prations of moody moralifts, without having honeftly ap pealed to experience and afked himself fairly and ingenuoufly the question. For our own part, we do appeal to experience, and deny the propofition: conceiving that there is just as much happiness in the world as mifery, and no more; neither the learned having an iota, nor the ignorant a jot, of advantage in this particular.

Effay the fourth treats of Eloquence, or rather of a fubordinate modern fpecies of it, and that in a manner as fingular as the fubject. For the entertainment of our readers, therefore, we shall make a longer extract from it, than our limits would otherwise admit.

"Eloquence, perhaps, is not to be found either in the fenate or the forum of Britain. There is, indeed, a very great degree of merit in many of the harangues fpoken in thofe places, but they come not up to the idea of Grecian or Roman eloquence. The defect is not owing to a want of ability, but to a voluntary compliance with the tafte and genius of the nation. In the pulpit, perhaps, we may find fome veftiges of ancient oratory; but waving at prefent the enquiry whether we refemble the ancients in this point, I fhal proceed to tranfcribe a few observations on pulpit eloquence in general, which I collected not long ago by accident.

"One evening laft autumn, as I was walking in the fields to catch a mouthful of fresh air, I obferved a man, fomewhat advanced in years, and of a composed afpect, fauntering in the fame path with myfelf, feemingly in profound meditation. For a confiderable time neither of us chofe to commence a converfation; till at length, when a tacit familiarity between us had removed the referve of strangeness, the old man opened with the ufual introductory topic, the ferenity of the evening. For my own part, I never refufe to join in one of the most reasonable, as well as moft agreeable pleasures of human life. By degrees, the ferenity of my companion's countenance brightened up as the converfation grew warm, and he told me he had just been hearing an excellent fermon at an evening lecture, and, as was his ufual way, had taken this little turn in the fields to meditate on serious fubjects without interruption. I muft own I was rather startled at hearing this, apprehending I had fallen into the company of fome methodistical enthufiaft, who would endeavour to make me a profelyte; but upon farther converfation, I found myself agreeably mistaken. The old man made fome reflections, which, as they ftruck me at the time, I entered among my minutes as foon as I returned home.

"You must know, Sir" faid he, that I am an old fashioned man man. I go to church on Wedneldays and Fridays, according to my good old grandmother's directions, who (well I remember it) ufed al ways to appoint me the bearer of her large print prayer-book bu ind in purple morocco, and would constantly give me a penny when the

fervice

service of the church was ended, because I was good, as the wou'd tell me, and faid amen at the clofe of every prayer. To thefe early impreffions, perhaps, I owe all my oddities; and you will eafily imagine what a queer fellow I am, when I inform you, that I put my family to the inconvenience of dining, on Sundays, a full hour fooner than common, for no other reason in the world but that I may do my duty towards my Maker, by going to church in the afternoon. While my neighbours are at the play-houfe, or the tavern, I can make shift to kill time at an evening lecture; and I often follow a famous preacher of a charity fermon with all the ardour with which a favourite player infpires the frequenters of theatrical entertainments. Thefe are my ufual diverfions, and really, Sir, they have fome advantages attending them. In the first place, they are not expenfive; for what is a fhilling thrown away now and then upon a trifling whim, fince every man has his hobby-horfe; fuch as relieving a fuffering fellow creature, or contributing to the education and fupport of a poor orphan? Secondly, I can go into any church, within the Bills of Mortality, without dan ger of being pushed, and fqueezed, and trod upon, and ftifled to death, as fometimes happens to those who follow more fashionable diverfions; nay, and I can fit the whole time without fweating in the leaft.

"Now, Sir, as I have conftantly attended to various forts of pul pit eloquence, I fuppofe I may pretend, without vanity, to be fome judge of it. Do not, however, expect that I fhall bring proofs of the juftnefs of my remarks from your Ariftotles, your Tullies, or your Quintilians; for I am a plain common man, and if I have any fenfe, God knows it is only plain common fenfe.

"Let me premife that I fhall now and then make use of the usual terms of divifion and fubdivifion. Such, for instance, as thofe edifying little words, Firft, fecondly, thirdly, to conclude, to come to next head, and the like. Confider, Sir, I have been long used to this ftyle, and naturally run into it.

"Of preachers, I fhall reckon four kinds; the Fine Man, the Pretty Preacher, the Good Textman, and the Humdrum.

"First then of the first (forgive my fermonical style) namely, of the FINE MAN:

"A ftentorophonic voice is the fundamental excellency of your Fine Man-and a powerful excellence it is. I have been a witnefs of its force. No fooner has the Fine Man uttered the pathetic and fignificant phrase, "conclude," than I have heard the whole row of matrons, in the middle aifle, with one accord cry, "humph," and immediately fecond their exclamation with a torrent of tears, which Howed down their withered cheeks, interrupted only by fighs and fobs. The next qualification is flexibility of limbs. From this excellence arife thofe violent contortions of the body, that wringing of the hands, beating of the breaft, rolling of the eyes, foaming of the mouth, and one or two more symptoms of madness, which never fail of gaining the applaufe of the weeping congregation. The nextbut what am I about, Sir? In truth, I cannot recollect the other excellencies; as for fense, learning, argument, thefe are not to be exVOL. VI. pected

pected in your Fine Man: but then the want of these is abundantly fupplied by noise, nonfenfe, and grimace.

"To come to my fecond head. Secondly then, as was before laid down, we treat of the PRETTY PREACHER:

"The Pretty Preacher is an imitator of the Fine Man. As a copy, he is fomewhat fainter than the original. He whines, he fobs, he roars, but roars like any nightingale, as Shakespeare has it. A foft effeminate voice, a pretty face) which is a more powerful perfuafive, than the arguments of a Chillingworth) and a white handkerchief, are the conftituent parts of a Pretty Preacher.

"These two forts of Preachers are complete mafters of the paffions, without addreffing the understanding in the leaft. In truth, I cannot help comparing them to a fiddler of old time, I remember to have heard of at fchool, who made stocks and stones dance minuets, and rivers run the wrong way, and played a hundred fuch pranks merely by the found of the fiddle-strings. Juft in the fame manner a Fine Man, and a Pretty Preacher, can force the tear from the eye, and the fhilling from the inmoft recefies of the pocket, by dint of found, which, in this cafe, is never the echo of fenfe.

"To come to my third head. Thirdly then, the GOOD TEXTMAN lays down good plain rules of morality, and confirms every precept by a quotation from holy writ, The graces of elocution he never aims at. Rhetorical flourishes, new remarks, or beautiful language, are not to be required of him. In fhort, the intelligent part of the congregation will feldom find their understandings enlightened, or their fancy amufed by him; but the plain fober-minded Chriftian, provided he can distinguish what the preacher fays, may carry away fomething for his edification.

"To conclude with my fourth and last head. The HUMDRUM feems to confider preaching and praying as a kind of trade or work, which if he performs fo as to get his wages, he is fatisfied. He reads the liturgy as he would read a news-paper. He endeavours neither to pleafe, to frike, nor to convince, but thinks the duty fufficiently well done, if it is but according to the rubrick at the established fea fons. To give him his due, he commonly presohes the best divinity in the language; for as he is too lazy to compofe, he has nothing to do but make choice of the most celebrated compofitions of others. He, however, murders every fentence he reads. For the most part, he chufes doctrinal rather than practical difcourfes; but the misfortune is, that while he is making the mysteries as clear as the fun at noon-day, his audience are commonly afleep as faft as a church. In a word, you may form fome idea of this kind of Preacher, by taking a view of Hogarth's print of the fleepy congregation, where there is a Humdrum holding forth, fo as effectually to infufe peace and quietnefs into the minds of his hearers."

"Here the old gentleman's avocations obliged him to conclude the converfation, with expreffing a wish, "That men of virtue and learning, as the clergy generally are, would not let the effect of their excellent prayers and difcourfes, which if well delivered might reform thousands, be entirely loft, by indolence or affectation."

We

We should here take leave of thefe Effays, did we not confult our reader's entertainment, at fo barren a season as the prefent, of amufing publications. At the fame time, we must frankly confefs, that, if we confulted the entertainment of our readers only, without regard to the property of the author or his bookfeller, we should occafionally extract the whole of these Anonymous Effays.-At prefent, therefore, we must make a merit of our forbearance and indulge ourselves only in one quotation more; with which we fhall now difmifs thefe ingenious and agreeable tracts.

"To complain of the prefent, and to praise the paft, has fo long been the favourite topic of difappointment, or of ignorance, that every stricture on the degeneracy of the times is looked upon as the effufion of ill-nature, or the refult of fuperficial obfervation: but the abfur dity of declamatory invective, ought not to preclude the cool remarks of truth, reafon, and experience.

"The practice of vice, or virtue, has indeed varied at different periods, rather in the mode, than in the degree; but the state of literature has fuffered more violent revolutions; it has fometimes fhone with the higheft luftre, and at others has been totally overshadowed with the darkness of barbarifm.

"To review the state of learning from the earliest periods, and to investigate the caufes of its fluctuations, is a tafk that requires much labour, fagacity, and erudition. More moderate abilities, and more fuperficial enquiries, will, however, fuffice to examine the justice of the charge of literary degeneracy in the prefent age, and if it be well founded, to discover the caufes of it.

"It has been obferved by an ingenious writer, that as every age has been marked by fome peculiarity, from which it has derived its characteristic appellation; fo the prefent, were it to be distinguished by a name taken from its most prevalent humour, might be called, The age of authors. Certain it is, that of late years every man has felt an ambition of appearing in print, from the voluminous lexicographer, down to the fcribbler in a pamphlet or news-paper. It is indeed natural to fuppofe, that of a great number of competitors, fome would reach the prize; that emulation might kindle enterprize, and that the univerfal combination of intellects might effect fome ftupendous work, which would exceed all the productions of our predeceffors, and demand the admiration of the latest pofterity. It has however been obferved, that the learning of the prefent age is not deep though diffufive, and that its productions are not excellent though

numerous.

"The multiplicity of compofitions is an argument of their hafty production; and haftinefs is, at least, a prefumptive proof of their want of merit. In this point, the literary and natural world resemble each other. The productions of nature, whether vegetable or animal, as they are either of a flow or fpeedy growth, are known to be durable or trantitory, folid or unfubitantial. The oak and the elephant are long before they attain to perfection, but are still longer before they decay; while the butterfly and the tulip perish as they arofe, almost

Tt2

almoft within the diurnal revolution of the fun. The works of Virgil coft him much time and labour; but they have existed near two thou fand years univerfally admired, while the compofitions of that poet, who boasted he could write two or three hundred verses while he flood on one leg, were loft perhaps in as short a space as that in which they were produced.

"But the hafty formation of literary works in modern times, is not a greater obstacle to their excellence, than the mercenary motives of their authors. The office of inftructing mankind in morality, and of informing them in fcience, was once referved for those alone who were particularly adapted to the task by the impulfes of genius, by peculiar opportunities, and by fingular application. In these times, how ever, the profeffion of an author is become a lucrative employment, and is practifed rather by thofe who feel the inconvenience of hun ger, than by thofe who are ftimulated with the hope of immortality. But it is a known truth, that avarice narrows the mind, and renders it incapable of elevated fentiments and generous enterprizes. It ceases therefore, to be matter of wonder, that works are destitute of fpirit, when they proceed not from the noble ardour inspired by the love of fame, but from the frigid incitements of the love

of money.

"The depraved tafte of readers is another caufe of the degeneracy of writers. They who write for the public, muft gratify the tafte of the public. In vain are their compolitions formed on the model of the beft writers, and regulated by the precepts of the moft judicious critics, if they conform not to the popular caprice and the mistaken judgment of the vulgar. In an age when the tafte for reading is univerial, many works, contemptible both in defign and execution, will be received, by fome readers, with distinguished applaufe. The want of the merits of just reasoning and pure language, is to the greater part, the half-learned and the ignorant, no objection. In truth, unconnected thoughts, and fuperficial declamation, are congenial to minds unaccustomed to accurate thinking, and infenfible of the charms of finished excellence. Hence, writers, of acknowledged abilities and learning, have been known, when they aimed at popularity, to relinquish real excellence, and adopt a falfe talle, in oppofition to their own judgment.

"After all, it may not perhaps be abfurd, to attribute the complaints, against the prefent fet of authors, to ignorance, envy, and caprice. In every department of literature, in the gay regions of fancy, and in the depths of philofophy and fcience, inany authors are there of this age and nation, who have acquired an illuftrious reputation by deferving it: and if they want that originality of thought and folidity of learning, which mark the productions of our first writers, yet they have a force, elegance, and correctness of style, unknown to their predeceffors.*

W.

A Treatise