[155] Don Diego de Miranda. See "Don Quixote," Part II., chaps. xvii., xviii.
From _Saturday, Sept. 17_, to _Tuesday, Sept. 20, 1709_.
Quicquid agunt homines ... nostri farrago libelli.
The following letter,[158] in prosecution of what I have lately asserted, has urged that matter so much better than I had, that I insert it as I received it. These testimonials are customary with us learned men, and sometimes are suspected to be written by the author; but I fear no one will suspect me of this.
"Having read your lucubrations of the 10th instant,[159] I can't but entirely agree with you in your notions of the scarcity of men who can either read or speak. For my part, I have lived these thirty years in the world, and yet have observed but a very few who could do either in any tolerable manner; among which few, you must understand that I reckon myself. How far eloquence, set off with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, will prevail over the passions, and how cold and unaffecting the best oration in the world would be without them, there are two remarkable instances in the case of Ligarius and that of Milo. Cæsar had condemned Ligarius. He came indeed to hear what might be said; but thinking himself his own master, resolved not to be biassed by anything Cicero could say in his behalf: but in this he was mistaken; for when the orator began to speak, the hero is moved, he is vanquished, and at length the criminal absolved. It must be observed, that this famous orator was less renowned for his courage than his eloquence; for though he came at another time, prepared to defend Milo with one of the best orations that antiquity has produced; yet being seized with a sudden fear by seeing some armed men surrounding the Forum, he faltered in his speech, and became unable to exert that irresistible force and beauty of action which would have saved his client, and for want of which he was condemned to banishment. As the success the former of these orations met with, appears chiefly owing to the life and graceful manner with which it was recited (for some there are who think it may be read without transport), so the latter seems to have failed of success for no other reason, but because the orator was not in a condition to set it off with those ornaments. It must be confessed, that artful sound will with the crowd prevail even more than sense; but those who are masters of both, will ever gain the admiration of all their hearers: and there is, I think, a very natural account to be given of this matter; for the sensation of the head and heart are caused in each of these parts by the outward organs of the eye and ear: that therefore which is conveyed to the understanding and passions by only one of these organs, will not affect us so much as that which is transmitted through both.[160] I can't but think your charge is just against a great part of the learned clergy of Great Britain, who deliver the most excellent discourses with such coldness and indifference, that it is no great wonder the unintelligent many of their congregations fall asleep. Thus it happens that their orations meet with a quite contrary fate to that of Demosthenes you mentioned; for as that lost much of its beauty and force by being repeated to the magistrates of Rhodes without the winning action of that great orator, so the performances of these gentlemen never appear with so little grace, and to so much disadvantage, as when delivered by themselves from the pulpit. Hippocrates being sent for to a patient in this city, and having felt his pulse, inquired into the symptoms of his distemper, and finding that it proceeded in great measure from want of sleep, advises his patient, with an air of gravity, to be carried to church to hear a sermon, not doubting but that it would dispose him for the rest he wanted. If some of the rules Horace gives for the theatre, were (not improperly) applied to our pulpits, we should not hear a sermon prescribed as a good opiate.