Many distinguished speakers are said to do more than this,--to write out with care and repeat from memory their more important and persuasive parts; like the _de bene esse's_ of Curran, and the splendid passages of many others. This may undoubtedly be done to advantage by one who has the command of himself which practice gives, and has learned to pass from memory to invention without tripping. It is a different case from that mixture of the two operations, which is condemned above, and is in fact only an extended example of the exceptions made in the last paragraph. With these exceptions, when he undertakes, _bona fide_, an extemporaneous address, he should make no preparation of language. Language is the last thing he should be anxious about. If he have ideas, and be awake, it will come of itself, unbidden and unsought for. The best language flashes upon the speaker as unexpectedly as upon the hearer. It is the spontaneous gift of the mind, not the extorted boon of a special search. No man who has thoughts, and is interested in them, is at a loss for words--not the most uneducated man; and the words he uses will be according to his education and general habits, not according to the labour of the moment. If he truly feel, and wish to communicate his feelings to those around him, the last thing that will fail will be language; the less he thinks of it and cares for it, the more copiously and richly will it flow from him; and when he has forgotten every thing but his desire to give vent to his emotions and do good, then will the unconscious torrent pour, as it does at no other season. This entire surrender to the spirit which stirs within, is indeed the real secret of all eloquence. "True eloquence," says Milton, "I find to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth; and that whose mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others,--when such a man would speak, his words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command and in well ordered files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places." Rerum enim copia (says the great Roman teacher and example) verborum copiam gignit; et, si est honestas in rebus ipsis de quibus dicitur, existit ex rei natura quidam splendor in verbis. Sit modo is, qui dicet aut scribet, institutus liberaliter educatione doctrinaque puerili, et flagret studio, et a natura adjuvetur, et in universorum generum infinitis disceptationibus exercitatus; ornatissimos scriptores oratoresque ad cognoscendum imitandumque legerit;--nae ille haud sane, quemadmodum verba struat et illuminet, a magistris istis requiret. Ita facile in rerum abundantia ad orationis ornamenta, sine duce, natura ipsa, si modo est exercitata, labetur.[12] [12] De Or. iii. 31.