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will have arrived at the point of maturity; he will be eager to give it birth; thought will succeed thought, with ease and pleasure to himself: his style will be natural and lucid; the delight he feels will beget a warmth, which will glow through all his periods, and give life to every expression; his animation will increase; the tones of his voice will swell; every object will become prominent: and sentiment, in unison with perspicuity, will render the discourse both interesting and luminous.

Weigh your own feelings, examine the emotions of others, endeavour to discover, in every occurrence of life, the spring of human passions, study to imitate nature, and with the genius and judgement you are blessed with, you cannot but succeed as a great speaker.

One word more, and I quit the subject: accustom yourself, even in your common conversation, to link your thoughts to one another; utter none without a momentary examination, whether it is sound and fit or not justness and precision will glide from your conversation into your first little essays, and from these into greater; and when, at last, nature shall have attained its maturity, and occasion touches the spring of genius, all the powers of your mind will burst into harmonious motion.

Section XIV.

ANCIENT ELOQUENCE.

It will not, I think, be pretended, that any of our preachers have often occasion to address more sagacious, learned, or polite assemblies, than those which were composed of the Roman senate, or the Athenian people, in their most enlightened times. But it is well known what great stress the most celebrated orators of those times laid on action, how exceeding

imperfect they reckoned eloquence without it, and what wonders they performed with its assistance, performed upon the greatest, firmest, most sensible, and most elegant spirits the world ever saw : it were easy to throw together a number of common-place quotations, in support, or illustration of this, and almost every other remark that can be made upon the present subject.

But as that would lead us beyond the intention of this paper, we need only recollect here, one simple fact, which every body hath heard of, that whereas Demosthenes himself did not succeed in his first attempts, through his having neglected to study action, he arrived afterwards at such a pitch in that faculty, that when the people of Rhodes expressed in high terms their admiration of his famous oration for Ctesiphon, upon hearing it read with a very sweet and strong voice by Echines, whose banishment it had procured, that great and candid. judge said to them, "How would you have been affected, had you seen him speak it! For he that only hears Demosthenes loses much the better part of the oration."

What an

honourable testimony this, from a vanquished adversary, and such an adversary! What a noble idea doth it give of that wonderful orator's action! I grasp it with ardour; I transport myself in imagination to old Athens. I mingle with the popular assembly, I behold the lightning, I listen to the thunder of Demosthenes. I feel my blood thrilled, I see the audience tost and shaken like some deep forest by a mighty storm. I am filled with wonder at such marvellous effects. I am hurried almost out of myself. In a little while, I endeavour to be more recollected. Then I consider the orator's address. I find the whole inexpressible. But nothing strikes me more than his action. I perceive the various passions he would inspire rising in him by turns, and working from the depth of his frame. Now he glows with the love of the public; now he flames with indignation at its enemies; then he will swell with disdain of

its false, indolent, or interested friends; anon he melts with grief for its misfortunes; and now he turns pale with fear of yet greater ones. Every feature, nerve, and circumstance about him, is intensely animated: each almost seems as if it would speak. I discern his inmost soul, I see it as only clad in some thin transparent vehicle. It is all on fire. I wonder no longer at the effects of such eloquence: I only wonder at their cause.

Section XV.

WOMEN POLISH AND IMPROVE
SOCIETY.

AMONG the innumerable ties by which mankind are drawn and held together, may be fairly reckoned that love of praise, which perhaps is the earliest passion of human beings. It is wonderful how soon children begin to look out for notice, and for consequence. To attract mutual regards by mutual services, is one chief aim, and one important operation, of a principle, which I should be sorry to think that any of you had outlived. No sooner do the social affections unfold themselves, than youth appear ambitious to deserve the approbation of those around them. Their desires of this kind are more lively, as their dispositions are more ingenious. Of those boys who discover the greatest ardour to obtain, by their capacity, their spirit, or their generosity, the esteem of their companions, it may be commonly observed, that they shoot up into the most valuable characters.

Eagerness for the admiration of school fellows and others, without distinction of sexes, is felt at first; but when, in process of time, the bosom becomes sensible to that distinction, it begins to beat with a peculiar anxiety to please the female part of your acquaintance. The smiles, the applause, the attach

ment of young women, you now consider as conferring felicity of a more interesting nature; and to secure such happiness, is from henceforth an object that incites and influences you on a thousand occasions. By an increasing susceptibility to the attractions of the softer sex, you are carried more and more into their company and there, my brothers, your hearts and manners, your tastes and pursuits, receive very often a direction that remains ever after, and that will probably decide your destiny through the whole of your existence.-I am aware, indeed, that to underrate their importance, and cultivate their commerce only as subservient to convenience, amusement, or voluptuousness, is common among the bignorant, the petulant, and the profligate of our sex: but, happy as I have been in the conversation of many worthy and accomplished persons of the other, I would willingly, if possible, prevent your adopting a system alike ungenerous and false.

It is certain, that savages, and those who are but little removed from their condition, have seldom behaved to women with much respect or tenderness. On the other hand, it is known, that in civilized nations they have ever been objects of both: that, in the most heroic states-of antiquity, their judgment was often honoured as the standard, and their suffrages often sought as the reward of merit: and though in those states the allurement of feminine softness was perhaps not always sufficiently understood, owing probably to that passion for public interest, and extensive fame, which seems to have overpowered all other emotions; it must yet be acknowledged, that the Ladies of ancient days frequently possessed a wonderful influence in what concerned the political welfare, and private affections, of the people to whom they belonged.

But say, my friends, does it not reflect some lustre on the fair sex, that their talents and virtues have still been most revered in periods of the greatest renown? And tell me, I beseech you, what age or

country, distinguished in the annals of fame, has not received a part of that distinction from the numbers of women, whom it produced conspicuous for their virtues and their talents? Look at this, in which you live, does it not derive a very considerable share of its reputation from the female pens that eminently adorn it? Look into the history of the world at large; do not you find, that the female sex have, in a variety of ways, contributed largely to many of its most important events? Look into the great machine of society, as it moves before you do you not perceive, that they are still among its principal springs? Do not their characters and manners deeply affect the pas sions of men, the interests of education, and those domestic scenes, where so much of life is past, and with which its happiness or misery is so intimately blended? Consult your own experience, and confess, whether you are not touched by almost every thing they do or say, or look; confess, whether their very foibles and follies do not often interest, and sometimes please you?

There cannot, I am persuaded, be many worse symptoms of degeneracy, in an enlightened age, than a growing indifference about the regards of reputable women, and a fashionable propensity to lessen the sex in general. Where this is the case, the decencies of lite, the softness of love, the sweets of friendship, the nameless tender charities that per vade and unite the most virtuous form of cultivated society, are not likely to be held in high estimation; and when these fall into contempt, what is there left to polish, humanize, or delight mankind?

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