One great use of an oratorical analysis, as supplied by the teachers of Rhetoric, is to part off the different merits of a perfect oration; and to show which are to be extracted from the various exemplary orators. One man excels in forcible arguments, another in the lucid array of facts; one is impressive and impassioned, another is quiet but circumspect. Now, the benefit of studying on principle, instead of working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one's strong points, and disregard the rest. But it needs a preparatory analysis, in order to make the discrimination. All that the uninstructed reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great: this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for an oratorical disciple. In the hazardous task of pursuing the illustration by naming the examples of oratory most suitable to commence with, I shall pass over living men, and choose from the past orators of our own country. Without discussing minutely the respective merits of individuals, I am safe in selecting, as in every way suitable for our purpose, Burke, Fox, Erskine, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay. Burke's Speeches on America; Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny; Erskine on Stockdale, and on Hardy, Tooke, &c.; Canning on the Slave Trade; Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Denman in the Queen's Trial; Macaulay on the Reform Bill,--would comprise, in a moderate compass, a considerable range of oratorical excellence. I doubt if any member of the list would be more suitable for a beginning than Macaulay's Reform Speeches. These are no mere displays of a brilliant imagination: they are known to have influenced thousands of minds otherwise averse to political change. The reader finds in them an immense repository of historical facts as well as of doctrines; but facts and doctrines, by themselves, do not make oratory. It is the use made of these, that gives us the instruction we are now in quest of. In a first or second reading, however, matter and form equally captivate the mind. It would be impossible, at that early stage, to make an abstract such as would separate the oratorical from the non-oratorical merits. Only when, by help of our scheme, we have made a critical distinction between the two kinds of excellence, are we able to arrive at an approach to a pure oratorical lesson; and, for a long time, we shall fail to make the desired isolation. We have to learn not to expect too much from any one speech: to pass over in Macaulay, what is more conspicuously shown, say in Fox, or in Erskine. If our political and historical education has made some progress, the mere thoughts and facts do not detain us; their employment for the end of persuasion is what we have to take account of. [COMPREHENSIVE PRINCIPLE OF ORATORY.]