The sermons of Bourdaloue,
the funeral orations of Bossuet, particularly that on the death of
Henrietta, and the pleadings of Pelisson, for his disgraced patron
Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear
any resemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have
been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether
in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the
nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the
sublime, and confines the speaker to a cold argumentative method, and
a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, surely, the
Religion of the moderns abounds in topics so incomparably noble and
exalted as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the most
frigid and barren genius much more might this success be reasonably
expected from such geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of
this sort, worthy applause or notice, has ever yet appeared.
The few, even among professed scholars, that are able to read the
ancient Historians in their inimitable, originals, are startled at the
paradox, of Bolingbroke who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides;
that is, the most verbose and tedious to the most comprehensive and
concise of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an
eye-witness and a principal actor in the important story he relates.
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