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NUMB. 90. SATURDAY, January 5, 1760.

T is a complaint which has been made from time to time, and which feems to have lately become more frequent, that English oratory, however forcible in argument, or elegant in expreffion, is deficient and inefficacious, because our speakers want the grace and energy of action.

Among the numerous projectors who are defirous to refine our manners, and improve our faculties, fome are willing to fupply the deficiency of our fpeakers. We have had more than one exhortation to ftudy the neglected art of moving the paffions, and have been encouraged to believe that our tongues, however feeble in themselves, may, by the help of our hands and legs, obtain an uncontroulable dominion over the most stubborn audience, animate the infenfible, engage the careless, force tears from the obdurate, and money from the avaricious.

If by flight of hand, or nimblenefs of foot, all thefe wonders can be performed, he that fhall negleft to attain the free ufe of his limbs may be juftly cenfured as criminally lazy. But I am afraid that no fpecimen of fuch effects will eafily be fhewn. If I could once find a speaker in Change-Alley raifing the price of stocks by the power of perfuafive geftures, I fhould very zealously recommend the study of his art; but having never seen any action

by

by which language was much affifted, I have been hitherto inclined to doubt whether my countrymen are not blamed too haftily for their calm and motionlefs utterance.

Foreigners of many nations accompany their speech with action; but why fhould their example have more influence upon us than ours upon them? Customs are not to be changed but for better. Let thofe who defire to reform us fhew the benefits of the change propofed. When the Frenchman waves his hands and writhes his body in recounting the revolutions of a game at cards, or the Neapolitan, who tells the hour of the day, fhews upon his fingers the number which he mentions, I do not perceive that their manual exercise is of much use, or that they leave any image more deeply impreffed by their bustle and vehemence of communication.

Upon the English ftage there is no want of action but the difficulty of making it at once various and proper, and its perpetual tendency to become ridiculous, notwithstanding all the advantages which art and fhow, and cuftom and prejudice, can give it, may prove how little it can be admitted into any other place, where it can have no recommendation but from truth and nature.

The ufe of English oratory is only at the bar, in the parliament, and in the church. Neither the judges of our laws nor the reprefentatives of our people would be much affected by laboured gesticulation, or believe any man the more because he rolled his eyes, or puffed his cheeks, or spread abroad his arms, or ftamped the ground, or thumped his breat, or turned his eyes fometimes to the

cieling

cieling and fometimes to the floor. Upon men intent only upon truth, the arm of an orator has little power; a credible teftimony, or a cogent argument, will overcome all the art of modulation, and all the violence of contortion.

It is well known that in the city which may be called the parent of oratory, all the arts of mechanical perfuafion were banifhed from the court of fupreme judicature. The judges of the Areopagus confidered action and vociferation as a foolish appeal to the external fenfes, and unworthy to be practifed before thofe who had no defire of idle amusement, and whofe only pleasure was to difcover right.

Whether action may not be yet of use in churches, where the preacher addresses a mingled audience, may deserve enquiry. It is certain that the fenfes are more powerful as the reafon is weaker; and that he whofe ears convey little to his mind, may fometimes liften with his eyes till truth may gradually take poffeffion of his heart. If there be any use of gefticulation, it must be applied to the ignorant and rude, who will be more affected by yehemence than delighted by propriety. In the pulpit little action can be proper, for action can illuftrate nothing but that to which it may be referred by nature or by cuftom. He that imitates by his hand a motion which he describes, explains it by natural fimilitude; he that lays his hand on his breaft, when he expreffes pity, enforces his words by a cuftomary illufion. But theology has few topicks to which action can be appropriated; that action which is vague and indeterminate will

at

at laft fettle into habit, and habitual peculiarities are quickly ridiculous.

It is perhaps the character of the English to defpife trifles; and that art may furely be accounted a trifle which is at once useless and oftentatious, which can feldom be practifed with propriety, and which, as the mind is more cultivated, is lefs powerful. Yet as all innocent means are to be used for the propagation of truth, I would not deter those who are employed in preaching to common congregations from any practice which they may find perfuafive; for, compared with the converfion of finners, propriety and elegance are less than nothing.

NUMB. 91. SATURDAY, January 12, 1760.

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T is common to overlook what is near, by keep

ing the eye fixed upon fomething remote. In the fame manner prefent opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is flighted, by minds bufied in extenfive ranges, and intent upon future advantages. Life, however fhort, is made ftill fhorter by wafte of time, and its progrefs towards happiness, though naturally flow, is yet retarded by unneceffary labour.

The difficulty of obtaining knowledge is univerfally confeffed. To fix deeply in the mind the principles of fcience, to fettle their limitations, and

deduce

deduce the long fucceffion of their confequences; to comprehend the whole compafs of complicated fyftems, with all the arguments, objections, and folutions, and to repofite in the intellectual treafury the numberless facts, experiments, apophthegms, and pofitions, which must stand fingle in the memory, and of which none has any perceptible connection with the rest, is a task which, though undertaken with ardor and pursued with diligence, muft at laft be left unfinished by the frailty of our

nature.

To make the way to learning either lefs fhort or lefs fmooth, is certainly abfurd; yet this is the apparent effect of the prejudice which feems to prevail among us in favour of foreign authors, and of the contempt of our native literature, which this excurfive curiofity muft neceffarily produce. Every man is more speedily inftructed by his own language, than by any other; before we fearch the reft of the world for teachers, let us try whether we may not spare our trouble by finding them at home.

The riches of the English language are much greater than they are commonly fuppofed. Many useful and valuable books lie buried in fhops and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning. I am far from intending to infinuate, that other languages are not neceffary to him who afpires to eminence, and whose whole life is devoted to study; but to him who reads only for amusement, or whose purpose is not to deck himself with the honours of literature,