If it be said that a Burke or a Canning could do it, the answer must be that we have neither a Burke nor a Canning, and that one shudders to think of any inferior professor attempting the task. In America it would be undertaken with confidence, even if it were not achieved with ease. But there the rhetoric assumes a more glowing guise; and though we are told that Mr. Bryan obtained the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the U.S. in 1896 by the sentence, in relation to the free coinage of silver:
"You shall not press down on the brow of labour this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold"—
to us the triumph is inexplicable, and we feel somehow that the arrow has glanced off the mark.
Length of speeches.In one respect modern speaking has undoubtedly gained as compared with that of an earlier time. Complaints are frequently made that speeches are too long and that the worst offenders are the occupants of the Front Benches. They seldom speak for less than one hour and often longer. The conventional speech of the star orator on a public platform is never less than an hour in length. I will not presume to say whether the same result could be better attained in forty-five or in fifty minutes; that is as it may be. What I do wish to make clear is that the present length is modesty itself compared with the performances of our ancestors. Chatham is usually said to have started the fashion of two to three hours' speeches. The practice was continued by his son and by the great champions of that day. Perhaps an excuse for it may be found in the fact that the great speakers were so few, the majority of the House of Commons being inarticulate, and consequently there were not enough speeches to go round. Fox and Pitt were very much in the position of two expert billiard players engaged in an exhibition match of so much "up." If one player made a break of five hundred, the other was expected to retaliate with at
