Volume Ii Part 133 (1/2)
Ovid.
Most Foreign Writers who have given any Character of the English Nation, whatever Vices they ascribe to it, allow in general, that the People are naturally Modest. It proceeds perhaps from this our National Virtue, that our Orators are observed to make use of less Gesture or Action than those of other Countries. Our Preachers stand stock-still in the Pulpit, and will not so much as move a Finger to set off the best Sermons in the World. We meet with the same speaking Statues at our Bars, and in all publick Places of Debate. Our Words flow from us in a smooth continued Stream, without those Strainings of the Voice, Motions of the Body, and Majesty of the Hand, which are so much celebrated in the Orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of Life and Death in cold Blood, and keep our Temper in a Discourse which turns upon every thing that is dear to us. Though our Zeal breaks out in the finest Tropes and Figures, it is not able to stir a Limb about us. I have heard it observed more than once by those who have seen Italy, that an untravelled Englishman cannot relish all the Beauties of Italian Pictures, because the Postures which are expressed in them are often such as are peculiar to that Country.
One who has not seen an Italian in the Pulpit, will not know what to make of that n.o.ble Gesture in Raphael's Picture of St. Paul preaching at Athens, where the Apostle is represented as lifting up both his Arms, and pouring out the Thunder of his Rhetorick amidst an Audience of Pagan Philosophers.
It is certain that proper Gestures and vehement Exertions of the Voice cannot be too much studied by a publick Orator. They are a kind of Comment to what he utters, and enforce every thing he says, with weak Hearers, better than the strongest Argument he can make use of. They keep the Audience awake, and fix their Attention to what is delivered to them, at the same time that they shew the Speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so pa.s.sionately recommends to others.
Violent Gesture and Vociferation naturally shake the Hearts of the Ignorant, and fill them with a kind of Religious Horror. Nothing is more frequent than to see Women weep and tremble at the Sight of a moving Preacher, though he is placed quite out of their Hearing; as in England we very frequently see People lulled asleep with solid and elaborate Discourses of Piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the Bellowings and Distortions of Enthusiasm.
If Nonsense, when accompanied with such an Emotion of Voice and Body, has such an Influence on Men's Minds, what might we not expect from many of those Admirable Discourses which are printed in our Tongue, were they delivered with a becoming Fervour, and with the most agreeable Graces of Voice and Gesture?
We are told that the great Latin Orator very much impaired his Health by this laterum contentio, this Vehemence of Action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek Orator was likewise so very Famous for this Particular in Rhetorick, that one of his Antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the Oration which had procured his Banishment, and seeing his Friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a Storm of Eloquence?
How cold and dead a Figure in Comparison of these two great Men, does an Orator often make at the British Bar, holding up his Head with the most insipid Serenity, and streaking the sides of a long Wigg that reaches down to his Middle? The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the Gestures of an English Speaker; you see some of them running their Hands into their Pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great Attention on a piece of Paper that has nothing written in it; you may see many a smart Rhetorician turning his Hat in his Hands, moulding it into several different c.o.c.ks, examining sometimes the Lining of it, and sometimes the b.u.t.ton, during the whole course of his Harangue. A deaf Man would think he was Cheap'ning a Beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the Fate of the British Nation. I remember, when I was a young Man, and used to frequent Westminster-Hall, there was a Counsellor who never pleaded without a Piece of Pack-thread in his Hand, which he used to twist about a Thumb, or a Finger, all the while he was speaking: The Waggs of those Days used to call it the Thread of his Discourse, for he was not able to utter a Word without it. One of his Clients, who was more merry than wise, stole it from him one Day in the midst of his Pleading; but he had better have let it alone, for he lost his Cause by his Jest.
I have all along acknowledged my self to be a Dumb Man, and therefore may be thought a very improper Person to give Rules for Oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of Gesture, (which seems to be very suitable to the Genius of our Nation) or at least to make use of such only as are graceful and expressive.
O.
No. 408. Wednesday, June 18, 1712. Pope.
'Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere, nec subjacere serviliter.'
Tull. de Finibus.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
I have always been a very great Lover of your Speculations, as well in Regard to the Subject, as to your Manner of Treating it. Human Nature I always thought the most useful Object of human Reason, and to make the Consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought the best Employment of human Wit: Other Parts of Philosophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers that End, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the Oracle p.r.o.nounced Socrates the wisest of all Men living, because he judiciously made Choice of human Nature for the Object of his Thoughts; an Enquiry into which as much exceeds all other Learning, as it is of more Consequence to adjust the true Nature and Measures of Right and Wrong, than to settle the Distance of the Planets, and compute the Times of their Circ.u.mvolutions.
One good Effect that will immediately arise from a near Observation of human Nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at those Actions which Men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for as nothing is produced without a Cause, so by observing the Nature and Course of the Pa.s.sions, we shall be able to trace every Action from its first Conception to its Death; We shall no more admire at the Proceedings of Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel Jealousie, the other by a furious Ambition; for the Actions of Men follow their Pa.s.sions as naturally as Light does Heat, or as any other Effect flows from its Cause; Reason must be employed in adjusting the Pa.s.sions, but they must ever remain the Principles of Action.
The strange and absurd Variety that is so apparent in Men's Actions, shews plainly they can never proceed immediately from Reason; so pure a Fountain emits no such troubled Waters: They must necessarily arise from the Pa.s.sions, which are to the Mind as the Winds to a s.h.i.+p, they only can move it, and they too often destroy it; if fair and gentle, they guide it into the Harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset it in the Waves: In the same manner is the Mind a.s.sisted or endangered by the Pa.s.sions; Reason must then take the Place of Pilot, and can never fail of securing her Charge if she be not wanting to her self: The Strength of the Pa.s.sions will never be accepted as an Excuse for complying with them, they were designed for Subjection, and if a Man suffers them to get the upper Hand, he then betrays the Liberty of his own Soul.
As Nature has framed the several Species of Beings as it were in a Chain, so Man seems to be placed as the middle Link between Angels and Brutes: Hence he partic.i.p.ates both of Flesh and Spirit by an admirable Tie, which in him occasions perpetual War of Pa.s.sions; and as a Man inclines to the angelick or brute Part of his Const.i.tution, he is then denominated good or bad, virtuous or wicked; if Love, Mercy, and Good-nature prevail, they speak him of the Angel; if Hatred, Cruelty, and Envy predominate, they declare his Kindred to the Brute. Hence it was that some of the Ancients imagined, that as Men in this Life inclined more to the Angel or Brute, so after their Death they should transmigrate into the one or the other: and it would be no unpleasant Notion, to consider the several Species of Brutes, into which we may imagine that Tyrants, Misers, the Proud, Malicious, and Ill-natured might be changed.
As a Consequence of this Original, all Pa.s.sions are in all Men, but all appear not in all; Const.i.tution, Education, Custom of the Country, Reason, and the like Causes, may improve or abate the Strength of them, but still the Seeds remain, which are ever ready to sprout forth upon the least Encouragement. I have heard a Story of a good religious Man, who, having been bred with the Milk of a Goat, was very modest in Publick by a careful Reflection he made on his Actions, but he frequently had an Hour in Secret, wherein he had his Frisks and Capers; and if we had an Opportunity of examining the Retirement of the strictest Philosophers, no doubt but we should find perpetual Returns of those Pa.s.sions they so artfully conceal from the Publick. I remember Matchiavel observes, that every State should entertain a perpetual jealousie of its Neighbours, that so it should never be unprovided when an Emergency happens; [1] in like manner should the Reason be perpetually on its Guard against the Pa.s.sions, and never suffer them to carry on any Design that may be destructive of its Security; yet at the same Time it must be careful, that it don't so far break their Strength as to render them contemptible, and consequently it self unguarded.