DOING JUSTICE TO THE CONSONANTS. CANNING AND GRATTAN. 123 which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same Canning said of Grattan's elounerring dexterity, as if that single quence, that, for the last two years, one had been the study of a whole his public exhibitions were a comlife. "The tartan beats us," said plete failure, and that you saw all Mr. Canning; "we have no preach- the mechanism of his oratory withing like that in England. "Can-out its life. It was like lifting the ning," says Sir James Mackintosh, flap of a barrel-organ, and seeing the "told me that he was entirely con- wheels; you saw the skeleton of his verted to admiration of Chalmers." sentences without the flesh on them; Wilberforce noted in his diary, that and were induced to think that Canning was affected to tears. what you had considered flashes, were merely primings kept ready for the occasion.- (Moore.) READING. The late Isaac Hawkins Brown declared, that he never felt the charms of Milton until he heard his exordium read by Sheridan. PITT, FOX, AND SHERIDAN. Pitt and Fox were listened to with profound respect, and in silence broken only by occasional cheers; but from the moment of Sheridan's rising, there was an expectation of pleasure, which, to his last days, was seldom disappointed. A low Virgil pronounced his own verses with such an enticing sweetness and murmur of eagerness ran round the house; every word was watched for, enchanting grace, that Julius Monand his pleasantry set the whole as-tanus, a poet who had often heard semblage in a roar. him, used to say that he could steal Sheridan was aware of this, and has been heard Virgil's verses, if he could steal his to say, that if a jester would never voice, expression, and gesture; for the same verses, that sounded so be an orator, yet no speaker could expect to be popular in a full house, rapturously when he read them, without a jest; and that he always were not always excellent in the mouth of another. made the experiment, good or bad; as a laugh gave him the country gentlemen to a man. PREACHERS AND ACTORS. DOING JUSTICE TO THE CONSONANTS. Mr. Jones, in his life of Bishop Horne, speaking of Dr. Hinchcliffe, Bishop of Peterborough, says, that Pray, Mr. Betterton," asked in the pulpit he spoke with the the good Archbishop Sancroft, of accent of a man of sense, such as the celebrated actor, (6 can you in- he really was in a superior degree; form me what is the reason you but it was remarkable, and, to those actors on the stage, speaking of who did not know the cause, mystethings imaginary, affect your audi-rious, that there was not a corner of ence as if they were real, while we the church in which he could not be in the church speak of things real, heard distinctly. The reason which which our congregations receive Mr. Jones assigned was, that he only as if they were imaginary ?" made it an invariable rule to do "Why, really, my Lord," answered justice to every consonant, knowing Betterton, I don't know, unless that the vowels would speak for themwe actors speak of things imaginary selves. And thus he became the as if they were real, while you in surest and clearest of speakers; his the pulpit speak of things real as if elocution was perfect, and never they were imaginary." disappointed his audience. 66 THE PULPIT. A celebrated divine, who was remarkable in the first period of his ministry for a boisterous mode of preaching, suddenly changed his whole manner in the pulpit, and adopted a mild and dispassioned mode of delivery. One of his brethren, observing it, inquired of him what had induced him to make the change. He answered, "When I was young, I thought it was the thunder that killed the people; but when I grew wiser, I discovered that it was the lightning; so I determined in future to thunder less, and lighten more. EFFECT OF MANNER. "The Duke of Argyle," says Lord Chesterfield, 66 though the weakest reasoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever heard in my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter, certainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, a noble air, an harmonious voice, an elegance of style, and a strength of emphasis, conspired to make him the most affecting, persuasive, and applauded speaker I ever heard. I was captivated like others; but when I came home, and coolly considered what he had said, stripped of all those ornaments in which he had dressed it, I often found the matter flimsy, the arguments weak, and I was convinced of the power of those adventitious concurring circumstances, which it is ignorance of mankind to call trifling." tings was such that the whole audi- 66 No venomous reptile ever yet was found; The secret stands revealed in nature's She saved her venom TO CREATE A SHERIDAN'S POTIONS. In the year 1805, on the day when the very animated debate took place upon the celebrated Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry, the attention of a gentleman, who happened to enter a coffee-house near the House of Commons, was instantly fixed by another gentleman, whom he observed at one of the tables, with tea, and pen, ink, and paper before him. For some time the latter sat alternately drinking tea and taking down memoranda, and then called to the waiter to bring him some brandy; when to the observer's great surprise, a half-pint tumblerfull was brought. The gentleman The agitation produced by Burke's placed it by him, continuing a while speech at the trial of Warren Has-alternately to write and drink tea; WHITEFIELD. Garrick said he would give a hundred guineas if he could say "Oh!" as Whitefield did. EDMUND BURKE. PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTS. 125 when, at length, collecting his | Sheridan, having taken his allowpapers together, he put them in his ance, said as usual, "Now I shall go pocket, and swallowing the half pint down and see what's doing in the of brandy as if it had been water, house;" which in reality meant, and went out of the coffee-house. The was always so interpreted by whostranger was so much struck by all ever dined in his company, "I have he had observed, particularly at the drank enough; my share of the facility with which such a quantity business is done; now do yours; of spirits was taken, that he could call for the bill, and pay it." The not forbear to ask the waiter who bill having been settled by Sherithat gentleman was? The man re- dan's friend, the latter, hearing plied, "Pshaw! don't you know that Sheridan was "up," felt curious him? Why, that's Sheridan; he's to know what he could possibly be going now to the House of Com- at, knowing the state in which he mons. It will be remembered that had just departed. Accordingly, in the course of this debate Mr. he entered the house, and, to his no Sheridan made one of the finest small astonishment, found Sheridan speeches ever delivered by him, in a fit of most fervent oratory, alike remarkable for keenness of thundering forth the following argument and brilliancy of wit, and well-known_passage: "Give them this under the influence of a potion a corrupt House of Lords; give that would wholly have deprived most men of their faculties. The following anecdote of Sheridan was related by one of the oldest surviving friends and followers of Fox. This gentleman and Sheridan had dined together at Bellamy's. them a venal House of Commons; give them a tyrannical prince; give them a truckling court; and let me have but an unfettered press, and I will defy them to encroach a hair's-breadth upon the liberties of England!" PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTS. SIR WILLIAM JONES. were the Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, HeThat wonderful scholar, Sir Wil- brew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, liam Jones, who, in addition to German, and English. When he great acquirements in various other was afterwards induced, however, departments of knowledge, had from the situation he held in India, made himself acquainted with no to devote himself more especially fewer than twenty-eight different to Oriental learning, he extended languages, was studying the gram- his researches a great way even bemars of several of the Oriental dia-yond these ample limits. In addilects up till within a week of his tion to the tongues already enulamented death. At an earlier merated, he made himself not only period of his life, when he was in completely master of Sanscrit, as his thirty-third year, he had re- well as less completely of Hindossolved, as appears from a scheme of tanee and Bengalee, but to a constudy found among his papers, "to siderable extent, also, of the other learn no more rudiments of any Indian dialects, called the Thibekind, but to perfect himself in, first, tian, the Pali, the Phaluvi, and the twelve languages, as the means of Deri; to which are to be added, acquiring accurate knowledge of among the languages which he dehistory, arts, and sciences." These scribes himself to have studied least perfectly, the Chinese, Russian, that the passage is in Euripides." Runic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic," Then, perhaps, sir," said the proDutch, Swedish, and Welsh. MITHRIDATES AND CLEOPATRA. Mithridates, King of Pontus, knew twenty-two languages, and spoke them correctly. And Plutarch says that Cleopatra knew almost all the languages spoken by the people of the Levant. MADAME ANNA BISHOP. fessor, putting his hand again into his pocket, and handing him a similar edition of Euripides, "you will be so good as to find it for me in that little book." The young Oxonian again returned to his task, but with no better success, muttering, however, to himself, a vow never again to quote Greek in a stage-coach. The tittering of the ladies informed him plainly that he had got into a hobble. At last, When Madame Anna Bishop was giving concerts in Guanajuato," Why, sir," said he, "how dull Í Mexico, in the winter of 1849, her am! I recollect now; yes, now I placards announced that she would perfectly remember that the passage sing in ten languages, viz., Spanish, is in Eschylus." The inexorable Italian, French, German, Russian, professor returned to his inexhausTartar, English, Irish, Scotch, and tible pocket, and was in the act of Ethiopian! handing him an Eschylus, when our astonished freshman vociferated, "Coachman ! holloa, coachman! let me out; I say instantly let me out! There's a fellow here has the whole Bodleian library in his pocket." THE TRAVELLING LIBRARY. Professor Porson, the celebrated Grecian, was once travelling in a stage-coach, where a young Oxonian, fresh from college, was amusing the ladies with a variety of talk, and, amongst other things, with a quotation, as he said, from Sophocles. A Greek quotation, and in a coach too, roused the slumbering professor from a kind of dog-sleep, in a snug corner of the vehicle. Shaking his ears and rubbing his eyes, "I think, young gentleman," said he, "you favoured us just now with a quotation from Sophocles; I do not happen to recollect it there." "O, sir," replied the tyro, "the quotation is word for word as I have repeated it, and from Sophocles, too; but I suspect, sir, it is some time since you were at college." The professor, applying his hand to his great-coat pocket, and taking out a small pocket edition of Sophocles, quietly asked him if he would be kind enough to show him the passage in question in that little book. After rummaging the pages for some time, he replied, "Upon second thoughts, I now recollect Dr. Johnson had a veneration for the voice of mankind beyond what most people will own; and, as he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice. "I remember," says Mrs. Piozzi, "when lamentation was made of the neglect showed to a great philologist, as some one ventured to call him, 'He is a scholar, undoubtedly, sir,' replied Dr. Johnson; ‘but remember that he would run from the world, and that it is not the ELIHU BURRITT, THE world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and does nothing, when he is there, but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.'" CLASSICAL GLORY. Dr. George, the celebrated Grecian, upon hearing the praises of the great King of Prussia, entertained considerable doubt whether the king, with all his victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in . CAN SHE SPIN? 127 LEARNED BLACKSMITH. A young girl was presented to James I. as an English prodigy, because she was deeply learned. The person who introduced her boasted of her proficiency in ancient lan-years he returned to his forge, takguages. I can assure your majesty," said he, “that she can both speak and write Latin, Greek, and Hebrew." "These are rare attainments for a damsel," said James; "but, pray tell me, can she spin ?" DRS. PORSON AND GILLIES. Dr. Gillies, the historian of Greece, and Dr. Porson, used now and then to meet. The consequence was certain to be a literary contest. Porson was much the deeper scholar of the two. Dr. Gillies was one day speaking to him of the Greek tragedies, and of Pindar's odes. "We know nothing," said Dr. Gillies, emphatically, "of the Greek metres." Porson answered, "If, doctor, you will put your observation in the singular number, I believe it will be very accurate." ELIHU BURRITT, THE LEARNED BLACKSMITH. A letter written by Elihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, contains some interesting incidents of his career. Mr. Burritt mentions that, being one of a large family, and his parents poor, he apprenticed himself, ing with him such books as he could procure. He next commenced Hebrew, and soon mastered it with ease, reading two chapters in the Bible before breakfast; this, with Ian hour at noon, being all the time he could spare from work. Being unable to procure such books as he desired, he determined to hire himself to some ship bound to Europe, thinking he would there meet with books at the different ports he touched at. He travelled more than a hundred miles on foot to Boston with this view, but was not able to find what he sought; and at that period he heard of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. Thither he bent his steps, and arrived in the city in utter indigence. Here he found a collection of ancient, modern, and Oriental books, such as he never imagined to be collected in one place. He was there kindly allowed to read what books he liked, and reaped great benefit from this permission. He used to spend three hours daily in the hall, and made such use of these privileges, as to be able to read upwards of fifty languages with greater or less facility. |