and the elegance of compofition has, we may fay, juftified the great expectations that were raifed: we have not here fimply the fpeculative opinions of a theorist in his clofet, but the conduct and practice of a great mafter carrying his work into execution. Lord Chesterfield was himself undoubtedly the beft bred man of his time without enjoying the highest power, he filled the higheft flations with credit, and indeed with fplendour: he flood, almoft unrivalled, the firft in wit and spirit of the age, and if not in the firft, yet first in the fecond clafs of eloquence: his own fon was the object of his attention, in this moft important work of education. There feemed nothing wanting to this noble author, of inducement to exert his abilities, or of abilities to perform this happy task, that his affections had impofed upon him. It has indeed been objected to this work, that his lordship has confined himself too much to the exterior qualification; and in an fwer to this objection it has been faid, that poffibly the young gentleman's own inattention to thofe outward accomplishments, may have led the author almoft neceffarily to dwell more upon them, than he otherwife would have done and confidering thefe letters as of public utility, we must beg leave to avail ourselves of the fame plea, in recommending them to the attention of the younger part of our readers. We hope that we may without grofs flattery affume, that a young Englishman has at leaft as much fenfe, virtue, and learning, as falls to the lot of young people of any other country; but we cannot deny that he is apt to think too little of all thofe exterior advantages which ingratiate him with mankind, and as it were captivate the good-will of your company. It is impoffible to excel in any art that we defpife, and the contempt our young countrymen are apt to entertain for the graces, make them too often ungracious indeed. It is not neceffary that they fhould facrifice one folid quality to the elegant accomplishments: there is no need of exchange; they are in the highest degree confiftent: and the one is in no fort an obftruction to the other. Lord Chefterfield's wit was not hurt by his good breeding: his good breeding did not obftruct him in the government of Ireland, or impede his fuccefs in foreign negociation; and if his very manner, helped him to outthine Lord Macclesfield, in that Lord's own fphere of knowledge, it only proves that Lord Macclesfield fuffered for want of exterior; not that the poffeffion of the graces obftructed that knowledge. However, notwithstanding the high opinion we entertain of Lord Chefterfield's Letters and plan of education, in which we are juftified by the public voice, we must confefs that throughout there is fome appearance of a felfish principle, even in his morality. There is little or nothing of dignity of fentiment, good-nature, or generofity; a man finished on his plan, however perfectly, will be but too much a man of the world, in which his own intereft will always be the predominant part. This is the principal fault, and it is no fmall one in the fyftem: in every other part the work deferves the highest com. mendation. We must alfo do Lord Chesterfield the juftice to re mind our readers, that where he is carried a little out of the fubject to fpeak of the characters of diftinguifhed men, he fhews that he was himself a very confiderable perfon, and deferved the estimation he food in; and it is from one of thefe pieces that we will make our extract for the fatisfaction of the reader. oftener improperly than properly exerted, but always brutally. The fecond member of my text (to speak ecclefiaftically) fhall be the fubject of my following difcourfe; the tongue to perfuade as judicious preachers recommend thofe virtues, which they think their feveral audiences want the moft: fuch as truth and continence, at court; difintereftedness, in the London, Dec. 12. O. S. 1749. city; and fobriety, in the coun"DEAR BOY, Lord Clarendon, in his hiftory, fays of Mr. John Hampden, that be had a head to contrive, a tongue to perfuade, and a hand to execute any mischief. I fhall not now enter into the juftnefs of this character of Mr. Hampden, to whofe brave ftand against the illegal demand of fhip-money, we owe our prefent liberties; but I mention it to you as the character, which, with the alteration of one fingle word, Good, instead of Mischief, I would have you afpire to, and use your utmost endeavours to deferve. 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 ftudy, obfervation, and reflection. As for the tongue to perSuade, it wholly depends upon yourfelf; and without it the beft head will contrive to very little purpose. The hand to execute, depends likewife, in my opinion, in a great measure upon yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage in a good caufe; and the courage arifing from reflection is of a much fuperior nature to the animal and conftitutional courage of a foot foldier. The former is fteady and unfhaken, where the nodus is dignis vindice; the latter is try. You must certainly, in the courfe of your little experience, have felt the different effects of elegant and inelegant fpeaking. Do you not fuffer, when people accoft you in a ftammering or hefitating manner; in an untuneful voice, with falfe accents and cadences; puzzling and blundering through folefcifms, barbarifms, and vulgaritms; mifplacing 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 perfons? I am fure it does me. On the other hand, Do you not feel yourself inclined, prepoffeffed, nay even engaged in favour of thofe who ad. dress you in the direct contrary manner? The effects of a correct and adorned ftyle, of method and perfpicuity, are incredible towards perfuafion; they often fupply the want of reafon and argument; but, when ufed in the fupport of reafon and argument, they are irrefiftible. The French attend very much to the purity and elegance of their ftyle, even in common converfation; infomuch that it is a character, to say of a man, qu'il narre bien. Their converfations frequently turn upon the delicacies of their language, and an academy academy is employed in fixing it. The Crufca, in Italy, has the fame object; and I have met with very few Italians, who did not fpeak their own language correctly and elegantly. How much more neceflary is it for an Englishman to do fo, who is to fpeak it in a public affembly, where the laws and liberties of his country are the fubjects of his deliberation? The tongue that would perfuade, there, must not content itself with mere articulation. You know what pains Demofthenes took to correct his naturally bad elocution; you know that he declaimed by the fea-fide in ftorms, to prepare himself for the noife of the tumultuous affemblies he was to speak to; and you can now judge of the correctnefs and elegancy of his ftyle. He thought all these things of confequence, and he thought right; pray do you think fo too. It is of the utmost confequence to you to be of that opinion. If you have the leaft defect in your elocution, take the utmost care and pains to correct it. Do not neglect your style, whatever language you fpeak in, or whomever you speak to, were it your footman. Seek always for the best words and the happiest expreffions you can find. Do not content yourself with being barely understood; but adorn your thoughts, and drefs them as you would your perfon; which, however well proportioned it might be, it would very improper and indecent to exhibit naked, or even worse dreffed than people of your fort are. I have fent you, in a packet which your Leipfig acquaintance, Duval, fends to his correfpondent at Rome, Lord Bolingbroke's book, which he published about a year ago, 'I defire that you will read it over and over again, with particular attention to the style, and to all those beauties of Oratory with which it is adorned. Till Í read that book, I confefs I did not know all the extent and powers of the English language. Lord Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to perfuade; his manner of fpeaking in private converfation, is full as elegant as his writings; whatever fubject he either fpeaks or writes upon, he adorns it with the moft fplendid eloquence: not a ftudied or laboured eloquence, but fuch a flowing happiness of diction, which, (from care perhaps at first) is become fo habitual to him, that even his most familiar converfations, if taken down in writing, would bear the prefs, without the leaft correction either as to method or ftyle. If his conduct, in the former part of his life, had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would moft justly have merited the epithet of all-accomplifhed. He is himself fenfible of his paft errors: thofe violent paffions, which feduced him in his youth, have now fubfided by age; and, take him as he is now, the character of all accomplished is more his due, than any man's I ever knew in my life. But he has been a most mortifying instance of the violence of human paffions, and of the weakness of the moft exalted human reafon. His virtues and his vices, his reafon and his paffions, did not blend themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a fhining and fudden contraft. Here the darkest, there Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, on the Idea of a Patriot King. the the moft fplendid colours; and both rendered more fhining from their proximity. Impetuofity, excefs, and almoft extravagancy, characterised not only his paffions, but even his fenfes. His youth was diftinguished by all the tumult and ftorm of pleafures, in which he most licentiously triumphed, difdaining all decorum, His fine imagination has often been heated and exhaufted with his body, in celebrating and deifying the proftitute of the night; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic Bacchanals. Thofe paffions were interrupted but by a ftronger, Ambition. The for mer impaired both his conftitution and his character, but the latter deftroyed both his fortune and his reputation. He has noble and generous fentiments, rather than fixed reflected principles of good-nature and friendship; but they are more violent than lasting, and fuddenly and often varied to their oppofite extremes, with regard even to the fame perfons. He receives the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returns with intereft; and refents with paffion the little inadvertences of human nature, which he repays with intereft too. Even a difference of opinion upon a philofophical fubject, would provoke, and prove him no practical philofopher, at leaft. Notwithstanding the diffipation of his youth, and the tumultuous agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and almost univerfal knowledge, which, from the clearest and quickest conception, and happieft memory, that ever man was bleffed with, he al VOL. XVII. ways carries about him. It is his pocket-money, and he never has occafion to draw upon a book for any fum. He excels more particularly in hiftory, as his hiftorical works plainly prove. The relative political and commercial interefts of every country in Europe, particularly of his own, are better known to him, than perhaps to any man in it; but how fteadily he has purfued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies, of all parties and denominations, tell with joy. He engaged young, and diftinguifhed himfelf in bufinefs; and his penetration was almof intuition, I am old enough to have heard him fpeak in parliament. And I remember, that, though prejudiced against him by party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial, in Milton," he made the worfe appear the better caufe." All the internal and external advantages and talents of an orator are undoubtfully his. Figure, voice, elocution, knowledge; and, above all, the purest and most florid dicton, with the jufteft metaphors, and happiest images, had raifed him to the poft of secretary at war, at four-and-twenty years old; an age at which others are hardly thought fit for the fmalleft employments. During this long exile in France, he applied himself to study with his characteristical ardour; and there he formed, and chiefly executed the plan of a great philofophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are too nar row for his warm and aspiring ima, gination, He must go extra flammantia mania Mundi, and explore the unknown and unknowable regions of metaphyfics; which open R 85 an unbounded field for the excurfions of an ardent imagination; where endless conjectures fupply the defect of unattainable knowledge, and too often ufurp both its name and influence. He has had a very handfome perfon, with a 'moft engaging addrefs in his air and manners: he has all the dignity and good-breeding which a man of quality fhould or can have, and which fo few, in this country at leaft, really have. He profeffes himself a Deift; believing in a general providence, but doubting of, though by no means rejecting (as is commonly fuppofed) the immortality of the foul, and a future ftate. Upon the whole, of this extraordinary man, what can we fay, but alas, poor human nature! In your destination, you will have frequent occafions to fpeak in public; to princes and ftates, abroad; to the House of Commons, at home: judge then, whether eloquence is neceffary for you or not; not only common eloquence, which is rather free from faults, than adorned by beauties; but the higheft, the most fhining degree of eloquence. For God's fake, have this object always in your view, and in your thoughts. Tune your tongue early to perfuafion; and let no jarring, diffonant accents ever fall from it. Contract an habit of fpeaking well, upon every occafion, and neglect yourself in no one. Eloquence and good breed. ing, alone, with an exceeding fmall degree of parts and knowledge, will carry a man a great way; with your parts and knowledge, then, how far will they not carry you? Adicu. An Hiftory of the Earth, and animated Nature; by Oliver GoldJmith. Eight Volumes 8vo. HIS laft work of the very in Tgenious Dr. Goldsmith, will even as being the laft of fo very juftly favoured an author, be received with partiality and indul. gence. The doctor feems to have confidered attentively the works of the feveral authors who have wrote on this fubject. If there fhould not be a great deal of difcovery or new matter, yet a judicious selection from abundant materials, is no fmall praife; and if the experiments and difo. veries of other writers are laid open in an agreeable drefs, fo pleafing as to allure the young reader into a purfuit of this fort of knowledge, we have no fmall obligations to this very engaging writer. Our author profeffes to have had a tafte rather claffical than fcientific; and it was in the ftudy of the claffics, that he first caught the defire of attaining a knowledge of nature. Pliny first infpired him; and he refolved to tranflate that agreeable writer, and by the help of a commentary to make his tranflation acceptable to the public. It is not to he queftioned that Dr. Goldfmith, had he followed that plan, would have marked out thofe inaccuracies and extravagauces, unto which an eafy credulity, or a want of attention, or the little progrefs of fcience in the world, in his age, had feduced his original author, and are the blemifh of the extensive knowledge of that ingenious, inquifitive, and laborious writer. The |