§81. Recourse must chiefly be had to the original Writers.

It is to the original ancient writers that we must chiefly have recourse; and it is a reproach to any one, whose profeffion calls him to speak in public, to be unacquainted with them. In all the ancient rhetorical writers, there is, indeed, this defect, that they are too systematical, as I formerly shewed; they aim at doing too much; at reducing rhetoric to a complete and perfect art, which may even supply invention with materials on every subject; infomuch that one would imagine they expected to form an orator by rule, in as mechanical a manner as one would form a carpenter. Whereas, all that can, in truth be done, is to give openings for affifting and enlightening taste, and for pointing out to genius the course it ought to hold.

Aristotle laid the foundation for all that was afterwards written on the subject. That amazing and comprehenfive genius, which does honour to human nature, and which gave light into so many different sciences, has investigated the principles of rhetoric with great penetration. Aristotle appears to have been the first who took rhetoric out of the hands of the fophifts, and introduced reasoning and good sense into the art. Some of the profoundest things which have been written on the paffions and manners of men, are to be

found in his Treatise on Rhetoric; though in this, as in all his writings, his great brevity often renders him obfcure. Succeeding Greek rhetoricians, most of whom are now lost, improved on the foundation which Ariftotle had laid. Two of them still remain, Demetrius Phalerius, and Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus; both write on the construction of fentences, and deserve to be perused; especially Dionyfius, who is a very accurate and judicious critic.

I need scarcely recommend the rhetorical writings of Cicero, Whatever, on the subject of eloquence, comes from so great an orator, must be worthy of attention. His molt confiderable work on this subject is that De Oratore, in three books. None of Cicero's writings are more highly finished than this treatife. The dialogue is polite; the characters are well supported, and the conduct of the whole is beautiful and agreeable. It is, indeed, full of digreffions, and his rules and observations may be thought fometimes too vague and general. Ufeful things, however, may be

learned from it; and it is no small benefit to be made accquainted with Cicero's own idea of eloquence. The "Orator ad M. "Brutum," is also a confiderable treatise; and, in general, throughout all Cicero's rhetorical works there run those high and fublime ideas of eloquence, which are fitted both for forming a just tafte, and for creating that enthusiasm for the art, which is of the greatest confequence for excelling in it.

But, of all the ancient writers on the fubject of oratory, the most instructive, and most useful, is Quinctilian. I know few books which abound more with good sense, and discover a greater degree of just and accurate tafte, than Quinctilian's Institutions. Almost all the principles of good criticism are to be found in them, He has digefted into excellent order all the ancient ideas concerning rhetoric, and is, at the same time, himself an eloquent writer. Though some parts of his work contain too much of the technical and artificial system then in vogue, and for that reason may be thought dry and tedious, yet I would not advise the omitting to read any part of his Inflitutions. To pleaders at the bar, even these technical parts may prove of some use. Seldom has any person, of more found and distinct judgment than Quinctilian, applied himself to the study of the art of oratory. $82. On the Neceffity of a Classical Edu

cation.

Blair.

The fairest diamonds are rough till they are polished, and the purest gold must be run and washed, and fifted in the ore. We are untaught by nature, and the finest qualities will grow wild and degenerate, if the mind is not formed by discipline, and cultivated with an early care. In fome persons, who have run up to men without a liberal education, we may obferve many great qualities darkened and eclipsed; their minds are crusted over like diamonds in the rock, they flash out fometimes into an irregular greatness of thought, and betray in their actions an unguided force, and unmanaged virtue; something very great and very noble may be difcerned, but it looks cumbersome and awkward, and is alone of all things the worse for being natural. Nature is undoubtedly the best mistress, and aptest scholar; but nature herself must be civilized, or she will look savage, as the appears in the Indian princes, who are vested with a native majesty, a furprifing

prifing greatness and generofity of foul, and discover what we always regret, fine parts, and excellent natural endowments, without improvement. In those countries, which we call barbarous, where art and politeness are not understood, nature hath the greater advantage in this, that fimplicity of manners often secures the innocence of the mind; and as yirtue is not, fo neither is vice, civilised and refined: but in these politer parts of the world, where virtue excels by rules and discipline, vice alfo is more inftructed, and with us good qualities will not spring up alone: many hurtful weeds will rife with them, and choak them in their growth, unless removed by fome skilful hand; nor will the mind be brought to a just perfection, without cherithing every hopeful feed, and repref. fing every superfluous humour: the mind is like the body in this regard, which can not fall into a decent and easy carriage, unlefs it be fashioned in time: an untaught behaviour is like the people that use it, truly ruftic, forced and uncouth, and art must be applied to make it natural.

Felton.

$83. On the Entrance to Knowledge, Knowledge will not be won without pains and application: fome parts of it are eafier, fome more difficult of access: we muft proceed at once by sap and battery; and when the breach is practicable, you have nothing to do, but to press boldly on, and enter: it is troublesome and deep digging for pure waters, but when once you come to the spring, they rise and meet you: the entrance into knowledge is oftentimes very narrow, dark and tiresome, but the rooms are spacious, and gloriously furnished: the country is admirable, and every prospect entertaining. You need not wonder, that fine countries have strait avenues, when the regions of happiness, like those of knowledge, are impervious, and shut to lazy travellers, and the way to heaven itself is narrow.

Common things are easily attained, and no body values what lies in every body's way: what is excellent is placed out of ordinary reach, and you will easily be perfuaded to put forth your hand to the utmost ftretch, and reach whatever you afpire at. Ibid.

$84. Classics recommended. Many are the subjects which will invite and deferve the steadiest application from

those who would excel, and be diftinguished in them. Human learning in general; natural philosophy, mathematics, and the whole circle of science. But there is no neceffity of leading you through these several fields of knowledge: it will be most commendable for you to gather fome of the fairest fruit from them all, and to lay up a store of good sense, and found reason, of great probity, and folid virtue. This is the true use of knowledge, to make it subservient to the great duties of our most holy religion, that as you are daily grounded in the true and saving knowledge of a Christian, you may use the helps of human learning, and direct them to their proper end. You will meet with great and wonderful examples of an irregular and mistaken virtue in the Greeks and Romans, with many instances of greatness of mind, of unshaken fidelity, contempt of human grandeur, a most paffionate love of their country, prodigality of life, disdain of fervitude, inviolable truth, and the most public difinterested souls, that ever threw off all regards in comparison with their country's good: you will difcern the flaws and blemishes of their fairest actions, fee the wrong apprehenfions they had of virtue, and be able to point them right, and keep them within their proper bounds. Under this correction you may extract a gene. rous and noble spirit from the writings and histories of the ancients. And I would in a particular manner recommend the claflic authors to your favour, and they will recommend themselves to your approbation.

If you would refolve to master the Greek as well as the Latin tongue, you will find, that the one is the fource and original of all that is most excellent in the other: I do not mean so much for expreffion, as thought, though some of the most beautiful strokes of the Latin tongue are drawn from the lines of the Grecian orators and poets; but for thought and fancy, for the very foundation and embellishment of their works, you will fee, the Latins have ransacked the Grecian store, and, as Horace advises all who would succeed in writing well, had their authors night and morning in their hands.

And they have been such happy imitators, that the copies have proved more exact than the originals; and Rome has triumphed over Athens, as well in wit as arms; for though Greece may have the honour of invention, yet it is eafier to strike out a new course of thought, than

If I may detain you with a short comparison of the Greek and Roman authors, I must own the last have the preference in my thoughts; and I am not fingular in my opinion. It must be confessed, the Romans have left no tragedies behind them, that may compare with the majesty of the Grecian stage; the best comedies of Rome were written on the Grecian plan, but Menander is too far loft to be compared with Terence; only if we may judge by the method Terence used in forming two Greek plays into one, we shall naturally conclude, fince his are perfect upon that model, that they are more perfect than Menander's were. I shall make no great difficulty in preferring Plautus to Ariftophanes, for wit and humour, variety of characters, plot and contrivance in his plays, though Horace has censured him for low wit.

Virgil has been so often compared with Homer, and the merits of those poets so often canvassed, that I shall only say, that if the Roman shines not in the Grecian's flame and fire, it is the coolness of his judgment, rather than the want of heat. You will generally find the force of a poet's genius, and the strength of his fancy, display themselves in the descriptions they give of battles, storms, prodigies, &c. and Homer's fire breaks out on these occafions in more dread and terror; but Virgil mixes compaffion with his terror, and, by throwing water on the flame, makes it burn the brighter; so in the storm; so in his battles on the fall of Pallas and Camilla; and that scene of horror, which his hero opens in the second book; the burning of Troy; the ghost of Hector; the murder of the king; the massacre of the people; the sudden furprize, and the dead of night, are so relieved by the piety and pity that is every where intermixed, that we forget our fears, and join in the lamentation. All the world acknowledges the Æneid to be most perfect in its kind; and confidering the difadvantage of the language, and the seve

rity of the Roman muse, the poem is still more wonderful, fince, without the liberty of the Grecian poets, the diction is so great and noble, so clear, so forcible and exprefsive, so chaste and pure, that even all the strength and compass of the Greek tongue, joined to Homer's fire, cannot give us stronger and clearer ideas, than the great Virgil has fet before our eyes; some few instances excepted, in which Homer, thro the force of genius, has excelled.

I have argued hitherto for Virgil; and it will be no wonder that his poem should be more correct in the rules of writing, if that strange opinion prevails, that Homer writ without any view or design at all; that his poems are loose independent pieces tacked together, and were originally only so many fongs or ballads upon the gods and heroes, and the fiege of Troy. If this be true, they are the completest string of ballads I ever met with, and whoever collected them, and put them in the method we now read them in, whether it were Pisistratus, or any other, has placed them in fuch order, that the Iliad and the Odysseïs seem to have been composed with one view and design, one scheme and intention, which are carried on from the beginning to the end, all along uniform and confiftent with themselves. Some have argued, the world was made by a wise Being, and not jumbled together by chance, from the very absurdity of such a supposition; and they have illustrated their argument, from the impossibility that such a poem as Homer's and Virgil's should rise in such beautiful order out of millions of letters eternally shaken together: but this argument is half spoiled, if we allow, that the poems of Homer, in each of which appears one continued formed design from one end to the other, were written in loose scraps on no settled premeditated scheme. Horace, we are fure, was of another opinion, and fo was Virgil too, who built his Æneid upon the model of the Iliad and the Odyffeis. After all, Tully, whose relation of this pafsage has given some colour to this suggestion, fays no more, than that Pififtratus (whom he commends for his learning, and condemns for his tyranny) observing the bocks of Homer to lie confused and out of order, placed them in the method the great author, no doubt, had first formed them in: but all this Tully gives us only as report. And it would be very strange, that Aristotle should form his rules on Homer's poems; that Horace should follow his his example, and propose Homer for the standard of epic writing, with this bright teftimony, that he "never undertook any thing inconfiderately, nor ever made any foolish attempts;" if indeed this celebrated poet did not intend to form his poems in the order and defign we see them in. If we look upon the fabric and construction of those great works, we snall find an admirable proportion in all the parts, a perpetual coincidence, and dependence of one upon another; I will venture an appeal to any learned critic in this cause; and if it be a fufficient reason to alter the common readings in a letter, a word, or a phrase, from the confideration of the context, or propriety of the language, and call it the restoring of the text, is it not a demonstration that these poems were made in the fame course of lines, and upon the same plan we read them in at present, from all the arguments that connexion, dependence, and regularity can give us? If those critics, who maintain this odd fancy of Homer's writings, had found them loose and undigefted, and restored them to the order they stand in now, I believe they would have gloried in their art, and maintained it with more uncontested reasons, than they are able to bring for the discovery of a word or a fyllable hitherto falsely printed in the text of any author. But, if any learned men of fingular fancies and opinions will not allow the se buildings to have been originally defigned after the present model, let them at least allow us one poetical suppofition on our fide, That Homer's harp was as powerful to command his scattered incoherent pieces into the beautiful structure of a poem, as Amphion's was to summon the ftones into a wall, or Orpheus's to lead the trees a dance. For certainly, however it happens, the parts are so juftly disposed, that you cannot change any book into the place of another, without spoiling the proportion, and confounding the order of the whole.

The Georgics are above all controversy with Hefiod; but the Idylliums of Theocritus have fomething so inimitably sweet in the verse and thoughts, such a native fimplicity, and are so genuine, so natural a refult of the rural life, that I must, in my poor judgment, allow him the honour of the paftoral.

In Lyrics the Grecians may seem to have excelled, as undoubtedly they are superior in the number of their poets, and variety of

their verse. Orpheus, Alcæus, Sappho, Simonides, and Stefichorus are almost entirely loft. Here and there a fragment of some of them is remaining, which, like some broken parts of ancient statues, preserve an imperfect monument of the delicacy, strength, and skill of the great mafter's hand.

Pindar is sublime, but obscure, impetuous in his course, and unfathomable in the depth and loftiness of his thoughts. Anacreon flows foft and easy, every where diffusing the joy and indolence of his mind through his verse, and tuning his harp to the smooth and pleasant temper of his foul. Horace alone may be compared to both; in whom are reconciled the loftiness and majesty of Pindar, and the gay, careless, jovial temper of Anacreon: and, I fuppose, however Pindar may be admired for greatness, and Anacreon for delicateness of thought; Horace, who rivals one in his triumphs, and the other in his mirth and love, surpasses them both in justness, elegance, and happiness of expreffion. Anacreon has another follower among the choicest wits of Rome, and that is Catullus, whom, though his lines be rough, and his numbers inharmonious, I could recommend for the softness and delicacy, but must decline for the looseness of his thoughts, too immodest for chafte ears to bear.

I will go no farther in the poets; only, for the honour of our country, let me observe to you, that while Rome has been contented to produce some single rivals to the Grecian poetry, England hath brought forth the wonderful Cowley's wit, who was beloved by every muse he courted, and has rivalled the Greek and Latin poets in every kind, but tragedy.

I will not trouble you with the historians any further, than to inform you, that the contest lies chiefly between Thucydides and Sallust, Herodotus and Livy; though I think Thucydides and Livy may on many accounts more justly be compared: the critics have been very free in their censures, but I shall be glad to suspend any farther judgment, till you shall be able to read them, and give me your opinion.

Oratory and philosophy are the next difputed prizes; and whatever praises may be justly given to Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, and Demofthenes, I will venture to say, that the divine Tully is all the Grecian orators and philosophers in one.

Felton.

§ 86. A fort Commendation of the Latin Language.

And now, having possibly given you some prejudice in favour of the Romans, I must beg leave to assure you, that if you have not leisure to mafter both, you will find your pains well rewarded in the Latin tongue, when once you enter into the elegancies and beauties of it. It is the peculiar felicity of that language to speak good sense in fuitable expreffions; to give the finest thoughts in the happiest words, and in an easy majefty of style, to write up to the subject. And in this, lies the great " fecret of writing well, It is that elegant fimplicity, that ornamental plainness of "speech, which every common genius thinks so plain, that any body may reach " it, and findeth so very elegant, that all "his fweat, and pains, and study, fail him in the attempt."

In reading the excellent authors of the Roman tongue, whether you converse with poets, orators, or historians, you will meet with all that is admirable in human composure. And though life and spirit, propriety and force of style, be common to them all, you will fee that nevertheless every writer thines in his peculiar excellencies; and that wit, like beauty, is diverfified into a thousand graces of feature and complexion,

I need not trouble you with a particular character of these celebrated writers. What I have faid already, and what I shall fay farther of them as I go along, renders it less necessary at present, and I would not pre-engage your opinion implicitly to my fide. It will be a pleasant exercise of your judgment to diftinguish them yourself; and when you and I shall be able to depart from the common received opinions of the critics and commentators, I may take some other occafion of laying them before you, and submitting what I shall then say of them to your approbation. Felton.

§ 87. Directions in reading the Claffics.

In the mean time, I shall only give you two or three cautions and directions for your reading them, which to some people will look a little odd, but with me they are of great moment, and very necessary to be

observed.

The first is, that you would never be perfuaded into what they call Commonplaces; which is a way of taking an author to pieces, and ranging him under pro

per heads, that you may readily find what he has faid upon any point, by consulting an alphabet. This practice is of no use but in circumstantials of time and place, cuftom and antiquity, and in such instances where facts are to be remembered, not where the brain is to be exercised. In these cafes it is of great use: it helps the memory, and ferves to keep those things in a fort of order and succession. But, common-placing the sense of an author is such a flapid undertaking, that, if I may be indulged in saying it, they want common sense that prachte it. What heaps of this rubbish have I seen! O the pains and labour to record what other people have said, that is taken by those who have nothing to say themselves! You may depend upon it, the writings of these men are never worth the reading; the fancy is cramped, the invention spoiled, their thoughts on every thing are prevented, if they think at all, but it is the peculiar happiness of these collectors of fenfe, that they can write without thinking,

I do most readily agree, that all the bright sparkling thoughts of the ancients, their fineft expreffions, and nobleft fentia ments, are to be met with in these tranfcribers: but how wretchedly are they brought in, how miferably put together! Indeed, I can compare such productions to nothing but rich pieces of patch-work, sewed together with packthread.

When I see a beautiful building of exact order and proportion taken down, and the different materials laid together by themselves, it puts me in mind of these commons place men. The materials are certainly very good, but they understand not the rules of architecture fo well, as to form them into just and masterly proportions any more: and yet how beautiful would they stand in another model upon another plan!

For, we must confefs the truth: We can say nothing new, at least we can fay nothing better than has been faid before; but we may nevertheless make what we fay our own. And this is done when we do not trouble ourselves to remember in what page or what book we have read fuch a passage; but it falls in naturally with the course of our own thoughts, and takes its place in our writings with as much ease, and looks with as good a grace, as it appeared in two thousand years ago.

This is the best way of remembering the ancient authors, when you relish their

way