immediate and proposed aim, of the orator. The fame medium language is made ufe of, the fame general rules of compofition, in narration, defcription, argumentation, are obferved; and the fame tropes and figures, either for beautifying or for invigorating the diction, are employed by both. In regard to verfification, it is more to be confidered as an appendage, than as a constituent of poetry. In this lies what may be called the more mechanical part of the poet's work, being at most but a fort of garnishing, and by far too uneffential to give a defignation to the kind. This particularity in form, to adopt an expreffion of the naturalifts, conftitutes only a variety, and not a different fpecies.

Now though a confiderable proficiency in the practice of the oratorical art may be easily and almost naturally attained, by one in whom clearness of apprehenfion is happily united with fenfibility of taste, fertility of imagination, and a certain readiness in language, a more thorough investigation of the latent energies, if I may thus exprefs myfelf, whereby the inftruments employed by eloquence produce their effect upon the hearers, will ferve confiderably both to improve the tafte, and to enrich the fancy.

1

By

By the former effect we learn to amend and avoid faults in compofing and fpeaking, against which the best natural, but uncultivated parts, give no fecurity; and by the latter, the proper mediums are fuggefted, whereby the neceffary aids of topics, arguments, illuftrations, and motives, may be procured. Befides, this ftudy, properly conducted, leads directly to an acquaintance with ourselves; it not only traces the operations of the intellect and imagination, but discloses the lurking fprings of action in the heart. In this view it is perhaps the fureft and the shortest, as well as the pleasanteft way of arriving at the fcience of the human mind. It is an humble attempt to lead the mind of the ftudious inquirer into this track, that the following theets are now fubmitted to the examination of the public.

WHEN we confider the manner in which the rhetorical art hath arifen, and been treated in the schools, we must be fenfible, that in this, as in the imitative arts, the firft handle has been given to criticism by actual performances in the art. The principles of our nature will, without the aid of any previous and formal instruction, fufficiently account for the first attempts. As

speakers

fpeakers exifted before grammarians, and reafoners before logicians; fo doubtless there were orators before there were rhetoricians, and poets before critics. The firft impulfe towards the attainment of every art is from nature. The earliest affiftance and direction that can be obtained in the rhetorical art, by which men operate on the minds of others, arifes from the consciousness a man has of what operates on his own mind, aided by the fympathetic feelings, and by that practical experience of mankind, which individuals, even in the rudeft ftate of fociety, are capable of acquiring. The next ftep is to obferve and difcriminate, by proper appellations, the different attempts, whether modes of arguing, or forms of fpeech, that have been employed for the purpofes of explaining, convincing, pleafing, moving, and perfuading. Here we have the beginnings of the critical fcience. The third ftep is to compare, with diligence, the various effects, favourable or unfavourable, of thofe attempts, carefully taking into confideration every attendant-circumftance, by which the fuccefs appears to have been influenced, and by which one may be enabled to discover to what particular purpose each attempt

VOL. I.

C

is

is adapted, and in what circumftances only to be used. The fourth and laft is to canvass those principles in our nature, to which the various attempts are adapted, and by which, in any inftance, their fuccefs, or want of fuccefs, may be accounted for. By the first step the critic is fupplied with materials. By the fecond, the materials are diftributed and claffed, the forms of argument, the tropes and figures of fpeech, with their divifions and fubdivifions, are explained. By the third, the rules of compofition are difcovered, or the method of combining and difpofing the feveral materials, fo as that they may be perfectly adapted to the end in view. By the fourth, we arrive at that knowledge of human nature, which, befide its other advantages, adds both weight and evidence to all precedent discoveries and rules.

THE fecond of the fteps abovementioned, which, by the way, is the first of the rhetorical art, for all that precedes is properly fupplied by Nature, appeared to the author of Hudibras, the utmoft pitch that had even to his time been attained :

For

For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

In this, however, the matter hath been exaggerated by the fatyrist. Confiderable progress had been made by the ancient Greeks and Romans, in devifing the proper rules of compofition, hot only in the two forts of poefy, epic, and dramatic, but alfo in the three forts. of orations, which were in most frequent ufe among them; the deliberative, the judiciary, and the demonftrative. And I must acknowledge, that, as far as I have been able to dif cover, there has been little or no improvement in this refpect made by the moderns. The obfervations and rules tranfmitted to us from these distinguished names in the learned world, Ariftotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, have been for the most part only tranflated by later critics, or put into a modifh drefs and new arrangement. And as to the fourth and laft ftep, it may be faid to bring us into a new country, of which, though there have been fome fuccessful incurfions occafionally made upon its frontiers, we are not yet in full poffeffion.