Oratory is perhaps the gift of the gods, but skill in speaking is undoubtedly an art that can be acquired by practice, if sought diligently and with patience. Demosthenes gloried in the smell of the lamp; Cicero learnt every speech by heart. The former would go down to the seashore on a stormy day, fill his mouth with pebbles, and speak loudly to the ocean, thus accustoming himself to the murmur of popular assemblies; the latter on one occasion rehearsed a speech so diligently that he had little strength left to deliver it on the following day. The sight of a modern politician sitting on the pier at Brighton delivering a marine address as intelligibly as a mouthful of gravel would permit, is one that would only excite feelings of alarm in the bosoms of his friends; the thought of a Cabinet Minister fainting before his looking-glass, as the result of an excessive rehearsal of his peroration, is more pathetic than practical. There is, however, nothing to prevent a member of Parliament from practising his elocution upon the trees of the forest, as Grattan did,[350] or upon the House of Commons itself, and it is thus alone that he will acquire proficiency in that art in which it is so desirable for the statesman to excel. "It is absolutely necessary for you to speak in Parliament," Lord Chesterfield wrote to his long-suffering son. "It requires only a little human attention and no supernatural gifts."[351] [350] Grattan used to walk about the park at Windsor haranguing the oaks in a loud voice. A passer-by once found him apostrophising an empty gibbet. "How did you get down?" asked the stranger politely. O'Flanagan, "Irish Chancellors," vol. ii. p. 416. [351] Letters, vol. ii. pp. 328-9. Charles James Fox resolved, when young, to speak at least once every night in the House. During five whole sessions he held manfully to this resolution, with the exception of one single evening--an exception which he afterwards regretted. He thus became the most brilliant debater that ever lived, "vehement in his elocution, ardent in his language, prompt in his invention of argument, adroit in its use."[352] He was, however, too impetuous to be as great an orator as his rival Pitt, whose majestic eloquence was almost divine,[353] and offended continually by the tautology of his diction and the constant repetition of his arguments. The hesitation and lack of grace of his delivery detracted greatly from the force of his speeches; the keenness of his sabre, as Walpole said, was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard.[354] In a comparison of the two statesmen, Flood calls Pitt's speeches "didactic declamations," and those of Fox "argumentative conversations."[355] [352] "Lord Colchester's Diary," vol. i. p. 23. [353] "Pitt spoke like ten thousand angels," wrote Richard Grenville to George Grenville in November, 1742 ("Grenville Papers," vol. i. p. 19). [354] "Memoirs," vol. i. p. 490.