hands. Attach yourselves, at first, to their thoughts, and acquire, by every exertion of assiduity, that harmony of style, which wins the soul by charming the ear; those felicities of expression, that rules cannot reach to and that combination of sounds, by means of which you will paint and impress your ideas.

Be not precipitate; call yourself often to account for what you have read. I would counsel you, at first, to take down the heads in writing. You will soon find yourself able to remember them without this assistance; and, besides, you will imperceptibly make yourself master of the art of analysis, which is the surest and shortest road to instruction.

Method is the art of ranking every thing in the place that suits it; in fact, I might boldly tell you at once, that method is nothing but good taste: I do not mean that good taste which produces the graces of a discourse, but that other species of taste, which regulates the order in which the different parts, the reasons, the proofs, and all the means of persuasion, should be displayed, for the purpose of producing the greater effect: it is not the taste that colours, but it is that which draws, which sketches the forms, and groups them; in short, I mean the taste that creates the beauty of reason, and not that of fancy; the beauty of plenitude, not that of a single member. It disposes the springs that you are to put in motion for the purpose of pleasing, instructing, and persuading. Before you cast about for the order in which you are to offer your thoughts, you must already have preconceived a general outline of your subject: the next process is, in that outline, to mark the place of your

principal ideas; your subject will then become circumscribed, and you will see its extent.

This plan will be your ground work; it will support you, direct you, regulate the movements of your mind, and submit them to the laws of method. Without it, the best speaker will go astray, his progress will be unguided, and the irregular beauties of his speech will be at the mercy of hazard. How brilliant soever the colours he employs may be, the disposition of the picture will ruin the whole effect; and the speaker may be admired, but his genius will most certainly be suspected.

Why are the works of nature so perfect? say's Buffon: it is because every work is a whole, or has its full plenitude: it is because she never deviates from one eternal plan. She prepares in silence the seeds of all her productions: in one bold stroke alone, she hits off the primitive form of every living being; she unfolds and bestows perfection on it by a perpetual motion, and in a prescribed time. The human mind cannot create, it can produce nothing until it has been fertilized by experience and meditation; its notions are the seeds of its productions; but if it imitates the progress and labour of Nature; if it rise on the wings of contemplation, to the most sublime truths; if it connect them, link them, and form them into one grand whole by the powers of reflection; it will raise a monument of fame on an immortal foundation.

It is for want of a plan, and for not having allowed reflection to dwell long enough on his subject, that a man of abilities finds himself embarrassed, and knows not where or how to begin. He at once perceives a vast number of ideas; as he has made no comparison betwixt them, nor established any subordination among them, there is nothing that determines him to give the preference to one more than to the other; he, therefore, stands a victim of his own perplexity. But when he shall have laid down a plan to himself; when once he shall have gathered together, and put in order, every idea essential to his subject, the work

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 cloquence: 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 chil dren 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