"Yet Mr. Pinkney is not an eloquent man; he is convincing, to be sure--and that is to be eloquent in one way; but he would be more, and fails." "Nothing can be further from eloquence, if by eloquence be understood any thing that is persuasive, beautiful, dignified or natural, than the declamation or reasoning of William Pinkney." "His best speeches are a compound of stupendous strength, feeble ornament, affected earnestness, and boisterous turbulent declamation." "But God never meant him for an orator; he has no property of mind or body--no not one, calculated to give him dominion in eloquence." As old Doiley says in the farce, when told that "gold in the balance of philosophy was light as phlogisticated air," this must be deep, for I don't understand a word of it. The above are extracts from a work, in which the author undertakes to deny to Mr. Pinkney the praise of eloquence. No kind of composition confounds me more than criticism, and especially that sort which pretends to develope the characteristics of some distinguished orator. If one ----------------should So get the start of the majestic world as to "bear the palm alone," we feel a very natural curiosity to know what was his appearance, his manner, and peculiar style of eloquence; but alas! in the hands of the critic, he assumes so many shapes, that the imagination is absolutely bewildered, and we turn away in despair of finding out what the man was like. The critic like the newspaper, contradicts himself at every step. One sentence tells us what another denies; and we rise from the perusal of his sketch jaded and worn out with the variety of contrariant ideas which have passed through our brains. I am no critic, and heaven forbid I should ever belong to that cold hearted fraternity, who more often pervert taste than improve it; but I cannot forbear contesting the truth of this writer's assertions, and declaring that he seems to me to be a Lilliputian about the body of a Gulliver.