times are very much beyond the utmost
stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
'tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:

"Si quid enim placet,
Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."

["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
minds, all is due to the charming Graces." The verses are probably
by some modern poet.]

They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
full, and that has lustre of its own. If I pitch upon subjects that are
popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not affect a
grave and ceremonious wisdom, as the world does; and to make myself more
sprightly, but not my style more wanton, which would rather have them
grave and severe; at least if I may call that a style which is an inform
and irregular way of speaking, a popular jargon, a proceeding without
definition, division, conclusion, perplexed like that Amafanius and
Rabirius.--[Cicero, Acad., i. 2.]--I can neither please nor delight,
nor even tickle my readers: the best story in the world is spoiled by my
handling, and becomes flat; I cannot speak but in rough earnest, and am
totally unprovided of that facility which I observe in many of my
acquaintance, of entertaining the first comers and keeping a whole
company in breath, or taking up the ear of a prince with all sorts of
discourse without wearying themselves: they never want matter by reason
of the faculty and grace they have in taking hold of the first thing that
starts up, and accommodating it to the humour and capacity of those with
whom they have to do. Princes do not much affect solid discourses, nor I
to tell stories. The first and easiest reasons, which are commonly the
best taken, I know not how to employ: I am an ill orator to the common
sort. I am apt of everything to say the extremest that I know. Cicero
is of opinion that in treatises of philosophy the exordium is the hardest
part; if this be true