ion by a chance
infusion of the fierier spirit, a flavour of Radicalism. That is the
thing to set an audience bounding and quirking. Whereas if you commence
by tilling a Triton pitcher full of the neat liquor upon them, 'you have
to resort to the natural element for the orator's art of variation,
you are diluted--and that's bathos, to quote Mr. Timothy. It was a fine
piece of discernment in him. Let Liberalism be your feast, Radicalism
your spice. And now and then, off and on, for a change, for diversion,
for a new emotion, just for half an hour or so-now and then the Sunday
coat of Toryism will give you an air. You have only to complain of the
fit, to release your shoulders in a trice. Mr. Timothy felt for his
art as poets do for theirs, and considered what was best adapted to
speaking, purely to speaking. Upon no creature did he look with such
contempt as upon Dr. Shrapnel, whose loose disjunct audiences he was
conscious he could, giving the doctor any start he liked, whirl away
from him and have compact, enchained, at his first flourish; yea, though
they were composed of 'the poor man,' with a stomach for the
political distillery fit to drain relishingly every private bogside
or mountain-side tap in old Ireland in its best days--the illicit, you
understand.

Further, to quote Mr. Timothy's points of view, the Radical orator has
but two notes, and one is the drawling pathetic, and the other is the
ultra-furious; and the effect of the former we liken to the English
working man's wife's hob-set queasy brew of well-meant villany, that she
calls by the innocent name of tea; and the latter is to be blown, asks
to be blown, and never should be blown without at least seeming to be
blown, with an accompaniment of a house on fire. Sir, we must adapt
ourselves to our times. Perhaps a spark or two does lurk about our
house, but we have vigilant watchmen in plenty, and the house has been
pretty fairly insured. Shrieking in it is an annoyance to the inmates,
nonsensical; weeping is a sickly business. The times are against
Radicalism to the full as much as great oratory is opposed to extremes.
These drag the orator too near to the matter. So it is that one Radical
speech is amazingly like another--they all have the earth-spots. They
smell, too; they smell of brimstone. Soaring is impossible among that
faction; but this they can do, they can furnish the Tory his opportunity
to soar. When hear you a thrilling Tory speech that carries