g. 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.

9. These rem