These two sorts of Preachers are complete masters ❝ of the passions, without in the least addressing the "understanding. In truth, I cannot help comparing "them to a fiddler of old time, I remember to have "heard of at school, who made stocks and stones, "dance minuets, and rivers run the wrong way, and "played a hundred such pranks merely by the "sound of the fiddlestrings. Just in the same, 66 manner a Fine Man, and a Petty Preacher, can "force the tear from the eye, and the shilling from "the inmost recesses of the pocket, by dint of sound, 66 which, in this case, is seldom the echo of sense.

"To come to my third head. Thirdly then, the "GOOD TEXTMAN lays down good plain rules of "morality, and confirms every precept by a quota"tion from holy writ. The grace of elocution he never aims it. Rhetorical flourishes, new remarks,

or beautiful language, are not to be required of "him. In short, the intelligent part of the congre"gation will seldom find their understandings en"lightened, or their fancy amused by him; but the

plain sober-minded Christian, provided he can dis "tinguish what the preacher says, may carry away "something for his edification.

"To conclude with my fourth and last head. The "HUMDRUM seems to consider preaching and pray"ing as a kind of work, which if he performs so as "to get his wages, he is satisfied. He reads the liturgy as he would read a news-paper. In his "preaching, he endeavours neither to please, to "strike, nor to convince, but thinks the duty sufficiently well done, if it is but done according to "the rubrick, and at the established seasons. Το

give him his due, he commonly preaches the best "divinity in the language; for as he is too lazy to "compose, he has nothing to do but to make choice "of the most celebrated compositions of others. "He, however, murders every sentence he reads. "For the most part, he chuses doctrinal rather than "practical discourses; but the misfortune is, that "while he is making the mysteries as clear as the "sun at noon-day, his audience is commonly asleep

66

as fast as a church. In a word, you may form some ❝idea of this kind of preacher, by taking a view of Hogarth's print of the sleepy congregation, where "there is a Humdrum holding forth, so as effectually to infuse peace and quietness into the minds "of his hearers."

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Here the old man's avocations obliged him to conclude the conversation, with expressing a wish, "That men of virtue and learning, as the clergy "generally are, would not suffer the effect of their "excellent prayers and discourses, which, if well "delivered, might reform the world, to be in a great "measure lost through indifference or affectation."

NO. CLXIII. ON THE SUPERIOR VALUE OF SOLID

ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

A Dialogue between Cicero and Lord Chesterfield.

Cicero.

SALL.

I know how to

Affability, at

Esse quam videri. MISTAKE me not. value the sweet courtesies of life. tention, decorum of behaviour, if they have not been ranked by philosophers among the virtues, are certainly related to them, and have a powerful influence

in promoting social happiness. I have recommended them, as well as yourself. But I contend, and no sophistry shall prevail upon me to give up this point, that, to be truly amiable, they must proceed from goodness of heart.-Assumed by the artful to serve the purposes of private interest, they degenerate tó contemptible grimace, and detestable hypocrisy.

Chest. Excuse me, my dear Cicero; I cannot enter farther into the controversy at present. I have a hundred engagements at least; and see yonder my little elegant French Comptesse. I promised her and myself the pleasure of a promenade. Pleasant walking enough in these elysian groves. So much good company too, that if it were not that the canaille are apt to be troublesome, I should not much regret the distance from the Thuilleries.—But adieu, mon cher ami, for I see Madame

joining the party. Adieu, adieu!

Cic. Contemptible wretch !

is

Chest. Ah! what do I hear? Recollect that I am a man of honour, unused to the pity or the insults of an upstart, a novus homo. But perhaps your exclamation was not meant of me-if so, why

Cic. I am as little inclined to insult as to flatter you. Your levity excited my indignation; but my compassion for the degeneracy of human nature, exhibited in your instance, absorbs my contempt.

Chest. I could be a little angry, but as bienséance forbids it, I will be a philosopher for once.-A-propos, pray how do you reconcile your, what shall I call it-your unsmooth address to those rules of decorum, that gentleness of manners, of which you

say you know and teach the propriety as well as myself?

Cic. To confess the truth, I would not advance the arts of embellishment to extreme refinement. Ornamental education, or an attention to the graces, has a connection with effeminacy. In acquiring the gentleman, I would not lose the spirit of a man. There is a gracefulness in a manly character, a beauty in an open and ingenuous disposition, which all the professed teachers of the arts of pleasing know not how to infuse.

Chest. You and I lived in a state of manners, as different as the periods at which we lived were distant. You Romans, pardon me, my dear, you Romans-had a little of the brute in you. Come, come, I must overlook it. You were obliged to court plebeians for their suffrages; and if similis simili gaudet, it must be owned, that the greatest of you were secure of their favour. Why, Beau Nash would have handed your Catos and Brutuses out of the ball-room, if they had shewn their unmannerly heads in it; and my Lord Modish, animated with the conscious merit of the largest or smallest buckles in the room, according to the temporary ton, would have laughed Pompey the Great out of counte nance. Oh, Cicero, had you lived in a modern European court, you would have caught a degree of that undescribable grace, which is not only the ornament, but may be the substitute of all those laboured attainments which fools call solid merit. But it was not your good fortune, and I make allow

ances,

Cic. The vivacity you have acquired in studying the writings and the manners of the degenerate Gauls, has led you to set too high a value on qualifications which dazzle the lively perceptions with a momentary blaze, and to depreciate that kind of worth which can neither be obtained nor understood without serious attention and sometimes painful efforts. But I will not contend with you on the propriety or impropriety of the outward modes which delight fops and coxcombs. I will not spend arguments in proving that gold is more valuable than tinsel, though it glitters less. But I must cen sure you, and with an asperity too, which, perhaps, your graces may not approve, for recommending vice as graceful, in your memorable letters.

Chest. That the great Cicero should know so little of the world, really surprises me. A little libertinism, my dear, that's all; how can one be a gentleman without a little libertinism?

Cic. I ever thought that to be a gentleman, it was requisite to be a moral man. And surely you, who might have enjoyed the benefit of a light to direct you, which I wanted, were blameable in omitting religion and virtue in your system.

Chest. What! superstitious too!-You have not then conversed with your superior, the philosopher of Ferney. I thank Heaven, I was born in the same age with that great luminary. Prejudice had else, perhaps, chained me in the thraldom of my great grandmother. These are enlightened days, and I find I have contributed something to the general illumination, by my posthumous letters.