of a theme of this construction composed by Mr. Dryden, which was the pattern we were obliged to follow; and I wish I could give you a copy of it. Method is the light of a subject, and expression is the life of it: and, in my judgment, an immethodical piece is worse than an ill-written one. The art is, to use method as builders do a scaffold, which is to be taken away when the work is finished: ór, as good workmen, who conceal the joints in their work, so that it may look smooth and pleasant to the eye, as if it were all made of one piece.

Cicero, in his Orations, speaking generally as a lawyer, pleads for the lawfulness of some fact, or against its unlawfulness. He begins with preparing his hearers for the subject; either winning their attention by a modest approach, or shewing them how they are interested in what he has to propose to them.

In the next place, he proceeds to state the case, and lays the facts before them, with all their circumstances; or such at least as make for his purpose. This is called the

narration.

Then he descends to reason upon the case; either justifying his client, or refuting the ar

guments

guments on the other side. The justification and the refutation generally make two separate articles. If his speech is of the accusatory kind, his method is still the same, mutatis mutandis.

After all, he sums up the merit in a conclusion, which is called peroratio, because it reviews the several parts of the whole oration, and presses the audience with the force of the evidence, that their judgment may go with his side of the question.

Many sermons in the English language are some of the finest orations in the world. They are are of different sorts; some are moral, some controversial, and some exposi tory: the latter are of more general use, because they take in the two other divisions of moral and controversial, as occasion requires.

Under the first head of a discourse, the subject is opened with some general observations, and distinguished.

Under the second, it is explained and illus trated.

Under the third, the uses are shewn, and the inferences deduced, as they follow naturally from the most interesting parts of the exposition,

A sermon written after this, or some like method, will be clearly understood and easily remembered. Besides, when a thought stands in its right place, it has ten times more force than when it is improperly connected. Compositions are like machines, where one part depends upon another; if any part gets out of place, the motion is disordered, and the whole is of less effect. A rhapsody of miscel laneous thoughts, huddled together in the way of an unconnected essay, with no particular relation to the text, either makes no impression at the time when it is delivered, or leaves no instruction behind it. Not every musician, who can make a noise, and shew slight of hand upon an instrument, is fit for a composer of music; neither is every man who can think with freedom able to write with good effect.

The three different sorts of composition in prose, are the narration, the epistle, and the speech. Narration should consist of long and clear periods, descriptive of facts, with reflections sparingly intermixt. The epistle is distinguished by short sentences and an easy unaffected manner. Method is here of no great value. Speeches are different from both, consisting of reasonings, apolo

gies, defences, accusations, refutations, and such like, enforced and ornamented as much as may be with the figures of rhetoric properly introduced: of which I shall endeavour to give you an explanation at some other op portunity.

LETTER XX.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN GOING INTO THE

ARMY.

WHAT figure can you make in

any state of life, unless you adopt some certain rules for the regulation of your conduct? Wisdom lives by rule, and folly lives by chance; and this is the chief difference there is betwixt them. Such rules, therefore, as may be useful to you in the profession you are now going to take upon you, I shall give you freely, so far as they are known to me: the success must depend upon your own attention.

Do not imagine then, that because you are going to put on a sword, you may therefore throw aside your books. The army, I know, differs very much from the university, and has many gentlemen, who think they have no great occasion for learning: but be assured of this, that the learned will have the advantage of the ignorant in all the departments of public life. There are times and seasons, when they who know less, be their fortune and station what it will, must come to those who know more;

and