be it may be presumed they find a superior gratification in the perusal of such works; and it may added, that it is of more consequence they should be made happy in their original condition, than furnished with the means, or with the desire of rising above it. Such considerations are doubtless of much weight; nevertheless, the previous reflections may deserve to be examined, and here we shall leave the subject. Though the records of the society at Tarbolton are lost, and those of the society at Mauchline have not been transmitted, yet we may safely affirm, that our poet was a distinguished member of both these associations, which were well calculated to excite and to develop the powers of his mind. From seven to twelve persons constituted thesociety at Tarbolton, and such a number is best suited to the purposes of information. Where this is the object of these societies, the number should be such, that each person may have an opportunity of imparting his sentiments, as well as of receiving those of others; and the powers of private conversation are to be employed, not those of public I 2 debate. this description form a great part. These societies are by no means general, and it is not supposed that they are increasing at present. debate. A limited society of this kind, where the subject of conversation is fixed before hand, so that each member may revolve it previously in his mind, is perhaps one of the happiest contrivances hitherto discovered for shortening the acquisition of knowledge, and hastening the evolution of talents. Such an association requires indeed somewhat more of regulation than the rules of politeness establish in common conversation; or rather perhaps, it requires that the rules of politeness, which in animated conversation are liable to perpetual violation, should be vigorously enforced. The order of speech established in the club at Tarbolton, appears to have been more regular than was required in so small a society;* where all that is necessary seems to be, the fixing on a member to whom every speaker shall address himself, and who shall in return secure the speaker from interruption. Conversation, which among men whom intimacy and friendship have relieved from reserve and restraint, is liable, when left to itself, to so many inequalities, and which as it becomes rapid, so often diverges into separate and collateral branches, in which it is dissipated and lost, being kept within its channel by a simple limitation of this kind, which practice renders easy and fami liar, * See Appendix, No. II. Note C. liar, flows along in one full stream, and becomes smoother, and clearer, and deeper, as it flows. It may also be observed, that in this way the acquisition of knowledge becomes more pleasant and more easy, from the gradual improvement of the faculty employed to convey it. Though some attention has been paid to the eloquence of the senate and the bar, which in this, as in all other free governments, is productive of so much influence to the few who excel in it, yet little regard has been paid to the humbler exercise of speech in private conversation, an art that is of consequence to every description of persons under every form of government, and on which eloquence of every kind ought perhaps to be founded. The first requisite of every kind of elocution, a distinct utterance, is the offspring of much time, and of long practice. Children are always defective in clear articulation, and so are young people, though in a less degree. What is called slurring in speech, prevails with some persons through life, especially in those who are taciturn. Articulati on does not seem to reach its utmost degree of distinctness in men before the age of twenty, or upwards; in women it reaches this point somewhat earlier. Female occupations require much use of speech, because they are duties in detail. Besides Besides, their occupations being generally sedentary, the respiration is left at liberty. Their nerves being more delicate, their sensibility as well as fancy is more lively; the natural consequence of which is, a more frequent utterance of thought, a greater fluency of speech, and a distinct articulation at an earlier age. But in men who have not mingled early and familiarly with the world, though rich perhaps in knowledge, and clear in apprehension, it is often painful to observe the difficulty with which their ideas are communicated by speech, through the want of those habits that connect thoughts, words, and sounds together; which when established, seem as if they had arisen spontaneously, but which in truth are the result of long and painful practice, and when analyzed, exhibit the phenomena of most curious and complicated association. Societies then, such as we have been describing, while they may be said to put each member in possession of the knowledge of all the rest, improve the powers of utterance, and by the collision of opinion, excite the faculties of reason and reflection. To those who wish to improve their minds in such intervals of labour as the condition of a peasant allows, this method of abbreviating instruction, may, under proper regulations, be highly useful. To the student whose opini ons ons, springing out of solitary observation and meditation, are seldom in the first instance correct, and which have notwithstanding, while confined to himself, an increasing tendency to assume in his own eye the character of demonstrations, an association of this kind, where they may be examined as they arise, is of the utmost importance; since it may prevent those illusions of imagination, by which genius being bewildered, science is often debased, and error propagated through successive generations. And to men who having cultivated letters, or general science, in the course of their education, are engaged in the active occupations of life, and no longer able to devote to study or to books the time requisite for improving or preserving their acquisitions, associations of this kind, where the mind may unbend from its usual cares in discussions of literature or science, afford the most pleasing, the most useful, and the most rational of gratifications.* Whether * When letters and philosophy were cultivated in ancient Greece, the press had not multiplied the tablets of learning and science, and necessity produced the habit of studying as it were in common. Poets were found reciting their own verses in public assemblies; In public schools only, philosophers delivered their speculations. The taste of the hearers, the ingenuity of the scholars, were employed in appreciating and examining |