HABITS OF ENGLISH ORATORS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 74, 26 September 1874, Page 11

HABITS OF ENGLISH ORATORS.

Wit Beight has just written a letter to a young theological student in "which he gives his opinions on the art of public speaking, ne is for •extempore speaking when a man knows his -subject and has a good liold on it ; but for a preacher who has to deliver a sermon a week on the same topic to the same people, a written sermon is, he says, almost indispensible " only men of great mind, great knowledge and great power can do this with great success," and lie wondeis that any man car. do it at all. The best preparation forspoaking is, he suggests, to think over what is to be said, and to form an outline in a few brief notes. He nays he has never been in the habit of writing out his speeches, certainly not for more than thirty jears past, the labor of writing being bad enough, and the labor of committing to memory intolerable. This statement must, however, be taken with a certain qualification. Mr Bright, I believe, does not •write out all his speeches, but he writes out the most important and Jlighly-worked passages and gets them by heart. The rest he fills' in as he goes on, and any one who examine* his speeches carefully can -tell by the great precision and point of the language in certain points ■what has been written arid what spoken off-hand. All his speeches are "very carefully prepared, but chiefly in hi 3 head- He goes over the points he wishes to bring out for weeks, and, perhaps, months, and 'broods over the subject til) it takes form and substance in his mind. He has a small slip of letter paper with notes on it of the points in "their order, and in the House of Commons I have often noticed him "for hours before he rose conning over his notes and rehearsing passages "with his eyes on the ceiling. Mr Gladstone uses notes, but only for facts and the order of his points, and trusts exclusively to the moment for his words. Lord Palmerston always spoke extempore, and ecnrce'y -«ver condescended to refer to a paper. His great speech, five hours) 3ong, in the Bon Pacifico debate, was delivered in this manner ; he had only a sot of despatches before him in order to make exact quotations. Long practice in dictations to private secretaries had given him a mastery or piecise and easy languuge, but lie was not a flowing speaker. He thought a great deal more how a speech would read than how it sounded at the moment, and was determined not to use any but words he really wanted. This made him hesitate occasionally. IJr Lowe acquired similar precision from dictating leading ai tides for the ' Times.' Mr Disraeli despises notes, except notes of dates and other figures; he prepares his speeches with great care, planning them out, grouping his points artistically, and polishing up his epigrams. But his speeches, though partly drafted beforehand, are not repeated ■from memory.

The late Lord Dei by was an impulsive extempore speaker ; but his son writes his speeches from the beginning to the end, and learns them laboriously. Lord Granville speaks olf-hand, and is very unequal in his style, which is, for tho most part, loose and slovenly. Lord Russell also trusts to the words of the moment, and this, I imagine, was the rule with all the speakers of the last generation, Mr fTorsman, I have heard, wiites his speeches many times over, each time destroying tho manuscript, and then writing another with as ruuny improvements as he can think of. The object, is of course, te procure a firm hold on the subject generally, as well as on his premeditated language, so that he may drop the latter if he chooses, and insert any thing that occurs to him. — ' Philadelphia Standard.'