poses us capable of reason; but to be made capable of this is one great point of the cure.

There are but few talents requifite to become a popular preacher, for the people are easily pleased if they perceive any endeavours in the orator to please them; the meaneft qualifications will work this effect, if the preacher fincerely fets about it. Perhaps little indeed very little more is required, than fincerity and affurance; and a becoming fincerity is always certain of producing a becoming affurance. "Si vis me flere, dolendum eft primum tibi ipfi," is fo trite a quotation, that it almoft demands an apology to repeat it; yet, though all allow the justice of the remark, how few do we find put it in practice! our orators, with the most faulty bathfulness, feem impreffed rather with an awe of their audience than with a just respect for the truths they are about to deliver; they, of all profeffions, feem the most bashful, who have the greatest right to glory in their commiffion.

The French preachers generally affume all that dignity which becomes men who are ambaffadors from Chrift: the English divines, like erroneous envoys, feem more folicitous not to offend the court to which they are fent, than to drive home the interefts of their employer. The bishop of Maffillon, in the first fermon he ever preached, found the whole audience, upon his getting into the pulpit, in a difpofition no way favourable to his intentions; their nods, whispers, or drowsy behaviour, fhowed him that there was no great profit to be expected from his fowing in a foil fo improper; however, he foon changed the difpofition of his audience by his manner of beginning: "If," fays he, "a caufe, the "moft important that could be conceived, were to "be tried at the bar before qualified judges; if this

cause interested ourselves in particular; if the eyes

"of

"of the whole kingdom were fixed upon the event;

if the most eminent council were employed on "both fides; and if we had heard from our infancy "of this yet undetermined trial; would you not all "fit with due attention, and warm expectation, to "the pleadings on each fide? Would not all your "hopes and fears be hinged upon the final decifion? "And yet, let me tell you, you have this moment 66 a caufe of much greater importance before you; "a cause where not one nation, but all the world,

are fpectators; tried not before a fallible tribunal, "but the awful throne of Heaven, where not your "temporal and tranfitory interefts are the fubject "of debate, but your eternal happiness or mifery, "where the caufe is ftill undetermined; but per"haps, the very moment I am speaking may fix "the irrevocable decree that fhall laft for ever; and 66 yet, notwithstanding all this, you can hardly fit "with patience to hear the tidings of your own fal"vation; I plead the cause of Heaven, and yet I am fcarcely attended to, &c."

6.6

The style, the abruptness of a beginning like this, in the clofet would appear abfurd; but in the pulpit it is attended with the moft lafting impreffions: that ftyle, which in the clotet might juftly be called Alimfy, feems the true mode of eloquence here. I never read a fine compofition, under the title of a fermon, that I do not think the author has mifcalled his piece; for the talents to be used in writing well, entirely differ from thofe of fpeaking well. The qualifications for fpeaking, as has been already obferved, are easily acquired; they are accomplishments which may be taken up by every candidate who will be at the pains of ftooping. Impreffed with a fense of the truths he is about to deliver, a preacher difregards the applause or the contempt of his audience, and he infenfibly affumes a juft and manly fincerity.

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fincerity. With this talent alone we see what crowds are drawn around enthufiafts, even deftitute of common fenfe; what numbers converted to Chriftianity, Folly may fometimes fet an example for wisdom to practife; and our regular divines may borrow inftruction from even methodists, who go their circuits and preach prizes among the populace. Even Whitfield may be placed as a model to fome of our young divines; let them join to their own good fenfe his earneft manner of delivery.

It will be perhaps objected, that by confining the excellencies of a preacher to proper affurance, earneftnefs, and opennefs of ftyle, I make the qualifications too trifling for eftimation: there will be fomething called oratory brought up on this occafion; action, attitude, grace, elocution, may be repeated as abfolutely neceffary to compleat the character; but let us not be deceived; common-fenfe is feldom fwayed by fine tones, mufical periods, juft attitudes, or the difplay of a white handkerchief; oratorial behaviour, except in very able hands indeed, generally finks into aukward and paltry affectation.

It must be obferved, however, that these rules are calculated only for him who would inftruct the vulgar, who ftand in moft need of inftruction; to addrefs philofophers, and to obtain the character of a polite preacher among the polite-a much more ufelefs, though more fought for character-requires a different method of proceeding. All I fhall obferve on this head is, to entreat the polemic divine, in his controverfy with the Deifts, to act rather offenfively than to defend; to push home the grounds of his belief, and the impracticability of theirs, rather than to fpend time in folving the objections of every opponent. "It is ten to one," fays a late writer on the art of war, "but that the affailant,

"who

who attacks the enemy in his trenches, is always victorious."

Yet, upon the whole, our clergy might employ themselves more to the benefit of fociety, by declining all controverfy, than by exhibiting even the profoundest skill in polemic difputes; their contests with each other often turn on fpeculative trifles; and their difputes with the Deifts are almost at an end, fince they can have no more than victory, and that they are already poffeffed of, as their antagonists have been driven into a confeffion of the neceffity of revelation, or an open avowal of atheifm. To continue the difpute longer would only endanger it; the fceptic is ever expert at puzzling a debate which he finds himself unable to continue; and, like an olympic boxer, generally fights beft when undermoft."

ESSAY V.

THE improvements we make in mental acquirements only render us each day more fenfible of the defects of our conftitution: with this in view, therefore, let us often recur to the amusements of youth; endeavour to forget age and wisdom, and as far as innocence goes, be as much a boy as the best of them.

Let idle declaimers mourn over the degeneracy of the age; but in my opinion every age is the fame. This I am fure of, that man in every feafon is a poor fretful being, with no other means to escape the calamities of the times but by endeavouring to forget them; for if he attempts to refift, he is certainly undone. If I feel poverty and pain, I am not

fo

fo hardy as to quarrel with the executioner, even while under correction: I find myself no way difpofed to make fine fpeeches, while I am making wry faces. In a word, let me drink when the fit is on, to make me infenfible; and drink when it is over, for joy that I feel pain no longer.

The character of old Falftaff, even with all his faults, gives me more confolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and fhowing me the way to be young at fixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not fo comical as he-Is it not in my power to have, though not fo much wit, at least as inuch vivacity?-Age, care, wisdom, reflection, be gone-I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle: here's to the memory of Shakspeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eaftcheap.

Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I fat at the Boar's head tavern, ftill kept at Eastcheap. Here by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was fometimes honoured by prince Henry, and fometimes polluted by his immoral merry companions, I fat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wifhed to be young again; but was refolved to make the beft of life while it lafted, and now and then compared paft and prefent times together. I confidered myself as the only living reprefentative of the old knight, and tranfported my imagination back to the times when the prince and he gave life to the revel, and made even debauchery not difgufting. The room alfo confpired to throw my reflections back into antiquity: the oak floor, the Gothic windows, and the ponderous chimneypiece, had long withstood the tooth of time; the watchman had gone twelve; my companions had all ftolen off; and none now remained with me but the landlord,