunning evades, securely wrapt in wiles,
And Force, strong-sinewed, rends the unequal
toils."

True, that further on Pope makes the same word rhyme to Hoyle. But, in the epilogue to the play we have mentioned above, and in too numerous to quote from, we have similar discords:

other

poems

"He'd sing what hovering Fate attends our Isle, And from base pleasure rouse from glorious toil."

Whatever may have been Walker's opinion on such euphonies by these poets, he is not uniformly submissive-being a very fickle person-to Shakspeare. He recommends us

66

in such sentences as "sleeping within mine | liarity; but a mispronunciation arising from orchard," to change the mine to my. He euphony, and the analogy of the language. thinks whenever mine occurs we have a On the word Corruptible we find some formality, stateliness, and uncouthness of very pungent remarks. Walker complains sound peculiarly unpleasant to the ear. that, "Some affected speakers have done all We must therefore he, facetiously, says, in their power to remove the accent of this pronounce it min; but, by thus mincing word from the second to the first syllable. the matter (if the pun will be pardoned), we Thanks to the difficulty of pronouncing it in mutilate the word, and leave it more disagree- this manner, they have not yet effected their able to the ear than before." Otherwise we purpose. Those who have the least regard must make the alteration he suggests. for the sound of their language ought to reAntiquity again exerts its claim to be re- sist this novelty with all their might; for if membered in the first syllable of Chamber, it once gain ground, it is sure to triumph. which used universally to be pronounced to The difficulty of pronouncing it, and the illrhyme with Psalm. It has been gradually sound it produces will recommend it to the narrowing to the slender sound in came, and fashionable world, who are as proud to disthereby militates against the laws of syllabi- tinguish themselves by an oddity in language cation. Walker is not surprised at it, how- as in dress." The grave lexicographer found ever; for, if two such words as Cam and other things requiring censure besides misBridge could not resist the force of custom pronunciation. which has for so many years reduced them to Camebridge, why should we wonder that Chamber and Cambrick, or Tynemouth and Teignmouth, should yield to the same unrelenting tyrant?

A Wound should be pronounced a Wowned. "Indeed, to pronounce it otherwise, is a capricious novelty received among the polite world, probably from an affectation of the French sound. I think it ought to be utterly banWalker declares that custom had also made ished. But where is the man bold enough to it so usual to say Sparrow-grass, that Aspara- risk the imputation of vulgarity by such an gus has an air of stiffness and pedantry. expulsion ? The author of

"The

heights."

was evidently of Walker's opinion. We can now appreciate how Eliza,

This, of course, drives our author to despair; "Now stood Eliza on the wood-crown'd and so does the pronunciation of Cucumber, "which is too firmly fixed in its sound of Cowcumber, to be altered." He has a gleam of hope that Radish may retain its correct sound. This word is commonly but corruptly Kiss'd her dear babe regardless of the wownd." sinking to the ground, pronounced, as if written Reddish. deviation is but small; nor do I think it so Before, the want of rhyme sadly damaged incorrigible as that of its brother esculents the effect. There must have been, besides the sparrow-grass and cowcumber just men- the before-mentioned privilege of torture, tioned." Not an inapt accompaniment to more facilities for rhyming generally; for, these esculents is Sausage, which Sheridan was it not most correct to pronounce Dover prefers pronouncing Sassidge; nor is he un-Duvver; and can we not see at a glance how supported in his peculiarity. Still Walker nicely it comes in with Lover? considers it vulgar and not agreeable to best usage.

The analogy of the language appears to great advantage in the following: "Polite speakers interpose a sound like the letter y between g and a in garden, which coalesces with both, and gives a mellowness to the sound. Thus, A Garden, pronounced in this manner, is nearly similar to the two words,egg and yarden united into Egg-yarden." To our more modern ears the effect of Tennyson's melodious appeal, "Come into the gheyarden, Maud," would be considerably marred by this polite pronunciation. The same rule applies to Guard, Guile, Guardian, Gild and Guilt, all of which necessarily admit of the e sound between hard g and i, or we cannot pronounce them. Kind, Sky, and others are changed by the same coalition into Key-inde and Skey-eye. Nor is this a fanciful pecu

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. 67

The stage would pronounce Fierce, Ferse; this is slightly defended as being "philosophically right, though grammatically improper; because a short sound denotes a rapid and violent emotion." But when the same authority takes upon itself to transform Sigh into Sithe, we are assured it is a "perfect oddity in the language." Walker receives our full concurrence when he remarks, that "it is not easy to conjecture what could be the rea"Some son of this departure from analogy." affected speakers on the English stage pronounce the first syllable of Confidant like Cone ;" and as our present pronunciation of Conquer" is in full possession of the stage, there is but little hope of a change. It is a wanton departure from our own analogy to that of the French." It ought, decidedly, Mr. Walker thinks, to be Conkwer. word Haunt "was in quiet possession of its

The