veral great orators in both houfes: from' whence it is to be hoped much profit and gain will also accrue to our fociety.

How to make dedications, panegyrics or fatires, and of the colours of honourable and difhonourable.

NOW of what

OW of what neceffity the foregoing project may prove, will appear from this fingle confideration, that nothing is of equal confequence to the fuccefs of our works, as fpeed and difpatch. Great pity it is, that folid brains are not like other folid bodies, conftantly endowed with a velocity in finking proportioned to their heavinefs: for it is with the flowers of the bathos as with thofe of nature, which if the careful gardener brings not haftily to market in the morning, muft unprofitably perish and wither before night. And of all our productions none is fo fhort-lived as the dedication and panegyric, which are often but the praife of a day, and become by the next utterly ufelefs, improper, indecent, and falfe. This is the more to be lamented,

lamented, inasmuch as these two are the forts, whereon in a manner depends that profit, which muft ftill be remembered to be the main end of our writers and Speakers.

We fhall therefore employ this chapter in fhewing the quickest method of compofing them; after which we will teach a fhort way to epic poetry. And these being confeffedly the works of moft importance and difficulty, it is prefumed we may leave the reft to each author's own learning or practice.

Firft of panegyric. Every man is honourable, who is fo by law, cuftom, or title. The publick are better judges of what is honourable, than private men. The virtues of great men, like those of plants, are inherent in them whether they are exerted or not; and the more ftrongly inherent, the less they are exerted; as a man is the more rich, the lefs he fpends. All great ministers, without either private or œconomical virtue, are virtuous by their pofts; liberal and generous upon the publick money, provident upon publiek fupplies, juft by paying publick intereft, couragious

and magnanimous by the fleets and armies, magnificent upon the publick expences, and prudent by publick fuccefs. They have by their office a right to a share of the publick flock of virtues; befides they are by prescription immemorial invested in all the celebrated virtues of their predeceffors in the fame stations, especially thofe of their own ancestors.

As to what are commonly called the colours of honourable and dishonourable, they are various in different countries: in this they are blue, green, and red.

But forafmuch as the duty we owe to the publick doth often require, that we fhould put fome things in a strong light, and throw a fhade over others, I fhall explain the method of turning a vicious man into a hero.

The firft and chief rule is the golden rule of transformation, which confifts in converting vices into their bordering virtues. A man who is a spend-thrift, and will not pay a juft debt, may have his injuftice transformed into liberality; cowardice may be metamorphofed into prudence; intemperance into good nature and good

fellow

fellowship; corruption into patriotism; and lewdness into tenderness and facility.

The fecond is the rule of contraries: it is certain, the lefs a man is indued with any virtue, the more need he has to have it plentifully beftowed, efpecially those good qualities, of which the world generally believes he hath none at all: for who will thank a man for giving him that which he bas?

The reverse of these precepts will serve for fatire, wherein we are ever to remark, that whofo lofeth his place, or becomes out of favour with the government, hath forfeited his fhare in publick praise and bonour. Therefore the truly-publick-fpirited writer ought in duty to ftrip him, whom the government hath ftripped; which is the real poetical justice of this age. For a full collection of topicks and epithets to be used in the praise and difpraise of minifterial and unminifterial perfons, I refer to our rhetorical cabinet; concluding with an earnest exhortation to all my brethren to obferve the precepts here laid down, the neglect of which hath coft fome of them their ears in a pillory.

CHAP.

A

CHA P. XV.

A receipt to make an epic poem.

Nepic poem, the critics agree, is the greatest work human nature is capable of. They have already laid down many mechanical rules for compofitions of this fort, but at the fame time they cut off almost all undertakers from the poffibility of ever performing them; for the firft qualification they unanimously require in a poet, is a genius. I fhall here endeavour (for the benefit of my countrymen) to make it manifeft, that epic poems may be made without a genius, nay without learning or much reading. This must neceffarily be of great ufe to all thofe, who confefs they never read, and of whom the world is convinced they never learn. Moliere obferves of making a dinner, that any man can do it with money, and if a profeffed cook cannot do it without, he has his art for nothing: the fame may be faid of making a poem, it is cafily brought about by him that has a genius, but the skill lies in doing it without one. In pur

fuance