English. Bifrezz 2-9-25 11296

BY THE

CHEVALIER RAMSAY,

BOTH

OTH the antients and the moderns have treated of eloquence, with different views, and in different ways; as Logicians, as Grammarians, and as Critics: but we still wanted an author who fhould handle this delicate subject as a Philofopher, and a Chriftian: and this the late Archbishop of Cambray has done in the following Dialogues.

IN the antient writers we find many folid precepts of rhetoric, and very just rules laid down with great exactness: but they are ofttimes too numerous, too dry; and in fine, rather curious than useful. our author reduces the effential rules

of this wonderful art, to these three points; proving, painting, and moving the paffions.

To qualify his orator for proving, or establishing any truth, he would have him a philofopher; who knows how to enlighten the understanding, while he moves the paffions; and to act at once upon all the powers of the mind; not only by placing the truth in fo clear a light as to gain attention and affent; but likewife by moving all the secret springs of the foul, to make it love that truth it is convinced of. in one word, our author would have his orator's mind filled with bright, useful truths, and the most exalted views.

THAT he

may be able to paint, or describe well, he fhould have a poetic kind of enthusiasm; and know how to

employ beautiful figures, lively images, and bold touches, when the subject requires them. but this art ought to be entirely concealed: or, if it must appear; it fhould feem to be a just copy of nature. wherefore our author rejects all such false ornaments as ferve only to please the ear, with harmonious founds; and the imagination, with ideas that are more gay and. fparkling, than just and solid.

To move the paffions he would have an orator fet every truth in its proper place; and fo connect them that the first may make way for the fecond; and the next fupport the former: fo that the dif courfe fhall gradually advance in ftrength and clearness, till the hearers perceive the whole weight and force of the truth. and then he ought to display it in the livelieft images; and both in his words

and gesture use all thofe affecting movements that are proper to express the paffions he would excite.

IT is by reading the antients that we must form our taste, and learn the art of eloquence in all its extent. but seeing that fome of the antients themselves have their defects, we must read them with caution and judgment. our learned author distinguishes the genuine beauties of the purest antiquity, from the falfe ornaments used in after-ages; he points out what is excellent, and what is faulty, both in facred and profane authors; and shews us that the eloquence of the Holy Scripture, in many places, furpaffes that of the Greeks and Romans, in native fimplicity, liveliness, grandeur, and in every thing that can recommend truth to our affent and admiration.

NOTHING can be more proper than these Dialogues, to guard us against the vitiated taste of falfe wit; which ferves only for amusement and oftentation. such eloquence as is founded on vanity and felf-love, delights in gaudy ornaments; and neglects the genuine graces of a noble fimplicity. for, the glittering fancy and quaint turns, and forced antithefes, the fmooth periods, and other artificial ornaments of false oratory, make a little genius lose the relish of those superior and folid beauties that force their way to the mind, and at once enlighten, and. captivate it.

THEY who value nothing but wit, will probably dislike the plainnefs of these Dialogues: but they would form another judgment of them if they confidered that there are different stiles of dia

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