impaired his health by this laterum contentio, this vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and seeing his friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence?

How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar, holding up his head with the most insipid serenity, and stroking the sides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle! The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the ges- · tures of an English speaker; you see some of them running their hands into their pockets as far as` ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written in it; you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into several different cocks, examining sometimes the lining of it, and sometimes the button, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember, when I was a young man, and used to frequent Westminsterhall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded without a piece of packthread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or a finger all the while he was speaking the wags of those days used to call it 'the thread of his discourse,' for he was unable to utter a word without it. One of his clients, who was

more merry than wise, stole it from him one day in the midst of his pleading; but he had better have let it alone, for he lost his cause by his jest.

I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb man, and therefore may be thought a very improper person to give rules for oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of gesture (which seems to be very suitable to the genius of our nation), or at least to make use of such only as are graceful and expressive.

ADDISON.

0.

N° 408. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1712.

Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere, nec subjacere serviliter. TULL. de Finibus.

We should keep our passions from being exalted above measure, or servilely depressed,

6 MR. SPECTATOR,

I HAVE always been a very great lover of your speculations, as well in regard to the subject, as to your manner of treating it. Human nature I always thought the most useful object of human reason, and to make the consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought the best employment of human wit: other parts of philosophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers that end, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest of all men living, because he judiciously made choice of human nature

for the object of his thoughts; an inquiry into which as much exceeds all other learning, as it is of more consequence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to settle the distance of the planets, and compute the times of their circumvolutions.

• One good effect that will immediately arise from a near observation of human nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at those actions which men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for, as nothing is produced without a cause, so, by observing the nature and course of the passions, we shall be able to trace every action from its first conception to its death. We shall no more admire at the proceedings of Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by a furious ambition; for the actions of men follow their passions as naturally as light does heat, or as any other effect flows from its cause; reason must be employed in adjusting the passions, but they must ever remain the principles of action.

The strange and absurd variety that is so apparent in men's actions, shews plainly they can never proceed immediately from reason; so pure a fountain emits no such troubled waters. They must necessarily arise from the passions, which are to the mind as the winds to a ship; they only can move it, and they too often destroy it: if fair and gentle, they guide it into the harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset it in the waves. In the same manner is the mind assisted or endangered by the passions; reason must then take the place of pilot, and can never fail of securing her charge if she be not wanting to herself. The strength of the passions will never be accepted as an excuse for complying with them; they

wise men both delight in, and are qualified for. Methinks most of the philosophers and moralists have run too much into extremes, in praising entirely either solitude or public life; in the former men generally grow useless by too much rest, and in the latter are destroyed by too much precipitation: as waters lying still, putrify and are good for nothing; and running violently on, do but the more mischief in their passage to others, and are swallowed up and lost the sooner themselves. Those who, like you, can make themselves useful to all states, should be like gentle streams, that not only glide through lonely vales and forests amidst the flocks and shepherds, but visit populous towns in their course, and are at once of ornament and service to them. But there is another sort of people who seem designed for solitude, those I mean who have more to hide than to shew. As for my own part, I am one of those of whom Seneca says, Tam umbratiles sunt, ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est. Some men, like pictures, are fitter for a corner than a full light; and I believe such as have a natural bent to solitude, are like waters which may be forced into fountains, and exalted to a great height, may make a much nobler figure, and a much louder noise, but after all run more smoothly, equally and plentifully, in their own natural course upon the ground. The consideration of this would make me very well contented with the possession only of that quiet which Cowley calls the companion of obe nity; but whoever has the muses too f nious, can never be idle enough to

Sir, you see I would flatter

nion of my own way of

one may wish he had the highest cast, but if his chance be otherwise, he is even to play it as well as he can, and make the best of it.

" MR. SPECTATOR,

‹ I am, SIR,

• Your most obliged,

⚫ and most humble servant.'

'THE town being so well pleased with the fine picture of artless love, which Nature inspired the Laplander to paint in the ode you lately printed2; we were in hopes that the ingenious translator would have obliged it with the other also which Scheffer has given us; but since he has not, a much inferior hand has ventured to send you this.

It is a custom with the northern lovers to divert themselves with a song, whilst they journey through the fenny moors to pay a visit to their mistresses. This is addressed by the lover to his rein-deer, which is the creature that in that country supplies the want of horses. The circumstances which successively present themselves to him in his way, are, I believe you will think, naturally interwoven. The anxiety of absence, the gloominess of the roads, and his resolution of frequenting only those, since those only can carry him to the object of his desires; the dissatisfaction he expresses even at the greatest swiftness with which he is carried, and his joyful surprise at an unexpected sight of his mistress as she is bathing, seem beautifully described in the original.

'If all those pretty images of rural nature are lost in the imitation, yet possibly you may think fit to let

2 See No 366.