another; as, war is evil; old wine is better than new; old friends are better than new; old music is better than new; old divinity is better than new; and such like. Here Here you have a matter proposed, which it is your business to prove and illustrate. In this case, your best method is,

1st, To open and explain the sense of your proposition, and distinguish your subjects, if necessary, from other subjects allied to it.

2d, To give a reason or two, to prove the truth of the proposition.

3d, To confirm your reasons by some observation on men and manners, some proverbial sentence expressing the public judgment of mankind upon the case, or some sentiment from an author of established reputation.

4th, To illustrate your subject with a simile, which is no other than some parallel case in nature; and this you are to apply to the different parts of your subject, if it is so apposite as to admit of such an accommodation.

5th, To add an example either from ancient or modern history, or from your own experience.

6th, Then, lastly, you are to sum up your matter, and shew the practical use of it; concluding with some pertinent exhortation.

This is the easiest way of treating a subject, and the most effectual. When I was taught to make a theme at school, we had a model of a theme of this construction composed by Mr. Dryden, which was the pattern we were obliged to follow; and I wish I could give you a copy of it. Method is the light of a subject, and expression is the life of it: and, in my judgment, an immethodical piece is worse than an illwritten one. The art is, to use method as builders do

a scaffold, which is to be taken away when the work is finished: or, as good workmen, who conceal the joints in their work, so that it may look smooth and pleasant to the eye, as if it were all made of one piece.

Cicero, in his Orations, speaking generally as a lawyer, pleads for the lawfulness of some fact, or against its unlawfulness. He begins with preparing his hearers for the subject; either winning their attention by a modest approach, or shewing them how they are interested in what he has to propose to them.

In the next place, he proceeds to state the case, and lays the facts before them, with all their circumstances; or such at least as make for his purpose. This is called the narration.

Then he descends to reason upon the case; either justifying his client, or refuting the arguments on the other side. The justification and the refutation generally make two separate articles. If his speech is of the accusatory kind, his method is still the same, mutatis mutandis.

After all, he sums up the merit in a conclusion, which is called peroratio, because it reviews the several parts of the whole oration, and presses the audience with the force of the evidence, that their judgment may go with his side of the question.

Many sermons in the English language are some of the finest orations in the world. They are of different sorts; some are moral, some controversial, and some expository: the latter are of more general use, because they take in the two other divisions of moral and controversial, as occasion requires.

Under the first head of a discourse, the subject is opened with some general observations, and distinguished.

Under the second, it is explained and illustrated.

Under the third, the uses are shown, and the inferences deduced, as they follow naturally from the most interesting parts of the exposition.

A sermon written after this, or some like method, will be clearly understood and easily remembered. Besides, when a thought stands in its right place, it has ten times more force than when it is improperly connected. Compositions are like machines, where one part depends upon another; if any part gets out of place, the motion is disordered, and the whole is of less effect. A rhapsody of miscellaneous thoughts, huddled together in the way of an unconnected essay, with no particular relation to the text, either makes no impression at the time when it is delivered, or leaves no instruction behind it. Not every musician, who can make a noise, and shew a slight of hand upon an instrument, is fit for a composer of music; neither is every man who can think with freedom able to write with good effect.

The three different sorts of composition in prose, are the narration, the epistle, and the speech. Narration should consist of long and clear periods, descriptive of facts, with reflections sparingly intermixt, The epistle is distinguished by short sentences and an easy unaffected manner. Method is here of no great value. Speeches are different from both, consisting of reasonings, apologies, defences, accusations, refutations, and such like, enforced and ornamented as much as may be with the figures of rhetoric properly introduced: of which I shall endeavour to give you an explanation at some other opportunity.

LETTER XX.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN GOING INTO THE ARMY.

WHAT figure can you make in any state of life, unless you adopt some certain rules for the regulation of your conduct? Wisdom lives by rule, and folly lives by chance; and this is the chief difference there is betwixt them. Such rules, therefore, as may be useful to you in the profession you are now going to take upon you, I shall give you freely, so far as they are known to me: the success must depend upon your own attention.

Do not imagine then, that because you are going to put on a sword, you may therefore throw aside your books. The army, I know, differs very much from the university, and has many gentlemen, who think they have no great occasion for learning: but be assured of this, that the learned will have the advantage of the ignorant in all the departments of public life. There are times and seasons, when they who know less, be their fortune and station what it will, must come to those who know more; and natural abilities, be they never so great, will always do better with information than without it. I would therefore advise you by all means to keep up your Greek, Latin, and French, and be adding as much as possible to your stock of philosophy and history; the uses of which are too extensive for me to enlarge upon. Some of the best scholars have been the best soldiers; as you know from the examples of Xenophon and Julius Cæsar.

I gave an instance of General Wolfe's literature, and the advantage he derived from it, in another letter. You have read Cæsar's Commentaries familiarly as a school-boy; consider them again as a soldier and if you have French enough, as I hope you have, you will find the French Polybius, with Folard's Commentaries, an excellent work for teaching the art of war. But the best elementary treatise is that of Vegetius, whose Military Institutions comprehend the discipline of the Roman armies and the œconomy of their generals. His work is addressed to the emperor Valentinian; but his matter is collected from more ancient writers. It has been very well translated of late years into English. I wish every young officer in the army were as fond of this book, and as well acquainted with it, as I am.

As there are many different principles espoused in this country; some of them very dangerous to the commonwealth; you are to remember, that the grand object to a soldier is the just right of his king and country; and that if he loses his life in the pursuit of that object, he dies in a good cause. In all your sentiments be true to the side of government and authority. Practice will soon show you the absolute necessity of obedience in an army; and it is as necessary to the welfare of the state. When the power of government declines, and the reverence due to authority no longer prevails among the people, a nation is in the condition of a lunatic, who has lost his reason, the governing principle: and as you read of a certain dæmoniac, that he was crying and cutting himself with stones; just so is it with the country that is falling into anarchy nothing is to be heard but the outcries and yellings of faction; and the hands of the people are turned against the people, to grind, and torment,