PERSUASION.

1.

HE that persists to persuade us to what we mislike, is no otherwise than as a tedious prattler, who cumbers the hearing of a delightful music.

2.

We are best persuaded, when nobody is by, who has heard us say, that we would not be persuaded.

3.

In the particularities of every body's mind and fortune, there are particular advantages, by which they are to be held.

4.

Credit is the nearest step to persuasion.

5.

Words are vain, when resolution takes the place of persuasion.

Remark.

That the speaker's reputation for truth and good-will towards the object of his persuasion,

are his most powerful auxiliaries in argument, no one will deny: and yet, the most active persuaders are generally people who take no care to avoid error; or to enter heartily into the welfare of the person whom they advise. These self-called counsellors, commonly approach their client in so pompous an array of judgment, that he shrinks as much from the important sweep of their train, as from the severity of their sentence. Various are the methods by which these volunteer teachers breathe forth their homilies, and launch their fulminations against transgressors. Some, in the shape of anxious friends, delight in exercising their rhetoric on subjects which are likely to prove exhaustless; and therefore, undertake to persuade you to relinquish the very things which they know you most value.

There is a second race, who display their superiority, by reproving and admonishing others before company; and the larger the circle is, the better; their triumph is more complete, and their fame is in the way of spreading farther. But the most annoying of all public

reformers, is the personal satirist. Though he may be considered by some few, as a useful member of society; yet he is only ranked with the hangman, whom we tolerate, because he executes the judgment we abhor to do ourselves; and avoid, with a natural detestation of his office: The pen of the one, and the cord of the other, are inseparable in our minds. A satirist, to have any excuse for the inexorable. zeal with which he uncovers the deformities of his fellow-creatures, ought to be exempla ry in his own conduct; otherwise his hostility to the vicious is a vice in him; a desire to torture, not a love of amending: his lancet is poisoned, not embalmed; and he proves by his acrimony, that such men are often too busy with other people's faults, to find out and correct their own. But, if the censor were as virtuous as Cato himself, still experience shews that personal satire is in most cases both dangerous and useless; for he who is exposed to public infamy, suffers the punishment of his crime; and being branded with guilt, is, by such unmercifulness, deprived of all pro

bability of recovering his place in society hence, he hates the relentless, hand that, in withdrawing the veil from his nakedness, leaves him no way to conceal infirmities which disgust the world; and despairing, by any after-amendment, to efface the cruel impression, he abandons himself to his fate. On the contrary, the general satirist, attacks the vice, and not the individual acting under its influence. He paints its enormity; and describes the infamy which detection incurs.The secret culprit sees the portrait; and while he can yet retreat from being recognised as the original, steals from his crimes; and happy in the ignorance of mankind, is the more easily induced to become a good character, because they never knew that he was a bad one. Public shame often hardens the criminal in guilt; and drives him to defend what otherwise he would have been led to desert. In short, it is a paradoxical way to reform men, by making them hate their teacher. Persuasion will subdue vices, which virulence and open exposure cannot conquer. When you would teach men, win their hearts, and their

minds will soon learn obedience. Let the injunctions of the holy apostles, instruct human moralists how to lecture their fellow-creatures! "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted: we, that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. A servant of the Lord must not fight, but be gentle toward all; apt to teach; patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves." Every man (saith the sage,) shall kiss the lips that breathe sweetness! But all will be ready to avoid him whose mouth is imbittered with reproach, or defiled with revilings.