Though tautology is allowable in practice, I don’t approve on’t
theoretically; therefore I shall plainly, fully, openly, and concisely,
I hope, acquit myself, without being critical, or political, or
satyrical, or mystical, or rhetorical, or schismatical, or chimerical,
or whimsical.--I’ll give no utterance to any arrogance, with dissonance
of deliverance, nor countenance any exorbitance of intemperance,
ignorance, or extravagance: what I communicate I shall authenticate, and
I beg you’ll compassionate: I will not exaggerate, nor contaminate, nor
depreciate, nor discriminate, an intemperate candidate, at any rate. But
I prognosticate he must be a profligate, reprobate, and illiterate, apt
to prevaricate, hesitate, and degenerate.--I’ll use no eloquence in this
conference, in confidence, the consequence of my diligence will evidence
the excellence of my innocence, with reference to your preference.
Let others, by a flourish of words, fancy it an accomplishment or an
embellishment, by the tongue’s blandishment, it is an astonishment that
some speakers are so impertinent to the detriment of every eminent
fundament of rudiment.
I take this opportunity without ambiguity, void of incongruity, with
perspicuity by narrative, to assert my prerogative without preparative,
or provocative.
I shall now conclude without a multitude of solicitude; for the aptitude
of men to ingratitude is too plain, so I’ll insist that Shakespeare, and
Milton, were sophistical scribblers, and bad luck to the man, who
invented the alphabet; oratory is composed of two parts, weeds and
flowers; the weeds of metaphor are the roots of Rhetorick; and the
flowers of phrase compose the nosegay of Eloquence. A set of
Philosophers are like a bundle of brushwood, when they are lighted up by
the fire of dispute, and put into the oven of altercation; then out
comes the crum and crust of fair argument.
* * * * *