ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES. BY HUGH BLAIR, D. D. & F. R. S. ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF THE HIGH CHURCH, AND PROFESSOR FIFTH AMERICAN, FROM THE NINTH AND LAST LONDON EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. BROOKLYN: PRINTED BY THOMAS KIRK, MAIN-STREBT. 1812. PE CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. XXVII. DIFFERENT Kinds of Public Speaking-Elo- quence of Popular Assemblies-Extracts from XXXI. Conduct of a Discourse in all its Parts-Intro- duction-Division-Narration and Explication.. 86 XXXII. Conduct of a Discourse-The Argumentative XXXIX. Pastoral Poetry-Lyric Poetry.". XL. Didactic Poetry-Descriptive Poetry. XLIII. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey--Virgil's Æneid... 279 XLIV. Lucan's Pharsalia-Tasso's Jerusalem--Camo- en's Lusiad-Fenelon's Telemachus-Voltaire's LECTURES ON RHETORIC, &c. LECTURE XXVII. DIFFERENT KINDS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING ELOQUENCE OF POPULAR ASSEMBLIESEXTRACTS FROM DEMOSTHENES. AFTER the preliminary views which have been given of the nature of eloquence in general, and of the state in which it has subsisted in different ages and countries, I am now to enter on the consideration of the different kinds of public speaking, the distinguishing characters of each, and the rules which relate to them. The ancients divided all orations into three kinds; the demonstrative, the deliberative, and the judicial. The scope of the demonstrative, was to praise or to blame; that of the deliberative, to advise or to dissuage; that of the judicial, to accuse or to defend. The chief subjects of demonstrative eloquence, were panegyrics, invectives, gratulatory and funeral orations. The deliberative was employed in matters of public concern, agitated in the senate, or before the assemblies of the people. The judicial is the same with the eloquence of the bar, employed in addressing judges, who have power to ab.. solve or to condemn. This division runs through all the ancient treatises on rhetoric; and is followed by the moderns who copy them. It is a division not inartificial; and comprehends most, or all of the matters which can be the subject of public discourse. It will, however, suit our purpose better, and be found, I imagine, more useful, to follow that division which the train of modern speaking naturally points out to us, taken from the three great scenes of eloquence, popular assemblies, the bar, and the pulpit; each of which has a distinct character |