yle among us; I
shall therefore say nothing of the mean and paltry (which are usually
attended by the fustian), much less of the slovenly or indecent. Two
things I will just warn you against; the first is the frequency of flat
unnecessary epithets, and the other is the folly of using old threadbare
phrases, which will often make you go out of your way to find and apply
them, are nauseous to rational hearers, and will seldom express your
meaning as well as your own natural words.

Although, as I have already observed, our English tongue is too little
cultivated in this kingdom; yet the faults are nine in ten owing to
affectation, and not to the want of understanding. When a man's thoughts
are clear, the properest words will generally offer themselves first,
and his own judgment will direct him in what order to place them, so as
they may be best understood. Where men err against this method, it is
usually on purpose, and to shew their learning, their oratory, their
politeness, or their knowledge of the world. In short, that simplicity
without which no human performance can arrive to any great perfection,
is nowhere more eminently useful than in this.

I have been considering that part of oratory which relates to the moving
of the passions; this I observe is in esteem and practice among some
church divines, as well as among all the preachers and hearers of the
fanatic or enthusiastic strain. I will here deliver to you (perhaps with
more freedom than prudence) my opinion upon the point.

The two great orators of Greece and Rome, Demosthenes and Cicero, though
each of them a leader (or as the Greeks call it a demagogue) in a
popular state, yet seem to differ in their practice upon this branch of
their art; the former who had to deal with a people of much more
politeness, learning, and wit, laid the greatest weight of his oratory
upon the strength of his arguments, offered to their understanding and
reason: whereas Tully considered the dispositions of a sincere, more
ignorant, and less mercurial nation, by dwelling almost entirely on the
pathetic part.

But the principal thing to be remembered is, that the constant design of
both these orators in all their speeches, was to drive some one
particular point, either the condemnation or acquittal of an accused
person, a persuasive to war, the enforcing of a law, and the like; which
was determined upon the spot, according as the orators on either side
prevailed. And here it was