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184 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. xm.we can judge from that and other similar discourses contained in the same author,, of the character of public eloquence before and during the Peloponnesian war since;they could not but be composed in the taste and after themanner of the times. But how do they differ in stylefromthose of the age of Demosthenes ! How much less canthose orations, greatas are their various merits, be considered as classic models in the art of eloquence! We findin them little or nothing of an artificial plan ; little of thatrhetorical amplification and those figures and artifices, bywhich the later orators produced an effect on their hearers.We justly admire in them the strength of many of theirthoughts, and single expressions and passages. But theyseem to prove beyond a question, that the rhetorical stylewas not then formed at Athens. They have far. more thecharacter of martial addresses ; they bear the impress of anage, in which the orator in the popular assemblies was atthe same time the commander in war. 1And by what means did Grecian eloquence in publicspeaking gain that peculiar character, which it possessed inthe age of Demosthenes ? The origin and progress of public speaking always depends in a certain degree on externalcircumstances. It is not enough that the constitution leavesroom for it ;for then it would have come to perfection inother Grecian cities, and in Athens at a much earlier periodthan it did. Neither can we assume the artificial dispositionof the parts of a discourse and the instruction given inrhetoric, as the standard by which to judge of the actual appearance of great political orators. External circumstancesmust also be such as to make the want of orators perceptible.And when can this take place in free republics,except in times not of war, for there arms must decide ;but rather in times of impending dangers, which may yetbe, averted by prudence and courageous resolutions? Insuch times the public speaker is in his place ;he beholdsthe field of glory opened before him; and if no othermotive than patriotism should lead him to ascend the stagefrom which the people was addressed, where could hisbosom be warmed by a nobler inspiration ?1la the masterly sketch which is given by Cicero, in Bruto, cap. 7 1 3, of thesuccession of Greek orators, much instruction on these subjects may be found.