The reader
can pause and dwell upon the thought. If there be a fallacy,
he is not hurried away to something else before he can detect
it. So, also, more careful and deliberate criticism will
discover offences of style and taste which pass unheeded in
a speech when uttered. But still the great oratoric triumphs
of literature and history stand the test of reading in the
closet, as well as of hearing in the assembly. Would not
Mark Anthony's speech over the dead body of Caesar, had it
been uttered, have moved the Roman populace as it moves the
spectator when the play is acted, or the solitary reader in
his closet? Does not Lord Chatham's "I rejoice that America
has resisted" read well? Do not Sheridan's great perorations,
and Burke's, in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, read well?
Does not "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever!" read well?
Does not "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" read well? Does
not Fisher Ames's speech for the treaty read well? Do not
Everett's finest passages read well?
There are examples of men of great original genius who have
risen to lofty oratory on some great occasion who had not
the advantage of familiarity with any great author.
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