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great caution any principle in the theory of the science, directly opposed to the opinion and the practice of Cicero. But considering the subject, as divested of all sanction from venerable names, on its own merits I do not deem the topics to be altogether without their use. Their proper use may be illustrated by reference to an usage, with which you are all well acquainted.

In entering an apothecary's shop you have of ten observed its walls lined with a wainscot. ing of small boxes, on the outside of which you have seen, painted in capital letters, certain cabalistical words, most of which I presume you found yourselves quite unable to decypher. You ask the attendant at the shop for the medicinal article you want; he goes to one of his boxes, and in a moment brings you the drug, for which you applied; but which you never would have discovered from the names upon the boxes. Now the topics are, as I conceive, to the young orator, exactly what the apothecary's painted boxes are to his apprentice. To the total stranger they are impenetrable hieroglyphics. To the thorough bred physician they may be altogether unnecessary. But in that intermediate stage, when arrangement is needed to relieve the mind from the pressure of accumulation, the

painted boxes and the rhetorical topics may be of great use to the young practitioner. The topics are the ticketed boxes, or the labelled phials, in which the arguments of the speaker are to be found. And although telling us where to look for an argument does not furnish us the argument itself, yet it may suggest the train of thought, and add facility to the copiousness of the orator. This is all the benefit, that can be derived, or that I presume it was ever pretended could be derived from a thorough knowledge of the topics. They cannot give, but they may assist invention. They exhibit the subject in all its attitudes, and under every diversity of light and shade. They distribute the field of contemplation among a number of distinct proprietors, and mark out its divisions by metes and bounds. A perfect master of the topics may be a very miserable orator; but an accomplished orator will not disdain a thorough knowledge of the topics.

LECTURE X.

ARGUMENTS AND DEMONSTRATIVE ORATORY.

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HAVING in my preceding lectures explained to you the nature, and submitted to your reflections my opinion of the real worth of those incidents in the science of rhetoric, usually known by the denomination of the state of the controverand general topics, internal as well as external, the course of my subject now leads me to consider, separately and successively, the arguments suitable to each of the three classes of orations, the demonstrative, the deliberative, and the judicial. This arrangement is enjoined by the regulations of the institution; and is perhaps the best, that could have been devised, as it unfolds to your view the principles of the rhetorical science in the same or

der of time, as they may be expected to present themselves to your use for practical application. Whenever you shall have occasion to speak in public, the first object, to which your attention will be required, can be no other, than to ascertain precisely the state of the controversy, or in other words the subject of your discourse. The next will be to collect from the whole stock of your ideas those, which may be most subservient to the design, for which you are to speak; and the rhetorical topics were devised to facilitate this process. Your third consideration will be to settle specifically upon those ideas or arguments, best adapted to the particular nature of discourse. The arguments, specially adapted to each of the three kinds of public speaking, may be and often are introduced to the greatest advantage in discourses of the other classes; but there are certain arguments, adapted in a peculiar manner to each of the three departments, which still retain their character and denomination, even when used in the service of the others.

The arguments, suited to either of the three kinds of discourses, are such, as apply more especially to the purpose of that class, to which they belong; and to determine what that is we must

recur to those original and fundamental distinctions, which I have already noticed. You will remember then, that the central point, to which all the rays of argument should converge, in deliberative oratory is utility; in judicial discourses is justice; and in demonstrative orations is praise or

censure.

Every discourse then, of which panegyric or reprobation upon persons or things is the main purpose, must be included in the demonstrative class. It embraces accordingly a very numerous description of oratorical performances, both of ancient and of modern times. Among the Greeks and Romans panegyrics upon the gods, upon princes, generals, and distinguished men dead or living, and even upon cities and countries, were frequently written and delivered. Funeral eulogies upon deceased persons of illustrious rank, male or female, were often composed and pronounced in public by their kinsmen; a custom, to which the first emperors themselves, Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius, successively conformed. These were orations strictly and altogether demonstrative. But the panegyric of Pompey, interwoven by Cicero into his oration for the Manilian law, that of Caesar in the oration

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