LONDON, December 9, O. S. 1749.
DEAR BOY: It is now above forty years since I have never spoken nor
written one single word, without giving myself at least one moment’s time
to consider whether it was a good or a bad one, and whether I could not
find out a better in its place. An unharmonious and rugged period, at
this time, shocks my ears; and I, like all the rest of the world, will
willingly exchange and give up some degree of rough sense, for a good
degree of pleasing sound. I will freely and truly own to you, without
either vanity or false modesty, that whatever reputation I have acquired
as a speaker, is more owing to my constant attention to my diction than
to my matter, which was necessarily just the same as other people’s. When
you come into parliament, your reputation as a speaker will depend much
more upon your words, and your periods, than upon the subject. The same
matter occurs equally to everybody of common sense, upon the same
question; the dressing it well, is what excites the attention and
admiration of the audience.
It is in parliament that I have set my heart upon your making a figure;
it is there that I want to have you justly proud of yourself, and to make
me justly proud of you. This means that you must be a good speaker there;
I use the word MUST, because I know you may if you will. The vulgar, who
are always mistaken, look upon a speaker and a comet with the same
astonishment and admiration, taking them both for preternatural
phenomena. This error discourages many young men from attempting that
character; and good speakers are willing to have their talent considered
as something very extraordinary, if not, a peculiar gift of God to his
elect. But let you and me analyze and simplify this good speaker; let us
strip him of those adventitious plumes with which his own pride, and the
ignorance of others, have decked him, and we shall find the true
definition of him to be no more than this: A man of good common sense who
reasons justly and expresses himself elegantly on that subject upon which
he speaks. There is, surely, no witchcraft in this. A man of sense,
without a superior and astonishing degree of parts, will not talk
nonsense upon any subject; nor will he, if he has the least taste or
application, talk inelegantly. What then does all this mighty art and
mystery of speaking in parliament amount to? Why, no more than this: that
the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that House, and to
four hundred people, that opinion upon a given subject which he would
make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire,
or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps,
and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the
House of Commons.
I have spoken frequently in parliament, and not always without some
applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there
is very little in it. The elegance of the style, and the turn of the
periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or
two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and
repeat; and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an
opera, humming all the way one or two favorite tunes that have struck
their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have
judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their
judgments, such as they are.
Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profession (for in his
time eloquence was a profession), in order to set himself off, defines in
his treatise ‘De Oratore’, an orator to be such a man as never was, nor
never will be; and, by his fallacious argument, says that he must know
every art and science whatsoever, or how shall he speak upon them? But,
with submission to so great an authority, my definition of an orator is
extremely different from, and I believe much truer than his. I call that
man an orator, who reasons justly, and expresses himself elegantly, upon
whatever subject he treats. Problems in geometry, equations in algebra,
processes in chemistry, and experiments in anatomy, are never, that I
have heard of, the object of eloquence; and therefore I humbly conceive,
that a man may be a very fine speaker, and yet know nothing of geometry,
algebra, chemistry, or anatomy. The subjects of all parliamentary debates
are subjects of common sense singly.
Thus I write whatever occurs to me, that I think may contribute either to
form or inform you. May my labor not be in vain! and it will not, if you
will but have half the concern for yourself that I have for you. Adieu.