The examples of antithets here laid down may not, perhaps, deserve the place assigned them; but as they were collected in my youth, and are really seeds, not flowers, I was unwilling they should be lost. In this they plainly show a

• Understand propriety and decorum.

juvenile warmth, that they abound in the moral and demonstrative kind, but touch sparingly upon the deliberative and judicial.

A third collection wanting to the apparatus of rhetoric, is what we call lesser forms. And these are a kind of portals, postern-doors, outer rooms, back-rooms, and passages of speech, which may serve indifferently for all subjects; such as prefaces, conclusions, digressions, transitions, &c. For as in building, a good distribution of the frontispiece, staircases, doors, windows, entries, passages, and the like, is not only agreeable but useful; so in speeches, if the accessories or under-parts be decently and skilfully contrived and placed, they are of great ornament and service to the whole structure of the discourse. Of these forms, we will just propose one example or two; for though they are matters of no small use, yet because here we add nothing of our own, and only take naked forms from Demosthenes, Cicero, or other select authors, they may seem of too trivial a nature to spend time therein.

EXAMPLES OF LESSER FORMS.

A CONCLUSION IN THE DELIBERATIVE.

So the past fault may be at once amended, and future inconvenience prevented.

COROLLARY OF AN EXACT DIVISION.

That all may see I would conceal nothing by silence, nor cloud anything by words.

A TRANSITION, WITH A CAVEAT

But let us leave the subject for the present, still reserving to ourselves the liberty of a retrospection.

A PREPOSSESSION AGAINST AN INVETERATE OPINION.

I will let you understand to the full what sprung from the thing itself, what error has tacked to it, and what envy has raised upon it.

And these few examples may serve to show our meaning as to the lesser forms of speech."

Though the ancients may seem to have perfected rhetoric, yet the moderns have given it new light. Gerhord Vossius bestowed incredible pains upon this art, as appears by his book "De Natura et Constitu

CHAPTER IV.

Two General Appendices to Tradition, viz., the Arts of
Teaching and Criticism.

THERE remain two general appendages to the doctrine of delivery; the one relating to criticism, the other to schoollearning. For as the principal part of traditive prudence turns upon the writing; so its relative turns upon the reading of books. Now reading is either regulated by the assistance of a master, or left to every one's private industry; but both depend upon criticism and school-learning.

Criticism regards, first, the exact correcting and publishing of approved authors; whereby the honour of such authors is preserved, and the necessary assistance afforded to the reader. Yet the misapplied labours and industry of some have in this respect proved highly prejudicial to learning; for many critics have a way, when they fall upon anything they do not understand, of immediately supposing a fault in the copy. Thus, in that passage of Tacitus, where a certain colony pleads a right of protection in the senate, Tacitus tells us they were not favourably heard; so that the ambassadors distrusting their cause, endeavoured to procure the favour of Titus Vinius by a present, and succeeded; upon which Tacitus has these words: "Tum dignitas et antiquitas coloniæ valuit:" "Then the honour and antiquity of the colony had weight," in allusion to the sum received. But a considerable critic here expunges "tum," and substitutes "tantùm," which quite corrupts the sense. And from this ill practice of the critics, it happens that the most corrected copies are often the least correct. And to say the truth, unless a critic

tione Rhetoricæ;" and still more by his "Institutiones Oratoriæ." See also Wolfgang; Schoensleder's "Apparatus Eloquentiæ;" "Tesmari Exercitationes Rhetoricæ," &c. Several French authors have likewise cultivated this subject; particularly Rapin, in his "Réflexions sur l'Eloquence;" Bohour, in his "Manière de bien Penser dans les Ouvrages de l'Esprit;" and his "Pensées Ingénieuses;" Father Lamy, in his "Art de Parler." See also M. Cassander's French translation of Aristotle's Rhetorics; the anonymous pieces, entitled, "L'Art de Penser," and "L'Art de Persuader;" Le Clerc's "Historia Rhetoricæ," in his "Ars Critica ;" and "Stollius de Arte Rhetorica," in his "Introductio in Historiam Literariam." Shaw.

Hist. b. i. c. 66.

is well acquainted with the sciences treated in the books he publishes, his diligence will be attended with danger.

A second thing belonging to criticism is the explanation and illustration of authors, comments, notes, collections, &c. But here an ill custom has prevailed among the critics of skipping over the obscure passages, and expatiating upon such as are sufficiently clear, as if their design were not so much to illustrate their author, as to take all occasions of showing their own learning and reading. It were therefore to be wished, that every original writer who treats an obscure or noble subject, would add his own explanations to his own work, so as to keep the text continued and unbroken by digressions or illustrations, and thus prevent any wrong interpretation by the notes of others.

Thirdly, there belongs to criticism the thing from whence its name is derived; viz., a certain concise judgment or censure of the authors published, and a comparison of them with other writers who have treated the same subject. Whence the student may be directed in the choice of his books, and come the better prepared to their perusal; and this seems to be the ultimate office of the critic, and has indeed been honoured by some greater men in our age than critics are usually thought.

For the doctrine of school-learning, it were the shortest way to refer it to the Jesuits, who, in point of usefulness, have herein excelled; yet we will lay down a few admonitions about it. We highly approve the education of youth in colleges, and not wholly in private houses or schools. For in colleges, there is not only a greater emulation of the youth among their equals, but the teachers have a venerable aspect and gravity, which greatly conduces towards insinuating a modest behaviour, and the forming of tender minds from the first, according to such examples; and besides these, there are many other advantages of a collegiate education. But for the order and manner of discipline, it is of capital use to avoid too concise methods and too hasty an opinion of learning, which give a pertness to the mind, and rather make a show of improvement than procure it. But excursions of genius are to be somewhat favoured; so that if a scholar perform his usual exercises, he may be suffered b See Osborn's Advice to a Son.