III. The wat'ry length of these unjoyous moors "Does all the flow'ry meadows pride excel; . "Through thefe I fly to her my foul adores; "Ye flow'ry meadows, empty pride, farewel. IV. "Each moment from the charmer I'm confin'd, V. "Our pleafing toil will then be foon overpaid, "Her artless charms, her bloom, her fprightly air, VI. "But lo! with graceful motion there fhe fwims, VII. "In vain, ye envious ftreams, fo faft ye flow, And all reveal'd the beauteous wanton plays." T. No. CDVII. TUESDAY, JUNE 17. •Abest facundis gratia dicis. Eloquent words a graceful manner want. OVIE. MOST foreign writers who have given any character of the English nation, whatever vices they afcribe to it, allow in general, that the people are naturally modeft, modeft. It proceeds perhaps from this our national virtue, that our orators are obferved to make use of lefs gefture or action than those of other countries. Our preachers ftand ftock ftill in the pulpit, and will not fo much as move a finger to fet off the beft fermons in the world. We meet with the fame speaking statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a fmooth continued fiream, without those ftrainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the hand, which are fo much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a difcourfe which turns upon every thing that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out. in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to fir a limb about us. I have heard it obferved more than once by thofe who have feen Italy, that an untravelled Englishman cannot relish all the beauties of Italian pictures, because the poftures which are expreffed in them are often fuch as are peculiar to that country. One who has not feen an Italian in the pulpit, will not know what to make of that noble gefture in Raphael's picture of St. Paul preaching at Athens, where the apɔstle is reprefented as lifting up both his arms, and pouring out the thunder of his rhetoric amidst an audience of Pagan philofophers. It is certain that proper geftures and vehement exertions of the voice cannot be too much ftudied by a public orator. They are a kind of comment to what he utters, and enforce every thing he fays, with weak hearers, better than the ftrongest argument he can make use of. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to what is delivered to them), at the fame time that they fhew the speaker is in carnett, and affected himself with what he fo paflionately recommends to others. Violent gefture and vociferation naturally fhake the hearts of the ignorant, and fill them with a kind of religious horror. Nothing is more frequent than to fee women weep and tremble at the fight of a moving preacher, though he is placed quite out of their hearing; as in England we very Frequently fee people lulled afleep with folid and elaborate difcourfes difcourfes of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowing and diftortions of enthufiafm. If nonfenfe, when accompanied with fuch an emotion of voice and body, has fuch an influence on men's minds, what might we not expect from many of those admirable difcourfes which are printed in our tongue, were they delivered with a becoming fervour, and with the most agreeable graces of voice and gefture? We are told that the great Latin orator very much impaired his health by this laterum contentio, this vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and feeing his friends admire it, could not forbear afking them, if they were fo much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence. How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of thefe two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar, holding up his head, with the most infipid ferenity, and ftroking the fides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle? The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the geftures of an English speaker; you fee fome of them running their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written in it; you may fee many a fmart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into feveral different cocks, examining fometimes the lining of it, and fometimes the button, during the whole courfe of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapning a beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember when I was a young man, and used to frequent Weftminster-hall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of packthread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or a finger all the while he was fpeaking: the wags of thofe thofe days used to call it the thread of his difcourse, for he was not able to utter a word without it. One of his clients who was more merry than wife, ftole it from him one day in the midft of his pleading; but he had better have let it alone, for he loft his caufe by his jeft. I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb man, and therefore may be thought a very improper perfon to give rules for oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay afide all kinds of gefture, (which feems to be very fuitable to the genius of our nation) or at least to make use of fuch only as are graceful and expreffive. No. CDVIII. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18. Decet affectus animi neque fe nimiùm erigere, nec fubjacere ferviliter. TULL. We fhould keep our paffions from being exalted above measure, or fervilely depress'd. • Mr. Spectator, I HAVE always been a very great lover of your fpeculations, as well in regard of the fubject, as to your manner of treating it. Human nature I always thought the most ufeful object of human reafon, and to make the confideration of it pleafant and entertaining, I always thought the best employment of human wit: other parts of philofophy may perhaps make us wifer, but this not only anfwers that end, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the oracle pronounced Socrates the wifeft of all men living, because he judicioufly made choice of human nature for the object of his thoughts; an inquiry into which as much exceeds all other learning, as it is of more confequence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to fettle the distance of the planets, and compute the times of their circumvolutions. • One 'One good effect that will immediately arife from a mere obfervation of human nature, is, that we shall 'ceafe to wonder at thofe actions which men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for as nothing is pro'duced without a caufe, fo by obferving the nature. ' and course of the paffions, we shall be able to trace every action from it's first conception to it's death. 'We fhall no more admire at the proceedings of Cati'line or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by a furious ambition : for the actions of men follow their paffions as naturally as light does heat, or as any other effect flows from it's caufe; reafon must be employed in adjusting the paffions, but they must ever remain the principles • of action. The ftrange and abfurd variety that is fo apparent ' in men's actions, fhews plainly they can never proceed immediately from reafon; fo pure a fountain emits no fuch troubled waters: they muft neceffarily arise 'from the paffions, which are to the mind as the winds 6 to a fhip, they only can move it, and they too often deftroy it; if fair and gentle, they guide it into the harbour; if contrary and furious, they overfet it in the waves: in the fame manner is the mind affifted or endangered by the paffions; reafon muft then take the place of pilot, and can never fail of fecuring her charge if the be not wanting to herself: the ftrength ' of the paffions will never be accepted as an excufe for complying with them; they were defigned for. fubjection, and if a man fuffers them to get the upper hand, he then betrays the liberty of his own foul. As nature has framed the feveral fpecies of beings as it were in a chain, so man seems to be placed as the 'middle link between angels and brutes: hence he participates both of fleth and fpirit by an admirable tie, which in him occafions perpetual war of paffions; and as a man inclines to the angelic or brute part of 'his conftitution, he is then denominated good or bad, 'virtuous, or wicked; if love, mercy, and good na 4 <ture |