seen a better
mimic than Gough, and this must give him great power, especially in
circles where the stage is as much a _terra incognita_ as Utopia, or the
Island of Laputa itself. We have always thought that a fine figure of
Byron, where he tells us that he laid his hand upon the ocean's mane.
Something of the same kind might be said to be applicable to Mr. Gough.
He seemed to ride upon the audience--to have mastered it completely to
his will. He seemed to bestride it as we could imagine Alexander
bestriding his Bucephalus. Since then Mr. Gough has spoken in Exeter
Hall nearly seventy times--has endured cruel misrepresentations--yet his
attractions are as great, and his audiences as overflowing as over. The
truth is, in his strength and weakness Gough is the very personification
of an Exeter Hall orator. You may object to his exaggerations--you may
find fault with his digressions--you may pooh-pooh his arguments--you may
question the good taste of some of his allusions--you may wonder how
people can applaud, and laugh at, or weep over, what they have applauded,
or laughed at, or wept over a dozen times before: but they do; that no
one can deny.

Gough spoke for nearly two hours. Evidently the audience could have
listened, had he gone on, till midnight. We often hear that the age of
oratory has gone by--that the press supersedes the tongue--that the
appeal must henceforth be made to the reader in his study, not to the
hearer in the crowded hall. There is much truth in that. Nevertheless,
the true orator will always please his audience, and true oratory will
never die. The world will always respond to it. The human heart will
always leap up to it. The finest efforts of the orator have been amongst
civilised audiences. It was a cultivated audience before whom
Demosthenes pleaded; to whom, standing on Mars-hill, Paul preached of an
unknown God. The true orator, like the true poet, speaks to all. He
gathers around him earth's proudest as well as poorest intellects.
Notwithstanding, then, the march of mind, oratory may win her triumphs
still. So long as the heart is true to its old instinct--so long as it
can pity, or love, or hate, or fear, it will be moved by the orator, if
he can but pity or love, or hate or fear himself. This is the true
secret. This is it that made Gough the giant that he is. Without that
he might be polished, learned, master of all human lore; but he would be
feeble and impotent as th