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outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object, this, this is Eloquence, or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, — it is Action, noble, sublime, God-like Action.

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THE ORATOR'S ART.

J. Q. ADAMS.

THE eloquence of the college is like the discipline of a review. The art of war, we are all sensible, does not consist in manœuvres on a training-day; nor the steadfastness of the soldier in the hour of battle, in the drilling of his orderly sergeant. Yet the superior excellence of the veteran army is exemplified in nothing more forcibly than in the perfection of its discipline. It is in the heat of action, upon the field of blood, that the fortune of the day may be decided by the exactness of manual exercise; and the art of displaying a column, or directing a charge, may turn the balance of victory, and change the history of the world. The application of these observations is as direct to the art of oratory as to that of war. The exercises to which you are here accustomed are not intended merely for the display of the talents you have acquired. They are instruments put into your hands for future use. Their object is not barely to prepare you for the composition and delivery of an oration to amuse an idle hour on some public anniversary. It is to give you a clew for the labyrinth of legislation in the public councils; a spear for the conflict of judicial war in the public tribunals; a sword for the field of religious and moral victory in the pulpit.

FROM HENRY V.

SHAKESPEARE.

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness, and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage:

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height.

HERVE RIEL.

ROBERT BROWNING.

PART I.

I.

woe to France!

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French -
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Maló on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

II.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase. First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;

Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signalled to the place,

"Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick—or, quicker still Here's the English can and will!"

III.

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leaped on board; "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?"

laughed they;

"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and

scored,

Shall the Formidable' here, with her twelve and eighty guns,
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside?

Now 't is slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring? Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

IV.

Then was called a council straight;

Brief and bitter the debate;

"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow
All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow,
For a prize to Plymouth sound?-
Better run the ships aground!"

(Ended Damfreville his speech,)
"Not a minute more to wait!

Let the captains all and each

Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!
France must undergo her fate."

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For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these— A captain? A lieutenant? A mate-first, second, third?

No such man of mark, and meet

With his betters to compete?

But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleetA poor coasting pilot he, Hervé Riel, the Croisickese.

VI.

And "What mockery or malice have we here?” cries Hervé Riel;

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'Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or

rogues?

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell,

'Twixt the offing here and Grève, where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day,

Have I piloted your bay,

Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.

Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!

Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way!

VII.

"Only let me lead the line,

Have the biggest ship to steer,
Get this Formidable' clear,

Make the others follow mine,

And I lead them most and least by a passage I know well,

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Keel so much as grate the ground —

Why, I've nothing but my life; here's my head!" cries Hervé Riel.

VIII.

Not a minute more to wait!

"Steer us in, then, small and great!

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief.

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Still the north wind, by God's grace;
See the noble fellow's face

As the big ship, with a bound,

Clears the entry like a hound,

Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide seas profound!

IX.

See, safe through shoal and rock,

How they follow in a flock!

Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,

Not a spar that comes to grief!

The peril, see, is past,

All are harbored to the last,

And just as Hervé Riel hollas, "Anchor!".

Up the English come, too late.

sure as fate,

PART II.

I.

So the storm subsides to calm;

They see the green trees wave

On the heights o'erlooking Grève ;
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm,

“Just our rapture to enhance,

Let the English rake the bay,

Gnash their teeth and glare askance
As they cannonade away!

'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!"
Now hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance !

II.

Outburst all with one accord,

"This is Paradise for hell!

Let France, let France's king,

Thank the man that did the thing!"

What a shout, and all one word,

66 Hervé Riel!"

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