again tranfgrefs by defiring you to exprefs the heads of your divifions in as few and clear words as you. poffibly can; otherwise, I and many thoufand others will never be able to retain them, nor confequently to carry away a fyllable of the fermon.

I fhall now mention a particular, wherein your whole body will be certainly against me, and the laity, almost to a man, on my fide. However it came about, I cannot get over the prejudice of taking fome little offence at the clergy for perpetually reading their fermons; perhaps my frequent hearing of foreigners, who never make ufe of notes, may have added to my difguft. And I cannot but think, that whatever is read, differs as much from what is repeated without book, as a copy does from an original. At the fame time I am highly fenfible, what an extream difficulty it would be upon you to alter this method; and that, in such a cafe, your fermons would be much lefs valuable than they are, for want of time to improve and correct them. I would therefore gladly come to a compromise with you in this matter. I

knew

knew a clergyman of fome diftinction, who appeared to deliver his fermon without looking into his notes, which when I complimented him upon, he affured me, he could not repeat fix lines; but his method was to write the whole fermon in a large plain hand, with all the forms of margin, paragraph, marked page, and the like; then on Sunday morning he took care to run it over five or fix times, which he could do in an hour; and when he delivered it, by pretending to turn his face from one fide to the other, he would (in his own expression) pick up the lines, and cheat his people by making them believe he had it all by heart. He farther added, that whenever he happened by neglect to omit any of these circumftances, the vogue of the parish was, our doctor gave us but an indifferent fermon to-day. Now among us many clergymen act fo directly contrary to this method, that from a habit of faving time and paper, which they acquired at the university, they write in fo diminutive a manner, with fuch frequent blots and interlineations, that they are hardly C 2

able

able to go on without perpetual hefitations or extemporary expletives: and I defire to know, what can be more inexcufable, than to see a divine and a scholar at a lofs in reading his own compofitions, which it is fuppofed he has been preparing with much pains and thought for the inftruction of his people. The want of a little more care in this article is the cause of much ungraceful behaviour. You will obferve fome clergymen with their heads held down from the beginning to the end, within an inch of the cushion, to read what is hardly legible: which, befides the untoward manner, hinders them from making the best advantage of their voice: others again have a trick of popping up and down every moment from their paper to the audience, like an idle school-boy on a repetition day.

Let me intreat you therefore to add one half crown a year to the article of paper; to transcribe your fermons in as large and plain a manner as you can; and either make no interlineations, or change the whole leaf; for we, your hearers, would

rather

you

rather fhould be lefs correct, than perpetually stammering, which I take to be one of the worst folecisms in rhetorick. And laftly, read your fermon once or twice a day for a few days before you preach it: to which you will probably answer fome years hence, that it was but just finished, when the last bell rang to church: and I fhall readily believe, but not excufe you.

I cannot forbear warning you in the most earnest manner against endeavouring at wit in your fermons, because, by the ftricteft computation, it is very near a million to one that you have none; and becaufe too many of your calling have confequently made themselves everlastingly ridiculous by attempting it. I remember feveral young men in this town, who could never leave the pulpit under half a dozen conceits; and this faculty adhered to those gentlemen a longer or fhorter time, exactly in proportion to their feveral degrees of dulnefs: accordingly, I am told that fome of them retain it to this day. I heartily wish the brood were at an end.

Before you enter into the common unfufferable

C 3

able to go on without perpetual hefitations or extemporary expletives: and I defire to know, what can be more inexcufable, than to fee a divine and a scholar at a lofs in reading his own compofitions, which it is fuppofed he has been preparing with much pains and thought for the inftruction of his people. The want of a little more care in this article is the cause of much ungraceful behaviour. You will observe fome clergymen with their heads held down from the beginning to the end, within an inch of the cufhion, to read what is hardly legible: which, befides the untoward manner, hinders them from making the best advantage of their voice: others again have a trick of popping up and down every moment from their paper to the audience, like an idle school-boy on a repetition day.

Let me intreat you therefore to add one half crown a year to the article of paper; to transcribe your fermons in as large and plain a manner as you can; and either make no interlineations, or change the whole leaf; for we, your hearers, would

rather