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<h2> LETTER XCI </h2>
<h3> LONDON, November 24, O. S. 1749. </h3>
<p>DEAR Boy: Every rational being (I take it for granted) proposes to himself
some object more important than mere respiration and obscure animal
existence. He desires to distinguish himself among his fellow-creatures;
and, 'alicui negotio intentus, prreclari facinoris, aut artis bonae, faman
quaerit'. Caesar, when embarking in a storm, said, that it was not
necessary he should live; but that it was absolutely necessary he should
get to the place to which he was going. And Pliny leaves mankind this only
alternative; either of doing what deserves to be written, or of writing
what deserves to be read. As for those who do neither, 'eorum vitam
mortemque juxta aestumo; quoniam de utraque siletur'. You have, I am
convinced, one or both of these objects in view; but you must know and use
the necessary means, or your pursuit will be vain and frivolous. In either
case, 'Sapere est princihium et fons'; but it is by no means all. That
knowledge must be adorned, it must have lustre as well as weight, or it
will be oftener taken, for lead than for gold. Knowledge you have, and
will have: I am easy upon that article. But my business, as your friend,
is not to compliment you upon what you have, but to tell you with freedom
what you want; and I must tell you plainly, that I fear you want
everything but knowledge.</p>
<p>I have written to you so often, of late, upon good-breeding, address, 'les
manieres liantes', the Graces, etc., that I shall confine this letter to
another subject, pretty near akin to them, and which, I am sure, you are
full as deficient in; I mean Style.</p>
<p>Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your
style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much
disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well
proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not
every understanding that can judge of matter; but every ear can and does
judge, more or less, of style: and were I either to speak or write to the
public, I should prefer moderate matter, adorned with all the beauties and
elegancies of style, to the strongest matter in the world, ill-worded and
ill-delivered. Your business is negotiation abroad, and oratory in the
House of Commons at home. What figure can you make, in either case, if
your style be inelegant, I do not say bad? Imagine yourself writing an
office-letter to a secretary of state, which letter is to be read by the
whole Cabinet Council, and very possibly afterward laid before parliament;
any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it, would, in a very few
days, circulate through the whole kingdom, to your disgrace and ridicule.
For instance, I will suppose you had written the following letter from The
Hague to the Secretary of State at London; and leave you to suppose the
consequences of it:</p>
<p>MY LORD: I HAD, last night, the honor of your Lordship's letter of the
24th; and will SET ABOUT DOING the orders contained THEREIN; and IF so BE
that I can get that affair done by the next post, I will not fail FOR TO
give your Lordship an account of it by NEXT POST. I have told the French
Minister, AS HOW THAT IF that affair be not soon concluded, your Lordship
would think it ALL LONG OF HIM; and that he must have neglected FOR TO
have wrote to his court about it. I must beg leave to put your Lordship in
mind AS HOW, that I am now full three quarter in arrear; and if SO BE that
I do not very soon receive at least one half year, I shall CUT A VERY BAD
FIGURE; FOR THIS HERE place is very dear. I shall be VASTLY BEHOLDEN to
your Lordship for THAT THERE mark of your favor; and so I REST or REMAIN,
Your, etc.</p>
<p>You will tell me, possibly, that this is a caricatura of an illiberal and
inelegant style: I will admit it; but assure you, at the same time, that a
dispatch with less than half these faults would blow you up forever. It is
by no means sufficient to be free from faults, in speaking and writing;
but you must do both correctly and elegantly. In faults of this kind, it
is not 'ille optimus qui minimis arguetur'; but he is unpardonable who has
any at all, because it is his own fault: he need only attend to, observe,
and imitate the best authors.</p>
<p>It is a very true saying, that a man must be born a poet, but that he may
make himself an orator; and the very first principle of an orator is to
speak his own language, particularly, with the utmost purity and elegance.
A man will be forgiven even great errors in a foreign language; but in his
own, even the least slips are justly laid hold of and ridiculed.</p>
<p>A person of the House of Commons, speaking two years ago upon naval
affairs; asserted, that we had then the finest navy UPON THE FACE OF THE
YEARTH. This happy mixture of blunder and vulgarism, you may easily
imagine, was matter of immediate ridicule; but I can assure you that it
continues so still, and will be remembered as long as he lives and speaks.
Another, speaking in defense of a gentleman, upon whom a censure was
moved, happily said that he thought that gentleman was more LIABLE to be
thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that LIABLE can
never be used in a good sense.</p>
<p>You have with you three or four of the best English authors, Dryden,
Atterbury, and Swift; read them with the utmost care, and with a
particular view to their language, and they may possibly correct that
CURIOUS INFELICITY OF DICTION, which you acquired at Westminster. Mr.
Harte excepted, I will admit that you have met with very few English
abroad, who could improve your style; and with many, I dare say, who speak
as ill as yourself, and, it may be, worse; you must, therefore, take the
more pains, and consult your authors and Mr. Harte the more. I need not
tell you how attentive the Romans and Greeks, particularly the Athenians,
were to this object. It is also a study among the Italians and the French;
witness their respective academies and dictionaries for improving and
fixing their languages. To our shame be it spoken, it is less attended to
here than in any polite country; but that is no reason why you should not
attend to it; on the contrary, it will distinguish you the more. Cicero
says, very truly, that it is glorious to excel other men in that very
article, in which men excel brutes; SPEECH.</p>
<p>Constant experience has shown me, that great purity and elegance of style,
with a graceful elocution, cover a multitude of faults, in either a
speaker or a writer. For my own part, I confess (and I believe most people
are of my mind) that if a speaker should ungracefully mutter or stammer
out to me the sense of an angel, deformed by barbarism and solecisms, or
larded with vulgarisms, he should never speak to me a second time, if I
could help it. Gain the heart, or you gain nothing; the eyes and the ears
are the only roads to the heart. Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts,
though they will secure them when gained. Pray, have that truth ever in
your mind. Engage the eyes by your address, air, and motions; soothe the
ears by the elegance and harmony of your diction; the heart will certainly
follow; and the whole man, or woman, will as certainly follow the heart. I
must repeat it to you, over and over again, that with all the knowledge
which you may have at present, or hereafter acquire, and with all merit
that ever man had, if you have not a graceful address, liberal and
engaging manners, a prepossessing air, and a good degree of eloquence in
speaking and writing; you will be nobody; but will have the daily
mortification of seeing people, with not one-tenth part of your merit or
knowledge, get the start of you, and disgrace you, both in company and in
business.</p>
<p>You have read "Quintilian," the best book in the world to form an orator;
pray read 'Cicero de Oratore', the best book in the world to finish one.
Translate and retranslate from and to Latin, Greek, and English; make
yourself a pure and elegant English style: it requires nothing but
application. I do not find that God has made you a poet; and I am very
glad that he has not: therefore, for God's sake, make yourself an orator,
which you may do. Though I still call you boy, I consider you no longer as
such; and when I reflect upon the prodigious quantity of manure that has
been laid upon you, I expect that you should produce more at eighteen,
than uncultivated soils do at eight-and-twenty.</p>
<p>Pray tell Mr. Harte that I have received his letter of the 13th, N. S. Mr.
Smith was much in the right not to let you go, at this time of the year,
by sea; in the summer you may navigate as much as you please; as, for
example, from Leghorn to Genoa, etc. Adieu.</p>
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