a scale. When the exchequer was so much overtaxed, ordinary prudence might have induced the Emperor to moderate his expenses in this particular, to decide, upon inquiry into the practice of his predecessors or of other nations, what sum is a fair remuneration to his ministers for the work which they do this amount would be justly due to them, and would of course—content them.

But still, profuse largesses to some of these gentlemen, though to be regretted, were to be expected, for we might easily have known that it was not for nothing that needy adventurers, hangers-on of an unscrupulous family, undertook to assist their leader in any attempt that seemed good to him; whether in organizing piratical expeditions or coups d'état, or in kindly taking charge of the welfare and the purse of France. Yet if these ministers were really first-rate men their high salaries, although not to be justified, might be tolerated; but on the contrary they are of very inferior capacity the only man of ability ever in the Cabinet, Monsieur Drouyn de Lhuys, retired from it long ago, fatigued by his differences with Count Walewski; the two could not remain in the Ministry, one must leave it; so mark what happened; Count Walewski triumphed over his superior,—unscrupulous devotion to the Emperor over honesty to France,relationship to him over ability to serve her well. For a ruler indeed such as Lamartine, France might now well afford to pay any price, but he is in that condition so pathetically described in the Works of the Emperor, the condition of an exile, and some of the most eminent Citizens of France bear him company.

There is still one consideration which touches England more nearly than any other; the probability of a war with France: now although no prudent Frenchman would desire a war with England, it is certainly not very improbable that the French Army will become so unruly as to force the Emperor into such a war; not at his desire, or with his permission would this take place, far from it; he is sagacious enough to see the probable results of such a course, but he may, and, if the Army choose, will be forced into it against his wish: this would be a great misfortune, both for France and him; but for her only, and not for him, should we feel pity, for it would be his own fault; he has determined from the beginning to rule by means of the Army, and he therefore made it as powerful as was possible; he was once its master, it may ere long become his, and he, like Frankenstein, will be destroyed by the monster of his own creation. We are thus forced to the final conclusion that France is mistress neither of her internal administration nor her external political relations.

Having then thus briefly observed the aspect of the three important features which virtually determine the character of that great Country, its condition, social, financial, and political, we regret to find that the ruin of the first has been consummated, of the second is far advanced,—and of the third is impending.

PUBLIC SPEAKING.

AMONG MONG the popular complaints of the present day, and they are not few in number, the loudest and perhaps the most frequent is the want of orators: why is it, we hear on all sides, that while we have good poets, good historians, good novelists, there is no such thing as a good public speaker? In vain we adduce Lord Derby, Gladstone, Lord Brougham, and Bright as proofs to the contrary; what are they, we are asked, when compared with the orators of the last generation, with Burke, Pitt, Fox, or even Sheridan; and, even allowing their title to celebrity, what are they among so many? Now although it is a vulgar error to exaggerate the past and depreciate the present, on the principle of "omne ignotum pro mirifico," yet there is very rarely a popular cry wholly without foundation. Madame de Sevigné with much pointedness says, "Mon ami le public a bon nez, et ne se méprend guère." Allowing the fact then that oratory is on the decline, we propose shortly to examine into the causes of this decline.

In the ancient times of Greece and Rome any one who had the slightest pretensions to literary or political fame was necessarily more or less an orator. Even a general had but a poor chance of success, if he lacked the art of carrying a popular assembly with him. Demosthenes (the general) Cleon, Pericles, Alcibiades, were all orators, and a hundred other instances might be added. Had not Homer been able to recite as well as compose his divine verses, we should have been ignorant even of his name. Those were the days when the sausage-seller Cleon and the tallow-chandler Hyperbolus flourished; the cleverness and wit of Themistocles were preferred to the probity and justice of Aristides, and a stammerer was a synonym for a fool. Demosthenes, had he lived in the present day, would have held his tongue, or contented himself with writing for the Saturday Review. As it was however, his ambition drove him to conquer his natural defects and to devote himself to public speaking, as the only way in which distinction was to be attained.

Great was the change produced by the invention of printing. A new and widely different channel was opened for genius, a channel in which men of stammering lips and of

feeble tongue might win far greater glory than a Cicero or a Demosthenes.

Even within the last fifty years the multiplication of books has made a vast difference. There was a time when an eloquent speech would carry the whole House of Commons with it. Now it is the rarest possible event for a vote to be turned by a speech. Most members have got up the subject from books, and come to a deliberate opinion before they enter the House, and the rest who lack industry or talents to do so, have pledged themselves blindly to follow their leader. Here we believe we have the chief cause for the decline of oratory. We live in a reading and not in a hearing age. There is less demand for the commodity in the market and consequently the supply is less.

But there are many who assign a far different reason. Education, they say, is at fault. A man is no more born an orator than he is a cobbler. For either profession he must be trained; and a purely classical or mathematical education will not turn out an orator any more than sending a boy to the national school will make him a cobbler. Now, this is a very shallow view of the meaning of education; which has for its object, as we take it, not the making men lawyers, statesmen, or orators; but to turn out such machines as shall by subsequent training fulfil the particular functions for which they may afterwards be required. Facts have proved that a man who has received a general education and never opened a book on law till he has passed the age of twenty-three, will make a better lawyer than one who has worked at law from his infancy, and learned his alphabet out of Blackstone. This is the mistake into which the students of American Universities run. They can, if we may believe one of their number, talk fluently on any given subject, at however short a notice, and are ready and willing to discuss philosophy, theology, or politics with the first stranger they meet; but a Yule man finds serious difficulty in translating Cæsar, and is completely floored by a sentence of Thucydides. In our English Universities we pursue an exactly different course. It is an axiom that classics and mathematics are the best means for developing the human mind. In these the highest rewards are offered, and the highest excellence is obtained. To the study of extraneous subjects, very properly, little encouragement is given. For if any one, after devoting his energies to these, fail to be successful, he will rarely, if ever, succeed in any other branch of learning. Moreover, distasteful as these may seem to some, what can be more useful than the moral as well as the intellectual training brought out in the mastery of them?

But to return to the point whence we started, we would fully admit that no man is born an orator.-Men of the highest genius have been incapable of expressing their thoughts fluently either publicly or privately, and the greatest orators have acquired their eloquence and mastery of language by slow and often painful efforts. We have seen a senior classic and high wrangler utterly dumb-foundered by a girl just escaped from the school-room, and we remember at a debate of the Cambridge Union Society one of the cleverest men of his year being made a laughing-stock of, without having a word to say in his defence, by a man who afterwards failed to satisfy the very moderate requirements of a "poll" examiner. In the excellent life of George Stephenson there is a story told, illustrating very well how the stronger side is often beaten by the weaker through want of words. In an argument on the properties of coal with Dr. Buckland, Stephenson was decidedly worsted. Knowing that his was the true view of the case, and annoyed at being beaten, he explained what he meant to have said to Sir William Follett, in private, who agreed to be his spokesman. The subject was a second time brought on the tapis, and to Stephenson's immense joy Dr. Buckland was thoroughly silenced.

Since such are the disadvantages under which a man who is unable to speak in public labours, it is the height of folly to despise oratory, and assert that, because rhetoric is often used in a bad cause, it is unwise or wrong to use it in a good one. But we contend that self-education alone is wanted for this, and that it cannot be taught by any methodical process. First let a man have something worth telling, and then let, him see how best he may tell it: it is better to have a bare rock to stand on than a cloud-capped castle built on the sand; any one would choose rather to live on bread alone, than on all manner of sweets and dainties without bread. At both the Universities, and at some of the large public schools there are debating societies, in which, however low the standard of speaking may be, any one can acquire confidence, and the power of feeling the pulse of an audience, two indispensable requisites for a successful orator; and yet but a small number avail themselves of this advantage. Many men know that they will have to speak in after life, but the University not requiring them to speak in public, they defer their first attempt until they have, instead of an indulgent audience, a bench of rivals to hear them, and public opinion outside has to judge of their efforts. A man who is a moderately good classical scholar is already in possession of considerable advantages, since the immense amount of translation from the dead languages into English,