of the Commons of Great Britain, whose
national character he has dishonored.
I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights,
and liberties he has subverted, whose properties he has destroyed,
whose country he has laid waste and desolate.
I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice
which he has violated.
I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly
outraged, injured, and opprest in both sexes, in every age, rank,
situation, and condition of life.--_Impeachment of Warren Hastings:_
EDMUND BURKE.
_Suggestions to the Public Speaker_
2. I am now requiring not merely great preparation while the speaker is
learning his art but after he has accomplished his education. The most
splendid effort of the most mature orator will be always finer for being
previously elaborated with much care. There is, no doubt, a charm in
extemporaneous elocution, derived from the appearance of artless,
unpremeditated effusion, called forth by the occasion, and so adapting
itself to its exigencies, which may compensate the manifold defects
incident to this kind of composition: that which is inspired by the
unforeseen circumstances of the moment, will be of necessity suited to
those circumstances in the choice of the topics, and pitched in the tone
of the execution, to the feelings upon which it is to operate. These are
great virtues: it is another to avoid the besetting vice of modern
oratory--the overdoing everything--the exhaustive method--which an
off-hand speaker has no time to fall into, and he accordingly will take
only the grand and effective view; nevertheless, in oratorical merit,
such effusions must needs be very inferior; much of the pleasure they
produce depends upon the hearer's surprize that in such circumstances
anything can be delivered at all, rather than upon his deliberate
judgment, that he has heard anything very excellent in itself. We may
rest assured that the highest reaches of the art, and without any
necessary sacrifice of natural effect, can only be attained by him who
well considers, and maturely prepares, and oftentimes sedulously
corrects and refines his oration. Such preparation is quite consistent
with the introduction of passages prompted by the occasion, nor will the
transition from one to the other be perceptible in the execution of the
practised master.--_Inaugural Discourse:_ LORD BROUGHAM.
_A Study in Fervent Appeal_
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