glare of words for the glitter of ideas, and, like the Helen of the
sculptor Lysippus, makes finery supply the place of beauty. The
figurative definition of eloquence in the Book of Proverbs--"Apples of
gold in a net-work of silver"--is peculiarly applicable to that
enshrinement of rich, solid thoughts in clear and shining language, which
is the triumph of the imaginative class of writers and orators,--while,
perhaps, the net-work, _without_ the gold inclosed, is a type
equally significant of what is called "flowery" eloquence.

It is also, I think, a mistake, however flattering to my country, to call
the School of Oratory, to which Burke belongs, _Irish_. That
Irishmen are naturally more gifted with those stores of fancy, from which
the illumination of this high order of the art must be supplied, the
names of Burke, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, Canning, and Plunkett,
abundantly testify. Yet had Lord Chatham, before any of these great
speakers were heard, led the way, in the same animated and figured strain
of oratory; [Footnote: His few noble sentences on the privilege of the
poor man's cottage are universally known. There is also his fanciful
allusion to the confluence of the Saone and Rhone, the traditional
reports of which vary, both as to the exact terms in which it was
expressed, and the persons to whom he applied it. Even Lord Orford does
not seem to have ascertained the latter point. To these may be added the
following specimen:--"I don't inquire from what quarter the wind cometh,
but whither it goeth; and, if any measure that comes from the Right
Honorable Gentleman tends to the public good, my bark is ready." Of a
different kind is that grand passage,--"America, they tell me, has
resisted--I rejoice to hear it,"--which Mr. Grattan used to pronounce
finer than anything in Demosthenes.] while another Englishman, Lord
Bacon, by making Fancy the hand-maid of Philosophy, had long since set an
example of that union of the imaginative and the solid, which, both in