this result was attained simply by a skilful use of words: in this case very probably by a deliberately malicious use of words that should make a theatre full of people do a thing which not one of them really wished to do. It was not what he said that they applauded; it was what he implied,—not dynamite and dagger, but that not very clearly defined notion of liberty and freedom and the rights of man, which still appeals to the American heart.-WENDELL, BARRETT, 1891, English Composition, p. 243.

It is surprising that so thorough an historian as Von Holst has omitted to make mention of his speech [Lovejoy Speech] which really struck the key-note of the antislavery movement from first to last. As we have it now, revised by its author from the newspaper reports of the time, it is one of the purest, most spontaneous and magnetic pieces of oratory in existence. It deserves a place beside those two famous speeches of James Otis and Patrick Henry which ushered in the war of separation from England. It possesses even a certain advantage, in the fact that it never has been nor is likely to be made use of for school declamations. It will always remain fresh, vigorous, and original as when it was first. delivered. STEARNS, FRANK PRESTON, 1895, Sketches from Concord and Appledore,

p. 187.

This austere and irreconcilable enthusiast with the blood of the martyr in his veins, was in oratory a pure opportunist. He was a general who went into battle with a force of all arms, but used infantry or artillery or cavalry as each seemed most apt to the moment. He formed his plan, as Napoleon did, on the field and in presence of the enemy. For Phillips-and the fact is vital to all criticism of his oratory-spoke almost always, during twenty-five years of his oratorical life, to a hostile audience. His audiences were often mobs; they often sought to drive him from the platform, sometimes to kill him. He needed all his resources merely to hold his ground and to get a hearing. You cannot compare oratory in those circumstances with oratory in a dress debate, or even with the oratory of a great parliamentary contest. On this last has often hung, no doubt, the life of a ministry. On Phillips's mastery over his hearers depended sometimes his own life, sometimes that of the antislavery cause-with which,

as we now all see and as then hardly anybody saw, was bound up the life of the nation. It was, in my judgment, the oratory of Phillips which insured the maintenance of that great antislavery struggle during the last ten years or more which preceded the War. His oratory must be judged with reference to that—to its object as well as to its rhetorical qualities. He had and kept the ear of the people. To have silenced that silver trumpet would have been to wreck the cause. I speak of the Abolitionist cause by itself that which relied solely on moral forces and stood completely outside of politics.-SMALLEY, GEORGE W., 1897, Library of the World's Best Literature, ed. Warner, vol. XX, p. 11409.

He

He was the most polished and graceful orator our country ever produced. spoke as quietly as if he were talking in his own parlor, and almost entirely without gestures, yet he had as great a power over all kinds of audiences as any American of whom we have any record. . . . Eloquent as he was as a lecturer, he was far more effective as a debater. Debate was for him the flint and steel which brought out all his fire. . . . In his style as a debater he resembled Sir Robert Peel, in grace and courtliness of manner and in fluency and copiousness of diction. He never hesitated for a

word, or failed to employ the word best fitted to express his thought on the point under discussion. . . . No speaker of his day ever treated a greater variety of topics, nor with more even excellence, than Wendell Phillips. . . . Now that Phillips and Garrison and the era in which they flourished have passed into history, it is common for writers who treat on that period to talk of these two champions of freedom as if they were equals, or of Phillips, even, as if he were Garrison's inferior. Those who knew both men smile at such absurdities. Phillips and Garrison were equals in one respect only-in moral courage and unselfish devotion to the slave. Garrison was a commonplace man in respect to intellectual ability, whereas Phillips was a man of genius of the rarest culture. Garrison was a strong platform speaker. Phillips was one of the greatest orators of the century. Only three men of his time could contest the palm of eloquence with him-Webster, Clay, and Beecher.POND, J. B., 1900, Eccentricities of Genius, pp. 7, 8, 11, 13.

GENERAL

Those who have listened to his perfect utterances, whether in fervid denunciation, indignant protest, or pathetic appeal, seldom have the opportunity to examine in cool blood the true character of the rhetoric that fascinated them. While they watched the magnificent stream of eloquence, it seemed like the course of a river of molten lava. Let them to-day walk over the cooled and hardened surface, and they will find how rough and full of scoria the track is. Mr. Phillips's speeches have been collected in a handsome volume, with a portrait. Apart from its relations to the topics it deals with, and viewed simply as a specimen of composition, there is hardly any modern book so disappointing. The apt illustration, the witty anecdote, the emphatic statement, the traces of strong feeling, are to be seen in every discourse. But there are also slang phrases and vituperative epithets, which might be tolerated in an off-hand speech, but which when seen on the printed page debase the style and weaken its force.UNDERWOOD, FRANCIS H., 1872, A HandBook of English Literature, American Authors, p. 357.

From the midst of the flock he defended, the brave one has gone to his rest;

And the tears of the poor he befriended, their wealth of affliction attest.

From the midst of the people is stricken a symbol they daily saw

Set over against the law-books, of a higher than human law;

For his life was a ceaseless protest, and his voice was a prophet's cry,

To be true to the truth, and faithful, though the
world were arrayed for the lie.
-O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE, 1884, Wendell
Phillips.

He raised his voice-the scornful smiled,
A jeering rabble came to hear;
The statesman mocked, the mob reviled,
Pulpit and press gave little cheer.
He raised his voice-the scoffer frowned,
Disciples gathered day by day;
In him the living Word was found,

The light, the life, the truth, the way.
He raised his voice-the crowded hall
Answered to eloquence and right;
And statesmen heard at last the call

Of freemen rising in their might.
He raised his voice-the shackles fell,
And all beneath the stars were free.
Ring out! ring out, centennial bell,

The living fact of liberty.

Phillips spoke always for the poor man, for the downtrodden man, for the underdog in the fight, for the man who could not speak for himself. He spoke violently often. He was not afraid of collision, though he loved peace and the battles of ideas alone. "Peace, if possible," he wrote in the boys' albums, "but justice at any rate." No man must suffer injustice in order that I may be convenienced-the state is not safe so. This Phillips never failed to see, and this enabled him to deal with every problem radically. He knew that there was nothing anarchic in the real fibre of the American people-and he dreaded no temporary or sporadic violences in readjustment; he only dreaded injustice and gout.-MEAD, EDWIN D., 1890, A Monument to Wendell Phillips, New England Magazine, vol. 9, p. 539.

Phillips' was the literary or rhetorical temperament, not the scholar's. He had an admirable memory for odds and ends, for available scraps or telling incidents, and he spent his life in training his resources in this direction; but there is no reason to suppose that he had ever in his life studied anything with scholarly thoroughness, except possibly, as he claimed, the English Revolution. This is no reproach to him-he had a great admiration for even the semblance of scholarship in others; but no man can combine everything, and it is a wrong to our young people when we assume that such a thing as universal genius is now practicable.

His judgments of men were prompt, fearless, independent, but the judicial quality rarely belonged to them.-HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH, 1890, Martyn's Life of Phillips, Nation, vol. 51, pp. 328, 329.

As an orator Phillips was what Henry Clay would have been with a Harvard education. To Clay's fire and magnetism he joined Everett's rhetorical art and marvellous vocabulary. As a master of sarcasm and invective he can be compared only to John Randolph of Roanoke, and as a fierce delighter in opposition he may be compared to Webster. But Phillips' orations, like those of Clay, are hard to read. Examined in cold blood, his sentences often seem harsh and even coarse. The fire of his invective was fed at times with unseemly material and he often depended upon his consummate oratorical skill to carry sentences that will hardly pass the searching criticism

Old Homestead Poems, p. 97.

A History of American Literature, p. 327.

a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice. Mr. Vavasour's breakfasts were renowned. Whatever your creed, class, or merit-one might almost add, your character-you were a welcome guest at his matutinal meal, provided you were celebrated. That qualification, however, was rigidly enforced. Individuals met at his hospitable house who had never met before, but who for years had been cherishing in solitude mutual detestation with all the irritable exaggeration of the literary character. He prided himself on figuring as the social medium by which rival reputations became acquainted, and paid each other in his presence the compliments which veiled their ineffable disgust. All this was very well in the Albany, and only funny; but when he collected his menageries at his ancestral hall in a distant county, the sport sometimes became tragic.-DISRAELI, BENJAMIN (LORD BEACONSFIELD), 1847, Tancred.

See him if you have opportunity: a man very easy to see and get into flowing talk with; a man of much sharpness of faculty, well tempered by several inches of "Christian fat" he has upon his ribs for covering. One of the idlest, cheeriest, most gifted of, fat little men.-CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1847, To Emerson, Dec. 30; Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, ed. Norton, vol. II, p. 188.

Tell Miss Martineau it is said here that Monckton Milnes refused to be sworn in a special constable that he might be free to assume the post of President of the Republic at a moment's notice.-ARNOLD, MATTHEW, 1848, To his Mother, April; Letters ed. Russell, vol. 1, p. 8.

He has a beautiful forehead, and most expressive eyes.-LEVERT, OCTAVIA WALTON, 1853, Souvenirs of Travel, vol. 1, p. 79.

The most interesting feature of his character, as it stands before the world, is his catholicity of sentiment and manner,-his ability to sympathize with all manner of thinkers and speakers, and his superiority to all appearance of exclusiveness, while, on the one hand, rather enjoying the reputation of having access to all houses, and, on the other, being serious and earnest in the deepest recesses of his character.-MARTINEAU, HARRIET, 1855-77, Autobiography, ed. Chapman, vol. I, p. 259.

Milnes is a good speaker in Parliament, a good writer of poems, which have been praised by critics who have roosted on his mahogany tree, a man of fashion, and altogether a swell of the first class.-MOTLEY, JOHN LOTHROP, 1858, To his Wife, May 28; Correspondence, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, p. 228.

He enters from the common air
Into that temple dim;

He learns among those ermined peers
The diplomatic hymn.

His peers? Alas! when will they learn
To grow up peers to him?
-PROCTER, MRS. BRYAN WALLER, 1863, On
Richard Monckton Milnes becoming Baron
Houghton.

He

I have known him ever since I was a girl, but only as a friendly acquaintance that met frequently upon cordial terms. was everywhere in London society at the time when I was living very much in it, and I therefore saw him almost wherever I went. He has always been kind and good-natured to me, but, beyond thinking him so, I never felt any great interest in his society, or special desire for his intercourse. He is clever, liberal-minded, extremely goodnatured, and good-tempered, and with his very considerable abilities and genuine amiable qualities a valuable and agreeable acquaintance. . . . I had no conversation of any particular interest with him, for he is very deaf, and having lost his teeth, speaks so indistinctly that I, who am also very deaf, could hardly understand half he said; so you see his visit was no particular satisfaction or gratification to me, nor could it possibly have been either to him.-KEMBLE, FRANCES ANN, 1875, Letter to H——, Nov. 30; Further Records, p. 134.

Monckton Milnes had made his [Carlyle] acquaintance, and invited him to breakfast. He used to say that, if Christ was again on earth, Milnes would ask Him to breakfast, and the Clubs would all be talking of the "good things" that Christ had said. But Milnes, then as always, had open eyes for genius, and reverence for it truer and deeper than most of his contemporaries.-FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY, 1884, Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London, vol. 1. p. 133.

Adieu, dear Yorkshire Milnes! we think not now Of coronet or laurel on thy brow;

The kindest, faithfullest of friends wast thou. -ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM, 1885, Lord Houghton, Aug. 11.

He was famous for the interest he took in notorieties, and especially in notorious sinners, always finding some good reason for taking an indulgent view of their misdeeds. I have heard that, on the occasion of some murderer being hung, his sister, Lady Galway, expressed her satisfaction, saying that if he had been acquitted she would have been sure to have met him next week at one of her brother's Thursday-morning breakfasts.-TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, 1885, Autobiography, vol. I, p. 273.

I next met Lord Houghton at dinner in Albany in the winter of 1876-7, where he was the guest of Lieutenant Governor Dorsheimer. The ten intervening years had told upon his personal appearance, but more upon his manner. He seemed very fidgety and nervous. He was constantly doing something that did not then need doing; he was either pulling at his wristbands, or at the sleeves of his under-garments, or trying to get some new effect from his shirt collar. His head struck me as too low on the top to answer the purposes of a man of a very high order of character, or to win love and respect in any great degree, but his pure blue eyes were as striking and attractive as ever. No one could look into them a second time and not see that they were the eyes of no ordinary or commonplace man. He laughed frequently and explosively, apparently as a matter of politeness, rather than because he was amused. His talk was agreeable, and his manner that of a man who had no concern about the impression he was producing the perfection of high breeding.-BIGELOW, JOHN, 1885, Some Recollections of Lord Houghton, Harper's Magazine, vol. 71, p. 955.

His brilliancy and talents in tongue or pen -whether political, social, or literary-were inspired chiefly by goodwill towards man; but he had the same voice and manners for the dirty brat as he had for a duchess, the same desire to give pleasure and good: for both were his wits and his kindness. Once, at Redhill (the Reformatory), where we were with a party, and the chiefs were explaining to us the system in the courtyard, a mean, stunted, villainous-looking little fellow crept across the yard (quite out of order, and by himself), and stole a dirty paw into Mr. Milnes's hand. Not a word passed; the boy stayed quite quiet and quite contented if he could but touch his benefactor who had placed him there. He

was evidently not only his benefactor, but his friend.-NIGHTINGALE, FLORENCE, 1889, Letter to Miss Jane Milnes, Life of Lord Houghton, ed. Reid, vol. II, p. 7.

I knew Lord Houghton for thirty years or more, and had a warm regard for him. He was kind-hearted and affectionate, keen to discover and eager to proclaim the merit of the unrecognized. He had a reverence for genius wherever he met with it, and few people showed a sounder judgment in literary matters when he was seriously called upon to exercise it. Then with his great ability, wide reading, and knowledge of the world, and his air-half romantic, half satirical— he was very attractive. Lord Houghton was whimsical in his wit, and sometimes more than whimsical in his offhand opinions, which those who understood him received as he intended they should be. He was not unduly taken up with his poetry; he was modest about it.- LOCKER-LAMPSON, FREDERICK, 1889, Letter to T. Wemyss Reid, Life of Lord Houghton, ed. Reid, vol. II, p.

453.

The man who had known Wordsworth and Landor and Sydney Smith; who during the greater part of his life had been the friend, trusted and well-beloved, of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Thackeray, was also one of the first to hail the rising genius of Swinburne, and to lend a helping hand to other great writers of a still younger generation. Nor were his friendships confined to the literary world. The-Miss Berrys, who had known Horace Walpole in their youth, knew and loved Monckton Milnes in their old age. Among statesmen he had been the friend of Vassal Holland, Melbourne, Peel and Palmerston, in the heyday of their fame; he had first seen Mr. Gladstone as an undergraduate at Oxford; and been the associate of Mr. Disraeli when he was still only the social aspirant of Gore House; had been the confidant of Louis Napoleon before he was a prisoner at Ham, and had known Louis Philippe, Thiers, Guizot, and Lamartine, alike in their days of triumph and defeat. Lamennais, Wiseman, Edward Irving, Connop Thirlwall, and Frederick Maurice had all influenced his mind in youth; he had "laid the first plank of a kind of pulpit" from which Emerson could preach "throughout all Saxondom," and he had recognised the noble character and brilliant qualities of Miss Nightingale long before the world had heard her name. These were but a