The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture XXIII^da

Fri Ja.^nr 21. 1763

In the Last Lecture I gave ye some account of the Design of Demonstrative orations, the means by which this end may be attained and the arrangement of those means.

I shall make some observations on those authors who have chiefly excelled in this manner of writing. There have been but very few who have turned their thoughts this way.—It is very late before this Species of writing is at all cultivated, | 111 the Subject is not one which would naturally interest very much either the Speaker or his audience. Deliberative and Judiciall Eloquence would arise much more early: Men would much sooner consider what was to be done, or consider the merit of those actions that have been done, than they would think either of commending men and actions, or of discommending them; and consequently would sooner apply themselves to the cultivation of the Deliberative and Judicial Eloquence than of the Demonstrative. Their subjects are such as would be interesting both to speaker and hearers, whereas that of the latter ^b could interest neither for tho the Speaker gave out that his design was to commend some Person or nation, yet the motive was the advancement of his own glory.

This species of Eloquence took its rise from the Old Hymns in honour of the gods and Heroes in the same manner as History arose from the ancient Ballads and Heroical Poems. The Stile of these two is very different: | 112 The one raising our opinion of the Persons whom they celebrate only by recording their actions, whereas the others celebrate the persons they extoll which are gods or Heroes in the most ^c high and exalted epithets. Thus Virgil who proposes to Celebrate the actions of Aeneas does this only by recording them and never exclaims on the danger or difficulty of the adventures with which he had to encounter. But when he comes to <the> Reception of Hercules by Evander, the speech he puts in the mouth of the former in praise of that Heroe is in a very different Strain. 1

The Poeticall panegyricks were very long in use before the Prose ones. It is always late before prose[r] and its beauties come to be cultivated; Poetry is always precedent and is generally arrived to some tollerable perfection. It will no doubt seem at first sight very surprising that a species of writin<g> so vastly more difficult ^d should be in all countries prior to that in which men | 113 naturally express themselves. Thus in Greece Poetry was arrived to its greatest Perfection before the beauties of Prose were at all studied. At Rome there had lived severall poets of considerable merit before Eloquen<ce> was cultivated in any tollerable degree. There were English poets of very great reputation before [before] any tollerable prose had made its appearance. We have also severall poeticall works in the old Scots Language, as Hardyknute, Cherry and the Slae, Tweedside, Lochaber, and Wallace Wight in the originall Scotts but not one bit of tollerable prose. 2 The Erse poetry 3 as appears from the translations lately published have very great merit but we never heard of any Erse prose. This indeed may appear very unnatural that what is most difficult[y] should be that in which the Barbarous least civilized nations most excell in; but it will not be very difficult to account for it. The most barbarous and rude nations after the labours of the day are over have | 114 their hours of merryment and Recreation; and enjoyment with one another; ^e dancing and Gambolling naturally make a part of these dive<r>sions; and this dancing must be attended with music. 4 The Savage nations on the coast of Africa, after they have sheltered themselves thro the whole day in ^f caves and grottos from the scorching heat of the Sun come out in the evening and dance and sing together. Poetry is a necessary attendant on musick, especially on vocall musick the most naturall and simple of any. They naturally express some thoughts along with their musick and these must of consequence be formed into verse to suit with the music. Thus it is that Poetry is cultivated in the most Rude and Barbarous nations, often to a considerable perfection, whereas they make no attempts towards the improvement of Prose. Tis the Introduction of Commerce or at least of ^g opulence which is commonly the attendent of Commerce which | 115 first brings on the improvement of Prose. 5 —Opulence and Commerce commonly precede the improvement of ^h arts, and refinement of every Sort. I do not mean that the improvement of arts and refinement of manners are the necessary consequence of Commerce, the Dutch and the Venetians bear testimony against me, but only that <it> is a necessary requisite. Wherever the Inhabitants of a city are rich and opulent, where they enjoy the necessaries and conveniencies of life in ease and Security, there the arts will be cultivated and refinement of manners a neverfailing attendent. For in all such States it must necessarily happen that there are many who are not obliged to Labour for their livelyhood and have nothing to do, but employ ⁱ themselves in what most suits their taste, and seek out for pleasure in all its shapes. In this State it is that Prose begins to be cultivated.—Prose is naturally the Language of Business; ^j as Poetry is of pleasure and amusement. ^k Prose is the Stile in which all the common affairs of Life all Business and Agreements are made. No one | 116 ever made a Bargain in verse; pleasure is not what he there aims at. Poetry

| 117 Till the Persian expedition 6 arts were unknown in the greater part of Greece. The military art was the employment of the People and as the education must be suited to the Business it was to this ⁿ that the youth was trained. But least this education should give their manners a Rudeness and Ferocity which it had a great tendency to produce, music was added to correct the bad effects of the ^o former part <of> education. These two made the whole of the education of the youth even in Athens the most civilized of any^p : Philosophy and the arts were intirely neglected. In the Colonies indeed Philosophy etc. were come to some perfection before they were heard of in the mother Country. Thales 7 had taught at Miletus, Pythagoras in Italy and Empedocles in Sicily, before the time of the Persian Expeditions from which time commerce that had been cultivated in the Colonies, flourished in the continent and brought wealth, arts and Refinement along with it. Gorgias of Mitylene was the first who introduced Eloquence into Greece; he is said to have astonished them with the ^q | 119 elegance and force of the Oration he delivered on his embassy from his country. From that time Eloquence began to be cultivated, and was soon encouraged by the addition of wealth and opulence to the Grecian States—{which was made after the Persian expedition. This Expedition likewise added to the improvement of Eloquence as the Athenian State ordered by a public decree that anuall orations or Panegyrick<s> should be read on the persons who had signalized themselves in the defence of their country and died in ^r Battle.}

As Arms and Music made the chief part, indeed the whole of the education of youth at that time, so to encour[g]age those who excelled in those arts Games were instituted 8 at which prizes were adjudged to the victors in the different exercises as running, wrestling, chariot Races etc. and to those who excelled in the other branch, Music. The Competition for the prize in Music naturally introduced a compet<it>ion amongst the Poets as their art was nearly connected with that Science. The orators seeing the success of the Poets and the great encouragement which they met with, were tempted to try their art also. There was no prize indeed assigned for those who excelled in this Science; but that could be no great discouragement for the prizes that were assigned to the victors in the others were of no value in themselves 120 and only served as a mark of Honour, which could be very well attained without that Badge. The Praises of the conquerors in these games also furnished them with an opportunity of displaying their Talents. At these games Herodotus read his History, and Isocrates his orations (at least had them read by another for his voice was so bad that he never read himself).

The Orators at this time as they rivalled the poets so they imitated them. The Hymns and Praises of the Gods was that sort which best suited these Sort of Orators. As they imitated the ^s Poets in their design so they did in the Subject; The Praises of Divinitys and ^t Heroes who were so much obscured by antiquity as that they might pass for deities were the subj<e>ct of these Hymns. The first of these orations were ^u also on the same subj<e>ct. Those of Gorgias 9 as we are told and others of his time were generally in Praise of Theseus, Hercules, Achilles, Meleager or other such personages.—As they imitated the subject so did they the | 121 manner of the Hym<n>s. Those writings were all in a very desultatory and inconnected manner. They mind Connection no more than it suits them and bring in whatever they think can please the Reader not ^v regarding the subject. All passions especially admiration express themselves in a very loose and broken manner, catching at whatever seems connected with the Subject of the Passion, which as it seems important itself so it makes every thing which is connected with it seem to be so also. The higher the Rapture the more broken is the ^w expression. {Thrasymachus} 10 All the Lyric Poets are in this way desultatory, and Pindar the most raptorous of all is the most unconnected or at least appears to be so.

Isocrates is the first of these writers which has come down to us. His manner is said greatly to Resemble that of Gorgias. He is as well as the old Poets and Lyrick writers very inconnected, and introduces any subject that is the least connected with that in hand; thus in his oration in praise of Helen, 11 he introduces the praises of Theseus, Paris, Achilles etc. etc. | 122 and not a 6^th part is concerning Helen herself. He is fond of all sort of morall sayings, and coin<in>g figure or ornament of Language, Metaphors, Similys, Hyperboles, Antithesis etc. The beauty he chiefly studdies is that of a sounding uniform cadence and equality of Members in the Sentenc<e>. These may all be seen in the introduction of the Oration to Democles, 12 which also shews his design and temper, how he claimed a superiority over the other Sophis[s]ts and endeavourd to Rivall the poets in sweetness and number. Brutus, 13 who had the idea that all Eloquence was to be directed to discover the truth of the matter in question and lead us to a certain conclusion with regard to the Debate, heartily despised this Orator. Whereas Cicero greaty admired him, as he considered only the beautiful, the pleasing and what would intertain and please the audience without much regarding the argument. And indeed if we should read Isocrates for Instruction in order, method, argument or strength of reasoning we should lose our labour; But if we expect intertainment and pleasure | 123 from an agreable writer he will not be dissappointed.

The Victory of the Grecians over the Persians has furnished us with three orations by very eminent hands on that subject of the Praise of the Athenians. One by Lysias. 14 He is said chiefly to have excelled in Judicial private causes, where he maintained the character of a Plain man not ve<r>sed in the chicane of the ^x Bar or courts of Justice; and lost himself much when he attempted any thing florid and extraordinary such as this subject requird. In this oration he appears to have endeavoured at all the beauties of Language and ornament of expression as well as moral sayings and Reflexions. He does not Relate many of the actions of the Greeks, these being exhausted by former authors; but those which he does relate are not well adapted with circumstances, these as well as his reflections are all trite and commonplace. He exagerates everything and often ^y affirms what was far from | 124 being true. He is very fond not only of all sorts of figures but even is full of Exclamations and Wonder.

The 2^d is Platos 15 and his Stile is more correct, his Reflexions and Circumstances well chosen and not comm<on>place like those of the former. He has still fewer actions than Lysias but in the choice he excells him and where they hit on the same one his superiority is evident, as in the account of the Battles of Marathon and Salamis. His Stile is not so extravagant ^z but is at the same time too verbose, which often conceals his other beauties.

Pericles in the oration Thucydides 16 gives as his in the Introduction of the Peloponesian war, is more correct, less exuberant and extrava<ga>nt than the form<er>, strong and nervous, Precise and pointed and carrys along not only a direct commendation of the Athenians but an indirect discommendation of the Lacedemonians then their rivalls. His beauties are | 125 so manifest that I shall not insist on them any longer.

[a]MS XXIId

[b]has not its deleted

[c]extra deleted

[1 ]Aeneid, viii.293–302: young and old ‘carmine laudes / Herculeas et facta ferunt’, the celebratory hymn which precedes Evander’s narration to Aeneas of the early history of Latium and their tour of places later to become known in Roman history. Smith has conflated Evander with the ‘chorus’.

[d]MS difficuld or difficute

[2 ]Hardyknute: imitation ballad by Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw (1677–1727), published anonymously as pamphlet in 1719; reprinted by Allan Ramsay with sixteen additional stanzas in his Ever Green (1724) and in a slightly less ‘antique’ version in his Tea–Table Miscellany ii (1726). The poem was earlier thought to contain lines remembered from some ancient lost ballad.

The Cherrie and the Slae, an allegorical debate by Alexander Montgomerie (1556?–1610?), published 1597 but written considerably earlier; included in Ramsay’s Ever Green (1724).

Tweedside: the tune ‘Twide Syde’ is known at least as early as 1692 (it also occurs in the Blaikie MS as ‘Doune Tweedside’). A poem with the title and fitting the tune, by Robert Crawford (c.1690–1733), is included in Ramsay’s Tea–Table Miscellany ii (1726); and in a 1753 edition of the collection the preface quotes ‘My worthy friend Dr. Bannerman . . . from America’ as attesting the popularity ‘round all the globe’ of, among other things, ‘Tweed–side’. There is a poem in Scots with the same title by John Hay (10th Lord Yester, 2nd Marquis of Tweeddale, 1645–1713), in David Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads etc. (1769). We cannot determine which of many popular Border poems Smith had in mind—or even rule out the most famous of Border ballads, Chevy Chase or The Hunting of the Cheviot (Child, see below, no 162).

Lochaber no more: ‘A Song. Tune of Lochaber no more’, in Ramsay’s Tea–Table Miscellany ii (1726). Its relevance here is not obvious.

Wallace Wight: perhaps one of the many ballads on Wallace’s exploits. F. J. Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–89), no 157, contains nine traditional versions, some reported from several sources, though none entitled Wallace Wight: see iii.265–74, v.242–3. In this context a reference to Blind Harry’s late 15th century poem The lyfe and actis of William Wallace (printed 1570 etc.) is less likely. This was the ballad–collecting age. (But in 1722 William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (1665?–1751) published his epic Life and heroick actions of Sir William Wallace, in English).

[3 ]See James Macpherson (1736–96), Fragments of ancient poetry collected in the highlands of Scotland (1760), Fingal: an ancient epic poem (1762), Temora: an ancient epic poem (1763). The controversy on the authenticity of these supposed translations from ‘the Galic language’ began with Hugh Blair’s A critical dissertation on the poems of Ossian (1763). See Derick S. Thomson, The Gaelic sources of Ossian (1952).

[e]music and deleted

[4 ]Cf. the discussion of poetry and other arts in primitive societies by John Brown, A Dissertation on the Rise, Union, and Power, the Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions, of Poetry and Music (1763), and Cartaud de la Villate, Essais historiques et philosophiques sur le goût (1734): also ‘Of the Imitative Arts’ II.3 ff. in EPS.

[f]changed from froin

[g]the deleted

[5 ]See Introduction, p. 18.

[h]all deleted

[i]changed from display

[j]that deleted; o written above i of Business

[k]In deleted

[6 ]The wars with Persia which started at the beginning of the 5th century bc. By c.450 State funerals had become elaborate festivals: held in October.

[n]alone deleted

[o]MS their, ir deleted

[p]underlined with double row of dots

[7 ]Thales (c.636–c.546 bc) of Miletus in Ionia, one of the ‘Seven Sages’; cf. Astronomy, III.5, in EPS. Pythagoras (6th century bc) emigrated from Samos to Croton in the toe of Italy c.531 bc. Empedocles (c.493–433 bc) was originally of Acragas in Sicily; master of Gorgias of Leontini in Sicily (c.483–376 bc), rhetorician and one of the principal sophists. The scribe oddly substitutes Mitylene (or Mytilene), chief town of Lesbos, for Leontini. The embassy of Gorgias from Leontini to Athens, epoch–making in the history of rhetoric, was in 427.

[q]118 is blank

[r]the deleted

[8 ]The ancient Pythian Games were reorganized in 582 bc; to the main competitions in music, drama, and recitation in verse and prose, were added athletic events in the Olympic style. Similar festivals were the Panathenaea at Athens and the Carnea at Sparta. See ii.51 n.4 above for the distinction Thucydides implies between himself and those whose work is read publicly for applause.

[s]MS them; in deleted, Poets inserted above

[t]changed from or

[u]MS wera

[9 ]Add the extant Encomium of Helen and Defence of Palamedes.

[v]mind in deleted

[w]MS the is

[10 ]Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (floruit c.430–400 bc), rhetorician famed for his elaboration of techniques for appealing to the emotions of hearers.—The ‘rapturous’ quality of Pindar came to be admired in the eighteenth century and partly accounted for the vogue of the ‘Pindarique Ode’ (of which Gray’s two examples, The Bard and The Progress of Poesy, were thought by Smith to represent ‘the standard of lyric excellence’: see ii.96 n.12 above, and The Bee, 1791, iii.6). His disconnectedness, ‘immethodical to a vulgar eye’, was seen by Edward Young in ‘On Lyric Poetry’ (prefaced to Ocean: an Ode, 1728) as his essential virtue: ‘Thus Pindar, who has as much logic at the bottom as Aristotle or Euclid, to some critics has appeared as mad, and must appear so to all who enjoy no portion of his own divine spirit. Dwarf understandings . . .’ These words were to be echoed in the classic statement of the point by Coleridge at the beginning of Biographia Literaria: ‘Poetry, even that of the . . . wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle . . .’. (Cf. Hume, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’, 15th paragraph from end, 1757).

[11 ]LCL iii. 60–97.

[12 ]An Attic orator and opponent of the statesman Demochares (c.360–275 bc), nephew of Demosthenes. Isocrates (436–338 bc) could therefore not have addressed a speech to him. The scribe has apparently conflated, as to names and content, the orations to Demonicus and Nicocles, LCL i.4–35, 40–71. That to Nicocles, King of Salamis in Cyprus from 374, is advice to a ruler. References to Dem. §§1–4; Nic. §§42–4, 48–9.

[13 ]Cicero, Orator, xiii: ‘leniter et crudite repugnante te’.

[14 ]Epitaphios, for those who fell for the Corinthians, ?392 bc (LCL 30–69). Cf. ii.218 n.10 below.

[x]MS thre

[y]brings in some deleted

[15 ]Menexenus (LCL vii), funeral oration of Aspasia the Milesian as reported by Socrates and praised as equal to the Periclean oration reported by Thucydides: §§5–21.

[z]extravangt

[16 ]I.cxl–cxliv, speech to the Athenians.