Secundum oratorem, non se- Si testibus credendum sit con

cundum causam pronunciat, qui argumentis nititur.

Tutum foret argumentis credere, si homines nihil absurdi facerent.

Argumenta, cum sint contra testimonia, hoc præstant, ut res mira videatur, non autem ut non

vera.

tra argumenta, sufficit, tantum judicem esse non surdum.

Iis probationibus tutissimo creditur, quæ rarissime mentiuntur.

[AA.] Introd. § 4. p. 25.

"Sometimes men will tell us that they prefer a natural and artless eloquence, and that very diligent preparation is inconsistent with such qualities. We verily believe that this fallacy, though it lurks under an almost transparent ambiguity, is of most prejudicial consequence. Nature and Art, so far from being always opposed, are often the very same thing. Thus, to adduce a familiar example, and

closely related to the present subject—it is natural for a man who feels that he has not given adequate expression to a thought, though he may have used the first words suggested, to attempt it again and again. He, each time, approximates nearer to the mark, and at length desists, satisfied either that he has done what he wishes, or that he cannot perfectly do it, as the case may be. A writer, with this end, is continually transposing clauses, reconstructing sentences, striking out one word and putting in another. All this may be said to be art, or the deliberate application of means to ends; but is it art inconsistent with nature? It is just such art as this that we ask of the preacher and no other; simply that he shall take diligent heed to do what he has to do as well as he can. Let him depend upon it, that no such art as this will ever make him appear the less natural.

"A similar fallacy lurks under the unmeaning phrases which are often bestowed upon simplicity. We love simplicity as much as any of its eulogists can do; but we should probably differ about the meaning of the word. While some men talk as if to speak naturally were to speak like a Natural, others talk as if to speak with simplicity meant to speak like a simpleton. True simplicity does not consist in what is trite, bald, or commonplace. So far as regards the thought, it means, not what is already obvious to everybody, but what, though not obvious, is immediately recognised, as soon as propounded, to be true and striking. As it regards the expression, it means, that thoughts worth hearing are expressed in language that every one can understand. In the first point of view, it is opposed to what is abtruse; in the second, to what is obscure. It is not what some men take it to mean, threadbare commonplace, expressed in insipid language. It can be owing only to a fallacy of this kind, that we so often hear discourses consisting of little else than meagre truisms, expanded and diluted till every mortal ear aches that listens. We have heard preachers commence with the tritest of truths' All men are mortals—and proceed to illustrate it with as much prolixity as though they were announcing it as a new proposition to a company of immortals in some distant planet, brought with difficulty to believe a fact so portentous, and unauthenticated by their own experience.

"True simplicity is the last and most excellent grace which can belong to a speaker, and is certainly not to be attained without much effort. Those who have attentively read the present Article, will not suspect us of demanding more deliberate preparation on the part of the preacher that he may offer what is profound, recondite, or abstruse; but that he may say only what he ought to say, and that what he does say may be better said. When the topics are such only as ought to be insisted on, and the language such as is readily understood, the preacher may depend upon it that no pains he may take will be lost-that his audience, however homely, will

be sure to appreciate them-and that the better a discourse is the better they will like it.

"We have stated as the other great cause of the failure of preachers, that they are not sufficiently instructed in the principles of pulpit eloquence. We are far from contending that a systematic exposition of the laws in conformity with which all effective discourses to the people must be constructed, should be made a part of general education; or that it ought to be imparted even to him who is destined to be a public speaker till his general training-and that a very ample one--has been completed. But that such knowledge should be acquired by every one designed for such an office, and that all universities and colleges should furnish the means of communicating it, we have no manner of doubt."

*

Youthful vanity and inexperience alone sufficiently account for the greater part of the deviations from propriety, simplicity, and common sense, now adverted to. Those who laud Nature in opposition to Art, are too apt to forget that this very vanity forms a part of it. It is natural for a youth, whether with or without cultivation, to fall into these errors; and all experience loudly proclaims that, on such a point, nature alone is no safe guide. Who, that has arrived at maturity in intellect, taste and feeling, does not recollect how hard it was in early life to put the extinguisher upon a fine metaphor or dazzling expression-to reject tinsel, however worthless, if it did. but glare; and epithets, however superfluous, if they but sounded grand?-how hard it was to forget one's self, and to become sincerely intent upon the best, simplest, strongest, briefest mode of communicating what we deemed important truth to the minds of others? Surely it is not a little ridiculous then, when so obvious a solution offers itself, to charge the faults of young speakers upon the very precepts which condemn them. It is sufficient to vindicate the utility of such precepts, if they tend only in some measure to correct the errors they cannot entirely suppress; and to abridge the duration of follies which they cannot wholly prevent.

"But it is further said, that, somehow or other, any such system of instruction does injury, by laying upon the intellect a sort of constraint, and substituting a stiff mechanical movement for the flexibility and freedom of nature.

"We reply, that if the system of instruction be too minute, or if the pupil be told to employ it mechanically, we can easily conceive that such effects will follow; but not otherwise. We plead for no system of minute technical rules; still less for the formal application of any system whatever. But to imbue the mind with great general principles, leaving them to operate imperceptibly upon the formation of habit, and to suggest, without distinct consciousness of their presence, the lesson which the occasion demands, is a very different thing, and is all we contend for. One would think, to hear some men talk, that it was proposed to instruct a youth to adjust before

hand the number of sentences of which each paragraph should consist, and the lengths into which the sentences should be cut-to determine how many should be perfect periods, and how many should not-what allowance of antitheses, interrogatives, and notes of admiration, shall be given to each page where he shall stick on a metonymy or a metaphor, and how many niches he shall reserve for gilded ornaments. Who is pleading for any such nonsense as this? All that we contend for is, that no public speaker should be destitute of a clear perception of those principles of man's nature on which conviction and persuasion depend; and of those proprieties of style which ought to characterise all discourses which are designed to effect these objects. General as all this knowledge must be, we cannot help thinking that it would be most advantageous. One great good it would undoubtedly in many cases affect;-it would prevent men from setting out wrong, or abridge the amount or duration of their errors ;— in other words, prevent the formation of vicious habits, or tend to correct them when formed. Nothing is more common than for a speaker to set out with false notions as to the style which effective public speaking requires to suppose it something very remote from what is simple and natural. Still more are led into similar errors by their vanity. The young especially are apt to despise the true style for what are its chief excellences-its simplicity and severity. Let them once be taught its great superiority to every other, and they will at least be protected from involuntary errors, and less likely to yield to the seductions of vanity. Such a knowledge would also (perhaps the most important benefit of all) involve a knowledge of the best models, and secure timely appreciation of them.

"But it is frequently urged that, after all, the practical value of all the great lessons of criticism must be learned from experience, and that mere instruction can do little. Be it so. Is this any reason why that little should be withheld? Besides, is it nothing to put a youth in the right way?-to abridge the lessons of experience? -to facilitate the formation of good habits, and to prevent the growth of bad ones?-to diminish the probabilities of failure, and to increase those of success? Is there any reason why we should suffer the young speaker to grope out his way by the use of the lead-line alone, when we could give him the aid of the chart and compass; or to find his way to truth at last by a series of painful blunders, when any part of the trouble might be spared him? Can any one doubt that a great speaker might be able to give a young beginner many profitable hints which would save him both much time and many errors, and make the lessons of experience not only a great deal shorter, but vastly less troublesome ?"—Edinb. Review, (Oct. 1840.) pp. 94-98.

[B] Part I. Chap. ii. § 2. p. 45.

there is a distinction to be made betwen the unnatural and the merely improbable: a fiction is unnatural, when there is

some assignable reason against the events take place as described,— when men are represented as acting contrary to the character assigned them, or to human nature in general; as when a young lady of seventeen, brought up in ease, luxury, and retirement, with no companions but the narrow-minded and illiterate, displays (as a heroine usually does) under the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, fortitude, and knowledge of the world, as the best instructors and the best examples can rarely produce without the aid of a more mature age and longer experience.3-On the other hand, a fiction is still improbable, though not unnatural, when there is no reason to be assigned why things should not take place as represented, except that the overbalance of chances is against it. The hero meets, in his utmost distress, most opportunely with the very person to whom he had formerly done a signal service, and who happens to communicate to him a piece of intelligence which sets all to rights. Why should he not meet him as well as any one else? all that can be said is, that there is no reason why he should. The infant who is saved from a wreck, and who afterwards becomes such a constellation of virtues and accomplishments, turns out to be no other than the nephew of the very gentleman on whose estate the waves had cast him, and whose lovely daughter he had so long sighed for in vain: there is no reason to be given, except from the calculation of chances, why he should not have been thrown on one part of the coast as well as another. Nay, it would be nothing unnatural, though the most determined novel-reader would be shocked at its improbability, if all the hero's enemies, while they were conspiring his ruin, were to be struck dead together by a lucky flash of lightning: yet many denouements which are decidedly unnatural, are better tolerated than this would be. We shall, perhaps, best explain our meaning by examples, taken from a novel of great merit in many respects. When Lord Glenthorn, in whom a most unfavourable education has acted on a most unfavourable disposition, after a life of torpor, broken only by short sallies of forced exertion, on a sudden reverse of fortune, displays at once the most persevering diligence in the most repulsive studies; and in middle life, without any previous habits of exertion, any hope of early business, or the example of friends, or the stimulus of actual want, to urge him, outstrips every competitor, though every competitor has every advantage against him; this is unnatural. When Lord Glenthorn, the instant he is stripped of his estates, meets, falls in love with, and is conditionally accepted by, the very lady who is remotely entitled to those estates: when the instant he has fulfilled the conditions of their marriage, the family of the person possessed

3 Or, one might add, when a lad born and reared in a Workhouse filled with reprobates, and afterwards further trained among hardened thieves, exhibits a character just the reverse of what all reason and all experience would

anticipate from such an education, this is grossly unnatural; though many readers may fail to perceive the fault, or at least, the magnitude of it, through the fallacy noticed in the Text.