Beeton's Public Speaker. (Ward, Lock, and Tyler.)—This book aims at
too much. To represent all oratory, ancient and modern, in the com- pass of a few hundred pages is an impossibility. And of this space some is given to extracts from writers who, great as they were, have no pre- tensions to be classed as orators,—Bishop Butler, for instance, and Arch- bishop Whately. Robertson's sermons, again, are far too much like skele-
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tons to be available as specimens of oratory. And then, when we come to "Ancient Oratory," what do we get? /Eschines, Demosthenes, and Cicero have seven pages between them, and one of the seven is occu- pied with sketches of the orators' lives. Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, St. Bernard have, with a corresponding deduction, an allotment of nine. Then comes a great jump to Bossuet, who stands in company with Boardaloue and Massillon. A less congenial pair are Lacordaire and Gavazzi. Almost all the specimens are far too short. Nor even of these is the selection always to be commended. There is no example of the most splendid efforts of Burke's oratory, his Indian speeches. Oration's "invective against Mr. Corry" does not deserve a place in any such collection. The vulgar threat with which it ends is more characteristic of a bully, than of an orator. Mr. Disraeli, considering the place which he occupies, might fairly have had more than a couple of pages, and these given to a speech which is in no degree characteristic of him. Mr. Bright is not favourably represented by a tirade against war. No orator has ever touched the heart of the people more, except on this one topic, on which he spoke wholly in vain.
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