Chambers of Commerce, of New York and other States; the New York State Bar Association; the Clover Club, of Philadelphia; the Holland Society of New York; to the Royal Academy of Arts and the Royal Literary Fund, of London, and to many other clubs and associations, for valuable material and assistance in the compilation of this section of the work. The full list of contents of the first three volumes comprises about 200 speakers and 300 speeches. Many of the after-dinner speakers are represented by several speeches, and from half a dozen to a dozen speeches have been selected to represent those who have won especial fame as orators at public banquets.
Some of the finest achievements in the literature of oratory must be credited to lecturers of this and other countries—to occasional and professional platform orators who have won lasting renown by reason of their brilliant intellects and persuasive eloquence. The lecture, by frequent repetition and improvement, becomes the masterpiece of the speaker. The sifting and perfecting process results in a highly finished oratorical production. No sermon of Henry Ward Beecher was ever so full of intellectual force or profound human interest as his best lecture; no political address by Wendell Phillips ever equalled, in point of interest or charm of style, his delightful lecture on "The Lost Arts." The lectures selected are bright and modern. They are not a series of essays reprinted from some volume of forgotten lore. Most of them are now published for the first time. They have been chosen with due discrimination and with a view to variety of subject and breadth of treatment. Prominence has been given to lectures which abound in wit, humor, and pathos. As in human life, the sublime and the ridiculous are found side by side, and the source of laughter is placed close by the fountain of tears. Every lecture selected presents the condensed wit and wisdom of the speaker—a masterpiece in the literature of platform oratory.
The biographical and critical lectures treat of poets and their verses, musicians and their songs, artists and their paintings, generals and their victories. These and kindred topics of artistic inspiration and human achievement are treated by lecturers who have devoted years of study to their chosen themes. Among those who have excelled in this
