Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846Various
History
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
spirit of his hearers; his power of producing new thoughts and giving
new shapes to acknowledged truths; his whole magnificence of mind
erecting and developing new views of human action as it moves along,
lead the feelings of men in a willing fascination until the charm is
complete. But after such a man, let the mere advocate stand up, and how
feebly does his voice fall on the ear, how dry are his facts, how
tedious his tricks, how lacklustre, empty, and vain are his contrivances
to produce conviction!
Mackintosh wants one grand quality for the jury,--he speaks like one who
thinks more of his argument than of his audience; he forgets the faces
before him, and is evidently poring over the images within. Though with
a visage of the colour, and seemingly of the texture of granite, he
blushes at a misplaced word, and is evidently sensitive to the error of
a comma. No man ever spoke with effect who cannot hesitate without being
overwhelmed, blunder without a blush, or be bewildered by his own
impetuosity, without turning back to retrace. _En avant_ is the precept
for the orator, as much as it is the principle of the soldier.
Mackintosh has to learn these things; but he has a full mind, a classic
tongue, and a subtle imagination, and these constitute the one thing
needful for the orator, comprehend all, and complete all.
* * * * *
The late Lord Orford, the relative of the well-known Horace Walpole, is
one of the curious evidences that every man who takes it into his head
to be conspicuous, right or wrong, may make for himself a name. Lord
Orford, while his relative was writing all kinds of brilliant things,
collecting antiquities, worshipping the genius of cracked china, and
bowing down before fardingales and topknots of the time of Francis I.,
in the Temple of Strawberry Hill, was forming a niche for his fame in
his dog-kennel, and immortalizing himself by the help of his hounds.
Next to Actaeon, he was the greatest dog-fancier that the world has ever
seen, and would have rivalled Endymion, if Diana was to be won by the
fleetest of quadrupeds. He was boundless in his profusion in respect of
his favourite animals, until at last, finding that his ideas of
perfection could not be realized by any living greyhounds, he speculated
on the race unborn, and crossed his dogs until, after seven summers, he
brought them to unrivalled excellence. He had at various times fifty
brace of greyhounds, quartering them over every part of his county
Norfolk, of which he was lord-lieutenant, probably for the sake of
trying the effect of air and locality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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