[15

LEE

CORDEN. Fama?

1841. of matter, that it seemed to his companions as if nothitd
Ar, 37. apposite ever escaped him, and nothing irrelevant ove!
letained hira.
A political or religious sgitator must not be afraid of
incessant repetition. Repetition is his most effective inst™®
ment. The fastidiousness which is proper to literature, and
which makes a man dread to say the same thing twice, 18 3»
she field of propagandism mere impotency. This is on?
reason why even the greatest agitators in causes which hav?
shaken the world, are often among the least interesting me?
n history. Cobden had moral and social gifts which invest
him with a peculiar attraction, and will long make Ly
memory interesting as that of a versatile nature; but he
was never afraid of the agitator’s art of repeating his for
mula, his principles, his illusirations, his phrases, with
mtiring reiteration.
Though he abounded in matter, Cobden can hardly be
lescribed as copious. He is neat and pointed, nor is We
argument ever left unclenched; but he permits himself 2°
large excursions. What he was thinking of was the matt?
immediately in hand, the audience before his eyes, the pois?
shat would tell best then and there, and would be most 1ikely
50 remain in men’s recollections. For such purposes copio®®
ness is ill-fitted ; that is for the stately leisure of the pulpt®
Cobden’s task was to leave in his hearer’s mind a comp
answer to each current fallacy, and to scotch or kill as ms]
protectionist sophisms sg possible within the given tio?
What is remarkable, is that while he kept close to the ratte”
and substance of his case, and resorted comparatively little “
sarcasm, humour, invective, pathos, or the other elements the
sre catalogued in manuals of rhetoric, yet no speaker was oo
further removed from prosiness, or came into more real 8%
sympathetic contact with his audience. His speaking wo
thoroughly businesslike, and yet it was never dull 1b WW