 | Randolph |  |
Counsellor Philips always appears to me, when he is
in a transport of eloquence, to be transported, secundum
artem. He has persuaded himself, I am afraid, that
losing one's subject in a speech, is equivalent to losing
ones-self. I never can get the notion out of my head,
when I hear him, (you have not forgotten the dinner at
Brimstone Hall, and his oration, in reply to a toast from
Carter) that he has committed a speech to memory---
and that, happen what may, he will be delivered of it.
And yet, say what he will, and how he will, I am always
in a sort of perplexity about his design;---and troubled,
too, with a kind of insupportable gossipping pity and
compassion---that wants the dignity of interest---just as
if I were listening to a human creature, who was
continually exposing himself, without suspecting it; to
some poor fellow, who, having no command over himself,
his thought, language, or organs of utterance, in
publick, comes into a place where he is not wanted, after
having prepared himself, brimful, of the wine and brightness
of a great speech, for a great occasion---has begun to
deliver it---exactly as he did not intend to---saying just
what he meant not to say---and, in a tone of voice entirely
different from what he intended---so as to give to sarcasm
the force of explanation; and to playfulness the accent
or outcry rather of a belaboured heart---jumbling
all together--pell-mell---“pump or no pump” as Salmagundi
says.
Such are my notions of this man. I have often expressed
them---and, allowing a little for exaggeration, I
think that my good friend here, in rubbing down the
counsellor, has had an eye to some of my extravagancies,
at the same time. What think you, Stafford? Is it not
a good deal in my manner? A little caricatured, perhaps;
but, nevertheless, very like me.
Counsellor Phillips.—With feelings of indignation
that we cannot suppress, and that no honest man,
who looks earnestly to the growth of a sound judgment
among our young men, ought to suppress, even if he could,
to the king.” Who can endure such stuff? Some
may, but who can listen to the shameless, tasteless, unthinking
and profligate applause that is lavished upon it.
What is it? What are all his speeches?—Nothing more
nor less than this—Splendid rigmarole—entangled and
glittering rhapsody—without argument, without sinew,
without bone, muscle or arrangement—a shining and fantastick
assemblage of rattle-traps and pastework.
Do we deny Charles Phillips genius? No—but it is
the genius of delirium and infatuation. He is merely—
merely a genius—he is destitute of talent. There is the
bloom and the incense, but not the stamina of the true
flower. He is a poet too—and his poetry is prose, and his
prose poetry.
Has he passion? No—He is only an actor—an actor
too, who, were he playing the very Lears of the drama—
sweating in agony beneath the load of his humiliation—
aye, in the very tempest and whirlwind of his passion,
would be completely disconcerted, if a feather swayed
awry, or the moon went up the heavens un-picturesquely.
He has been compared to Curran!—He! to Curran!—
“Hyperion to a Satyr.” Powers of Eloquence! What has
he of the Curran? of his wit! his genius? flashing its irradiations
forever and ever?—What of his all-elevating
eloquence? What of his passionate and tempestuous enthusiasm,
that lifted up and swept away, as with the overpowering
authority of inspiration, all hearts and heads,
all judgments, spirits and intellects.
Curran was a LAWYER. Phillips is not—and cannot
be. He wants the edge—the adamant—all the powers of
analysis—and decomposition. He wants other faculties.
Curran's, it is true, was not the lawyer-like attitude of
a colossus; eternal—immoveable; but it might have
been. It was not, because he smote, and toiled, and
battled for a nobler, higher and more glorious elevation;
for that of the advocate.
Curran was an Advocate. The explosions of his eloquence—unpremeditated—unlooked
for—were, as if Paul,
in the midst of Mars-Hill, or where he shook Agrippa
upon his throne—had stretched forth his arm,
the west, or wherever he had pointed, some apparition
had suddenly stood up, with its forehead in the sky—or
chariots and horsemen were thundering in the air.
But Charles Phillips!—could he do such things?—
Never. The most fearful charm that he ever wrought
before the heart of man, in mystery, passion, or enthusiasm,
was the sickening, baby incantation of the nursery,—compared
to Curran:—the contemptible trash of
the witches of Macbeth, divested of its ferocious truth, and
sparkling with conceit, compared with the wizard summoning
of Prospero, in his cave, when the moon stands
still in the sky—and the round earth quivers to the centre.
Curran always forgot himself. Phillips never. Curran
was an orator—Phillips a rhetorician. Curran could
hold you, in spite of yourself, till all your faculties were
gasping. Phillips never even intoxicates you—never elevates
you—never makes you forget, either him, or yourself.
And yet Charles Phillips has been classed—yes,
yes!—Charles Phillips!—with John Philpot Curran. As
I hope for mercy, the only thing I know in favour of
counsellor Phillips is, that John Philpot Curran used to
permit him to sit at his table.
Curran rode the thoroughly trained war-horse—hoof,
muscle and limb for the trial—husbanding his wind—his
great heart quaking to meet the battle. Phillips frisks
about upon an ill-broken colt, eternally kicking up his heels
and entangling his hoofs in his trappings and finery—or
running himself to death, like Bucephalus, from a shadow.
Curran is an eagle—breaking through the thickest
cloud, with one clap of his resounding pinions—washing—purifying—drenching
himself in the fiercest element
of heaven—a spirit baptized in fire—Phillips—O, what is
Charles Phillips—a hair brained poet—a humming bird,
a glittering insect, bathed in dew, revelling in perfume,
sparkling from head to tail, with twinkling ornament—
and buzzing and blundering about, without aim or object,
except to be heard and seen.
And yet Charles Phillips's speeches are spoken of, as—
the creation of feeling and eloquence. God of heaven!
for a mis-printed sentence—or an unmusical termination.
His feeling is mawkish sentimentality—the whimpering,
lack-a-daisical stuff of song books.—Not the loud
pulsation of a heart suffocating in its own thought—festering
in its own indignation, or dissolving in the sympathy
of godlike natures. His eloquence!—it is froth and
flummery. His style of writing holds about the same relation
to Eloquence, that the tones of a Cremona do, to the
rolling organ or the rattling thunder.
Look at the effect. Hear Curran for a moment—on he
goes, fearless and proud in his stepping, his heart gushing
out with the pure element of his thought—suddenly his eye
quickens! it flashes fire! his form contracts—his action is
hurried—an overwhelming burst of eloquence succeeds!
—filling all hearts, shaking all bosoms, thrilling every
artery of your frame—as if a cloud had passed over your
heads, for a moment, charged with the electricity and the
reverberation of heaven. You look back upon your feelings.
You are on a dizzy and perilous height—but you
can trace your course—you can see how you got there.
You are not ashamed of your nature—or of yourself—
you are proud of the transport that you have felt; glad that
you were capable of acting and thinking with such generous
madness:—and glorying in your relationship to a
creature, so capable of moving heaven and earth, as it
would seem.
But how is it with Phillips. You rise, heated—not by
overwrought enthusiasm—but heated, and feverish,
ashamed of yourself, emasculated, dastardly; with a general
sense of weariness, lassitude and oppression, as of
excessive indulgence, satiety and self dissatisfaction—as
one would feel, who had broken a tedious fast upon sweetmeats,—or
been imprisoned all night long with singing
birds—in some milliner's shop.
Let Curran be summoned from his grave. Bid him
walk into the council chamber of his sovereign, and lift
up his voice in behalf of the woman of sorrow.
Would you hear any of this endless sing-song—see any
of this eternal twinkling—of metaphor and foppery? No.
You would not see a creature decked out in tinsel and
himself into attitudes—and flourishing his arms, and
nodding his head, merely because, when he nodded, there
was a scintillation of spangles about his “baby brow”—
and because when he tossed his arms upward, his robe
threw out a few changeable corruscations, for the mob to
wonder at!—No!—But you would hear a deep voice—an
awful silence would surround you—every pulsation of
your heart would be counted. You would see a man, standing
like the prophet when he rebuked the waters; and the
kingly tides went rolling backward, encumbered with
horse and horsemen, banner and chariot. You would see a
hand-writing upon the sky---and you would believe, whil
you heard in imagination, the Angel, the Exterminator
placing his foot upon the East and upon the West, and
preparing to pour out his vial---you would believe that
“already” the kingdom had departed from George---and
the sceptre from the house of Hanover. You would stand
too---like him of old---who saw his fellow man swept
upward to the everlasting skies, in a whirlwind of dust
and fire---you would be prostrate and breathless---bowed
down, and blind with apprehension and dismay. Thus
would you feel, were Curran to address his sovereign.
But how feel you now, when Phillips does this? Oh, it is
sacrilege to compare such men!
| Randolph | |