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Show POETRY AND ELOQUENCE. fl Renan, thought the difference between olo- fl quence and poetry rested in "a peculiar har- fl mony, a more or less sonorous ring," which be- fl longs to the latter. It seems to us that distinc- fl tipn is most weak, A great critic once said that fl poetry was "the very highest though expressed In . I exactest language," and tha't is a good definitloi. B Ono feels it when reading some of the measures of fl Milton and Homer and Byron and Job and Isaiah, fl but eloquence is another thing. There must be fl tho high thought, the fitly chosen words, but in fl addition there must be tho peculiar something which when set in motion takes men's hearts captive cap-tive and sets their souls on fire. Poetry is sometimes some-times eloquence, like the Marseilles Hymn and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but eloquence is not poetry. The difference is seen when an ora- i tor gives each expression. Of the highest poetry he can at best make but celestial music, but, from simple words, if ho can but keep a high .thought in. evidence, with voice and gesture he can sway men and carry away all their reserve and often their reason. Mr. Gladstone was once called upon to quiet a mob. He was a profound Greek scholar, and In tho emorgency he thought of one of Demosthenes' speeches and translating it into English hurled it at the mob until they were cowed. There is much eloquence in dramatic drama-tic poetry like much of Maculay's, but in none is there a sentence to compare with a fow,sim-plo fow,sim-plo lines which fell from his pen in his essay on.. Milton, where he says: "There would seem at first sight to be no more in his words tlmn In other words. But they" are words of encnant- S I ' ' i I ' ' H I fa ment. No sooner are they pronounced than the B I i if ' past Is present, and the distant near. New formsB mm 11 of existence start at once into existence and allm Kg J I 1 the burial places of memory give up their dead."!! H I Eloquenco and poetry are asdistlnct, really,"1'1 B I ! I as are- the cavalry and infantrv or an army. One B I' 'I means the inspired steady march of words, the B i I other the trumpet calls, the hoof-beats, the B 1 I f charge. ! i i f When the dissolution of the old Whig party I , was imminent, in a speech deploring the possibil- Jill ity of such an event, Daniel Webster cried out: 1 I I "Wliere would I go?" and for the moment every , I listener felt an acute pang of sorrow over the f great man's despair. I ! h f Poetry declines as enlightenment comes. The ,j i r, ' imagination loses its sway. B ' If v Milton is the only great scholar that we ever II ' 1 1 heard of who was likewise a great poet. But I ' Ik while oratory also declines as men advance in i II knowledge, there Is no abatement in the power lie of real eloquence. It is immortal and when the Tf Tdf Master comes who can strike the real key, men fi 1 bow down before him just as of old. K . ! T . |