and render himself the object of their ridicule. It is not enough, as Quintilian fays, to be a human creature, to make a good speaker. As, on one hand, it is not true, that a fpeaker's fhewing himself in earnest is alone fufficient, fo on the other, it is certain, that if he does not feem to be in earnest, he cannot but fail of his defign.

There is a true fublime in delivery, as in the other imitative arts; in the manner, as well as in the matter, of what an orator delivers. As in poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and the other elegancies, the true fublime confifts in a set of mafterly, large, and noble strokes of art, fuperior to florid littleness; fo it is in delivery. The accents are to be clear and articulate; every fyllable standing off from that which is next to it, fo that they might be numbered as they proceed. The inflections of the voice are to be fo diftinctly suited to the matter, that the humour or paffions might be known by the found of the voice only, where there could not be one word heard. And the variations are to be, like the full fwelling folds of the drapery in a fine picture, or ftatue, bold and free, and forcible.

True eloquence does not wait for cool approbation. Like irrefiftible beauty, it tranfports, it ravishes, it commands the admiration of all, who are within its reach. If it allows time to criticife, it is not genuine. It ought to burry us out of ourselves, to engage and fwallow up our whole attention ; to drive every thing out of our minds, befides the fubject it would hold forth, and the point it wants to carry. The hearer finds himself as unable to refift, as to blow out a conflagration with the breath of his mouth, or to stop the ftream of a river with his hand. His paffions are no longer his own. The orator has taken poffeffion of them; and, with fuperior power, works them to whatever he pleafes.

There is no earthly object capable of making fuch various and fuch forcible impreffions upon the human mind, as a confummate Speaker. In viewing the artificial creations, which flow from the pencil of a Raphael, the critical eye is indeed delighted to a high pitch; and the delight is rational, because it flows from fources unknown to beings below the rational sphere. But the ear remains wholly unengaged and unentertained.

In liftening to the raptures of Corelli, Geminiani, and Handel, the flood of pleafure which pours upon the ear, is almoft too much for human nature. And mufic applied to exprefs the fublimities of poetry, as in the oratorio of Samfon, and the Allegro and Penforofo, yields a pleasure fo truly rational, that a Plato, or a Socrates, need not be ashamed to declare their fenfibility of it. But here again, the eye has not its gratification. For the opera (in which action is joined with mufic, in order to entertain the eye at the fame time with the ear) I muft beg leave, with all due fubmiffion to the tafte of the great, to confider as a forced conjunction of two things, which nature does not allow to go together. For it never will be other than unnatural, to fee heroes fighting, commanding, threatening, lamenting, and making love in the warblings of an Italian fong.

It is only the elegant speaker, who can at once regale the eye with the view of its most amiable object, the human form in all its glory; the ear with the original of all mufic, the understanding with its proper and natural food, the knowledge of important truth; and the imagination with all that, in nature, or in art, is beautiful, fublime, or wonderful. For the orator's field is the univerfe, and his fubjects are all that is known of God, and his works; of fuperior natures, good and evil, and their works; and of terreftrials, and their works.

In a confummate fpeaker, whatever there is of corporeal dignity, or beauty, the majefty of the human face divine, the grace of action, the piercing glance, or gentle languish, or fiery flash of the eye; whatever of lively paffion, or ftriking emotion of mind, whatever of fine imagination, of wife reflection, or irrefiftible reafoning; whatever of excellent in human nature, all that the hand of the Creator has impreffed, of his own image upon the nobleft creature we are acquainted with, all this appears in the confummate Speaker to the highest advantage. And whoever is proof againft fuch a difplay of all that is noble in human nature, must have neither eye nor ear, nor paffion, nor imagination, nor tafte, nor understanding.

Though it may be alleged, that a great deal of gesture, or action, at the bar, or in the pulpit, especially the latter, is not wanted, nor is quite in character; it is yet certain, that there is no part of the man, that has not its proper attitude. The eyes are not to be rolled along the ceiling, as if the speaker thought himself in duty bound to take care how the flies behave themselves. Nor are they to be conftantly caft down upon the ground, as if he were before his judge receiving fentence of death. Nor to be fixed upon one point, as if he

faw

faw a ghost. The arms of the preacher are not to be need lefsly thrown out, as if he were drowning in the pulpit, or brandifhed, after the manner of the ancient pugiles, or boxers, exercifing themselves by fighting with their own fhadow, to prepare them for the Olympic contefts. Nor, on the contrary, are his hands to be pocketed up, nor his arms to hang by his fides as lank as if they were both withered. The head is not to stand fixed, as if the speaker had a perpetual crick in his neck. Nor is it to nod at every third word, as if he were acting Jupiter, or his would-be-fon Alexander *.

A judicious fpeaker is master of fuch a variety of decent and natural motions, and has fuch command of attitude, that he will not be long enough in one pofture to offend the eye of the fpectator. The matter he has to pronounce, will fuggeft the propriety of changing from time to time, his look, his pofture, his motion, and tone of voice, which if they were to continue too long the fame, would become tedious, and irkfome to the beholders. Yet he is not to be every moment changing pofture, like a harlequin, nor throaving his hands about, as if he were fhewing legerdemain tricks.

Above all things, the public fpeaker is never to forget the great rule, ARS EST CELARE ARTEM. It would be infinitely more pleafing to fee him deliver himself with as little motion, and no better attitude, than those of an Egyptian mummy, than diftorting himself into all the violations of decorum, which affectation produces. Art, jeen through, is execrable.

Modefy ought ever to be confpicuous in the behaviour of alf who are obliged to exhibit themfelves before the eye of the public. Whatever of gefture, or exertion of voice, fuch perfons ufe, they ought to appear plainly to be drawn into them by the importance, fpirit, or humour, of the matter. If the peaker ufes any arts of delivery, which appear plainly to be Atudied, the effect will be, that his awkward attempt to work upon the paffions of his hearers, by means, of which he is not mafter, will render him odious and contemptible to them. With what fiff and pedantic folemnity do fome public fpeakers utter thoughts, fo trifling, as to be bardly worth uttering at all! And what unnatural and unfuitable tones of voice, and geficulations, do others apply, in delivering what, by their

manner of delivering, one would be apt to queftion, not only whether it is their own compofition, but whether they really understand it.

The clergy have one confiderable apology from the awkwardness of the place they fpeak from. A pulpit is, by its very make, neceffarily destructive of all grace of attitude. What could even a Tully do in a tub, just big enough for him to stand in immersed up to the arm-pits, pillowing his chin upon its cushion, as Milton defcribes the Sun upon the orient wave? But it is hardly to be expected, that this, or any other impropriety in facred matters, of which there are many greater, fhould be altered. Errors, in them, become, by long establishment, facred. And I doubt not, but fome of the narrower part of the clergy, as well as of the people, would think any other form of a pulpit, than the prefent, though much fitter for exhibiting the speaker to advantage, an innovation likely to prove dangerous to religion, and, which is worse, to the church.

Nor is it to be expected, that decorum of manner in preaching fhould be carried to any great perfection in England, while reading is thought to be preaching. If the Greek and Roman orators had read their fermons, the effe&t would have been, I fuppofe, pretty much the fame as that which fermons produce among us. The hearers might have, many of them, dropped afleep. In fome foreign countries, preachers are fo much aware of the disadvantage of reading, that fuch as have weak memories have a prompter behind, in the pulpit, out of fight. However, it must be owned, that if preachers would beftow a little pains in committing to memory the fubitance of their difcourfes, so as not to be flaves to written notes, and endeavour to gain a tolerable readiness at extemporary amplification (which at the bar is indifpenfable) their difcourfes might have effect, though the eye fhould now and then be cast upon the notes, if not in a clumfy manner, and with befitation. Quintilian † himself will not object to fo much use of notes as I have here, allowed; though he abfolutely requires his orator to be poffeiled of a memory 1.

Τα

See the writings of many of the clergy themselves to this purpofe, au Dr. Clarke, Hare, Hoadley, Whiffon, Clayton, &c. the CANDID DISQUISITIONS, and the CONFESSIONAL.

inft. Orat. L. x. C. vii.

Dean Swift, in his LETTER TO A YOUNG CLERGYMAN, writes, on this fubject, as follows:

"I cannot but think that what is read, differs as much from what is repeated without book, as a copy does from an original, At the fame

To hear a judicious and elegant difcourfe from the pulpit, which would, in print, make a noble figure, murdered by him, who had learning and tafte to compofe it, but, having been neglected as to one important part of his educa tion, knows not how to deliver it otherwife than with a tone between finging and saying, or with a nod of his head, to enforce, as with a hammer, every emphatical word, or with the fame unanimated monotony, in which he was used to repeat Qua genus at Westminster-school; what can be imagined more lamentable! Yet what more common! Were the educators of youth intended for the miniftry, of the opinion of the prince of orators, viz. that delivery is the firft, fecond, and third part of oratory, they would fpare fome time from the many less neceffary parts of fchool-learning to apply it to one fo very effential; without which the weight of the most facred fubject, the greatest depth of critical dif quifition, the most unexceptionable reafoning, the moft accurate arrangement of matter, and the most striking energy of Style, are all loft upon an audience; who fit unaffected, and depart unimproved. From hence it is, that, while places of public worship are almost empty, theatres are crowded. Yet in the former, the most interesting subjects are treated. In the latter all is fiction. To the former all are invited without any expence. The charge and trouble of attending the latter are confiderable. But it will not be otherwife, fo long as the fpeakers in the former take no more pains to enforce their public inftructions, than if they delivered fictions, and those in the latter bestow fo much to make fictions feem true. It may be faid, this obfervation has often been made before. The more is the pity. And it ought to be often made again, and to be dwelt upon, till the fault is amended.

Did preachers labour to acquire a masterly delivery, places of public inftruction would be crowded, as places of public diverfion are now. Rakes and Infidels, merely to thew their taste, would frequent them. Could all frequent them, and none profit?

"time I am fully fenfible, what an extreme difficulty it would be upon "you to alter this; and that if you did, your fermons would be much lefs valuable than otherwife, for want of time to improve and correct "them. I would therefore gladly come to a compromise with you in "this matter."

He then goes on to advise, that he should write his fermons in a large fair hand, and read them over feveral times before delivering them, so as to be able, with the help of an eye caft down now and then upon the paper, to pronounce them with eafe and force.