CHAP. Natural defects. ponents1 but his early life, for about ten years after he came of age, was spent in a continued struggle with difficulties, and in the most laborious preparation for the attainment of the great objects of a noble ambition. The success with which he had pleaded his own cause was encouraging, but not decisive as to his higher prospects. The speeches which he delivered on that occasion were deemed worthy of his master Isæus, and certainly give proof of no ordinary talents. But a different kind of eloquence was requisite for the debates of the assembly; and defects of utterance and gesticulation which might be overlooked by a court of justice in a youth claiming redress, appeared intolerably offensive in one who presented himself as a public counsellor. The reception he met with on his first appearance before the assembled people, was such as might have stifled the hopes of one less conscious of his own powers. His articulation was imperfect, his action disagreeable, his voice, naturally not strong, was ill managed; and even his style startled his hearers by its novelty, and was thought harsh, strained, and confused.2 Though not silenced, he descended from the bema in the midst of murmurs and laughter. There were however among his audience persons able to discern the merit of the attempt, and friendly enough to encourage and aid him with useful advice. Old men were still living who had heard Pericles in their boyhood; and one of them it is said cheered Demosthenes with an assurance, that he reminded him of that great orator, whose fame appears to have been hitherto unrivalled at Athens. Satyrus also, the player, an amiable and estimable man, was believed to have directed his attention to 1 Demosthenes 11. Phil. § 32., de F. L. § 51., and the joke of Demades (Lucian Demosth. Encom. § 15.) ὡς οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι πρὸς ὕδωρ λέγοιεν, τὸν Δημοσθένην δὲ πρὸς ὕδωρ γράφειν. Plut. Dem. 6. CHAP. XLIII. the principal faults of his elocution. He saw all that he wanted, and with unconquerable resolution set himself to the task of overcoming his natural impediments, correcting his unsightly habits, and perfecting every organ and faculty which he had to employ as a public speaker. He is reported to have withdrawn for a time from society, to pursue his work without interruption; and we know that he resorted to new and very irksome methods of mastering his personal disadvantages.' These exercises he continued until he had acquired a manner of delivery, as to which it is sufficient to say, that it was thought by his contemporaries worthy of his eloquence, and that it distinguished him no less above all his rivals.2 It was not however merely to enable himself to satisfy studies. the eye and ear of the public, that he entered on this course of training. He had felt that the equally fastidious taste and judgement of an Athenian assembly demanded more than it had found in his first essay, which probably fell short by a much greater distance of his own idea. He applied himself to an assiduous study of all the theoretical works he could procure, which could furnish him with rules and hints for the cultivation of his art; and still more diligently consulted the great models of eloquence in which he recognised a kindred genius. In Thucydides he appears to have found, as we do, the richest mine of thought and language; and the value which he set on his history is attested both by the tradition, that he copied it out eight times, and could almost recite it by heart, and by the evidence of his own style, not 1 Plut. Dem. 11. from Demosthenes himself, on the testimony of Demetrius Phalereus. Dionysius, De Adm. vi dic. in Demost. 22. See on these reports Krueger Leben des Thukydides, p. 81, 82. Cicero indeed, Orat. 9., when he asks: Quis unquam Græcorum rhetorum a Thucydide quidquam duxit? seems never to have heard of them. But at least Demosthenes might have learnt as much for the purpose of his art from Thucydides as from СНАР. withstanding the difference required by two kinds of composition so completely distinct. In the meanwhile his pen was constantly employed in rhetorical exercises. Every question suggested to him by passing events served him for a topic of discussion, which called forth the application of his attainments to the real business of life. It was perhaps as much for the sake of such practice, as with a view to reputation or the increase of his fortune, that he accepted employment, as an advocate, which, until he began to take an active part in public affairs, was offered to him in abundance. If he viewed these occasions in this light, we might believe the story that he once furnished each of the adverse parties in a cause with a speech, and yet might not consider it as a very deep stain upon his honour. His main occupation however was not with forms, or words, and sentences. The profession of an advocate itself required an extensive range of information. Causes especially which related to contested laws or decrees generally involved a number of questions, that called for a large share of legal and political knowledge. Demosthenes, who from the first was always looking forward to the widest field of action, undoubtedly did not content himself with the indispensable study of the Athenian laws and constitution, but bestowed no less earnest attention on the domestic affairs, the financial resources, and the foreign relations of the commonwealth, and on the political divisions, powers, and interests, of the rest of Greece. The state of the finances, and of the naval and military establishments of Athens, the defects of the existing system, and the means of correcting them, appear more particularly to have occupied his thoughts. Such was the process by which he became confessedly the greatest orator among the people by whom eloquence was cultivated as it has never since been by any nation upon earth. He brought it to its XLIII. highest state of perfection, as Sophocles the tragic CHAP. drama, by the harmonious union of excellencies which before had only existed apart. The quality in his writings which excited the highest admiration of the most intelligent critics among his countrymen in the later, critical, age, was the Protean versatility with which he adapted his style to every theme, so as to furnish the most perfect examples of every order and kind of eloquence. They, who understood and felt the beauty of his compositions in a degree beyond the reach of the most learned foreigner, were aware that, with all their enthusiasm of delight, they could but faintly conceive the impression which that which they read must have produced on those who heard it, animated by the voice and action of the orator, when he was addressing himself to real interests and passions.' This however is a subject on which it would be foreign to our present purpose to enlarge. We will only observe that Demosthenes, like Pericles, never willingly appeared before his audience with any but the ripest fruits of his private studies; though he was quite capable of speaking on the impulse of the moment in a manner worthy of his reputation; that he continued to the end of his career to cultivate his art with unabated diligence, and that even in the midst of public business his habits were known to be those of a severe student. on his cha With so many claims to admiration on this side, he Imputations has left, we will not say an ambiguous, but a disputed racter. character. It would indeed have been surprising had the case been otherwise with a man whose whole life was passed in the midst of the most violent political storms, and the most furious party-strife. His efforts 1 Dionysius, De Adm. vi dic. in Demosth. 22. I need hardly observe that Quintilian's: atqui malum virum accepimus, XII. 1. 14., as appears from the writer's annexed remark, implies no more than this: though it shows that, as usual, the scandal which Quintilian disbelieved was most eagerly read, and of course most frequently repeated. CHAP. XLIII. to defend the liberties of Athens and of Greece against a foreign king, have earned him still more virulent attacks in modern times, than he experienced from the sycophants of his own day, or from his personal enemies. The extreme scantiness of our information as to his private history, and indeed as to the public events of his times, must always render it impossible distinctly to refute the imputations which have been thrown upon his moral worth: all that can be said in his defence is, that so far as can be now ascertained, not one of them rests upon any better foundation, than partial statements or doubtful surmises while whatever we know with certainty of his public life is good, and often great. That he was free from faults, no one can suppose: his character was human; it was that of a Greek, and an Athenian, in a corrupt and turbulent age, and in a difficult and trying station. It must not be compared with any purer models of virtue than the most illustrious statesmen of his country. From such a comparison, according to the view which he himself professed to take of his public conduct and his political aims, he had no need to shrink: for many of them had been more successful, but none in an undertaking so glorious as that in which he failed. Most of the graver charges which have been brought against him, are intimately connected with his public history: and our opinion of the man must be mainly regulated by the judgement we form of him as a statesman. If he truly represented the great object of his life to be that of preserving Greece from foreign domination, and if the means by which he strove to accomplish this purpose were, to husband the resources, to rouse the energies, and exalt the character of the Athenians, his own will stand in little need of an apology. This however is a question which it would be premature now to enter on, and which the history must decide. For the same |