are only to be taken by agrémens and by what flatters their senses and their hearts. Rabelais first wrote a most excellent book which nobody liked ; then, determined to conform to the public taste, he wrote "Gargantua and Pantagruel," which everybody liked, extravagant as it was. Adieu.

XLIII.

"THE TONGUE TO PERSUADE."

LONDON, Dec. 12, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY, Lord Clarendon in his history says of Mr. John Hampden that " he had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief." I shall not now enter into the justness of this character of Mr. Hampden, to whose brave stand against the illegal demand of ship-money we owe our present liberties; but I mention it to you as the character, which, with the alteration of one single word, Good, instead of Mischief, I would have you aspire to, and use your utmost endeavors to deserve. The head to contrive God must to a certain degree have given you; but it is in your own power greatly to improve it by study, observation, and reflection. As for the "tongue to persuade," it wholly depends upon yourself; and without it the best head. will contrive to very little purpose. The hand to execute depends likewise, in my opinion, in a great measure upon yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage in a good cause; and the courage arising from reflection is of a much superior nature

to the animal and constitutional courage of a foot soldier. The former is steady and unshaken, where the nodus is dignus vindice; the latter is oftener improperly than properly exerted, but always brutally.

The second member of my text (to speak ecclesiastically) shall be the subject of my following discourse, the tongue to persuade, -as judicious preachers recommend those virtues which they think their several audiences want the most, such as truth and continence at Court, disinterestedness in the city, and sobriety in the country.

You must certainly in the course of your little experience have felt the different effects of elegant and inelegant speaking. Do you not suffer when people accost you in a stammering or hesitating manner, in an untuneful voice with false accents and cadences, puzzling and blundering through solecisms, barbarisms, and vulgarisms, misplacing even their bad words, and inverting all method? Does not this prejudice you against their matter, be it what it will; nay, even against their persons.? I am sure it does me. On the other hand, do you not feel yourself inclined, prepossessed, nay, even engaged in favor of those who address you in the direct contrary manner? The effects of a correct and adorned style, of method and perspicuity, are incredible towards persuasion; they often supply the want of reason and argument, but when used in the support of reason and argument, they are irresistible. The French attend very much to the purity and elegance of their style, even in common conversation; insomuch that it is a character to say of a man, "qu'il

narre bien." Their conversations frequently turn upon the delicacies of their language, and an academy is employed in fixing it. The Crusca in Italy has the same object; and I have met with very few Italians who did not speak their own language correctly and elegantly. How much more necessary is it for an Englishman to do so, who is to speak it in a public assembly where the laws and liberties of his country are the subjects of his deliberation? The tongue that would persuade there must not content itself with mere articulation. . . . If you have the least defect in your elocution, take the utmost care and pains to correct it. Do not neglect your style, whatever language you speak in, or whomever you speak to, were it your footman. Seek always for the best words and the happiest expressions you can find. Do not content yourself with being barely understood, but adorn your thoughts, and dress them as you would your person; which, however well proportioned it might be, it would be very improper and indecent to exhibit naked, or even worse dressed than people of your sort are.

XLIV.

MAN'S INCONSISTENCY.-RICHELIEU

AND MAZARIN.

WOMEN MORE ALIKE THAN MEN. -ON RASH CONFIDENCES.

LONDON, Dec. 19, O. S. 1749.

DEAR BOY,- The knowledge of mankind is a very useful knowledge for everybody, a most necessary

one for you, who are destined to an active public life. You will have to do with all sorts of characters; you should therefore know them thoroughly in order to manage them ably. This knowledge is not to be gotten systematically; you must acquire it yourself by your own observation and sagacity. I will give you such hints as I think may be useful land-marks in your intended progress.

I have often told you (and it is most true) that with regard to mankind we must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though in the main true ones. We must not suppose that

because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or because he has such or such a prédominate passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which in their turns retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion.

There are two inconsistent passions, which however frequently accompany each other, like man and wife; and which, like man and wife too, are commonly clogs upon each other. I mean ambition and avarice. The latter is often the true cause of the former, and then is the predominant passion. It seems to have been so in Cardinal Mazarin, who did anything, submitted to anything, and forgave anything for the sake of plunder. He loved and courted power like an usurer, because it carried profit along with it. Whoever should have formed his opinion or taken

his measures singly, from the ambitious part of Cardinal Mazarin's character, would have found himself often mistaken. Some who had found this out made their fortunes by letting him cheat them at play. On the contrary, Cardinal Richelieu's prevailing passion seems to have been ambition, and his immense riches only the natural consequences of that ambition gratified; and yet I make no doubt but that ambition had now and then its turn with the former, and avarice with the latter. Richelieu (by the way) is so strong a proof of the inconsistency of human nature that I cannot help observing to you that while he absolutely governed both his king and his country, and was in a great degree the arbiter of the fate of all Europe, he was more jealous of the great reputation of Corneille than of the power of Spain; and more flattered with being thought (what he was not) the best poet than with being thought (what he certainly was) the greatest statesman in Europe; and affairs stood still while he was concerting the criticism upon the "Cid." Could one think this possible if one did not know it to be true? Though men are all of one composition, the several ingredients are so differently proportioned in each individual, that no two are exactly alike, and no one at all times like himself. The ablest man will sometimes do weak things; the proudest man, mean things; the honestest man, ill things; and the wickedest man, good ones. Study individuals then, and if you take (as you ought to do) their outlines from their prevailing passion, suspend your last finishing strokes till you have attended to and discovered the operations of their inferior pas