of thofe who understood the art of fpeaking, were the very art and skill of fpeaking well. This, as all other things of practice, is to be learned, not by a few or a great many rules given, but by exercife and application, according to good rules, or rather patterns, till habits are got, and a facility of doing it

well.

Agreeable hereunto, perhaps it might Stile. not be amifs, to make children,

as foon as they are capable of it, of ten to tell a fory of any thing they know; and to correct at firft the moft remarkable fault they are guilty of in their way of puting it together. When that fault is cured, then to fhow them the next; and fo on, till one after another, all, at leaft the grofs ones, are mended. When they can tell tales pretty well, then it may be the time to make them write them. The fables of fop, the only book almoft that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercife of writing English, as well as for reading and tranflating, to enter them into the Latin tongue. When they have got paft the faults of grammar, and can join in a continued coherent difcourfe the feveral parts of a flory, without bald and unhandfome forms of tranflation (as is ufual) often repeated, he that defires to perfect them yet farther in this, which is the first step to fpeaking well, and

need

need no invention, may have recourse to Tully, and by putting in practice thofe rules which that mafter of eloquence gives in his first book de inventione, § 20 make them know wherein the skill and graces of an handfome narrative, according to the feveral fubjects and defigns of it, lie. Of each of which rules fit examples may be found out, and therein there may be fhewn how others have practifed them. The antient claffick authors afford plenty of fuch examples, which they should be made not only to tranflate, but have fet before them as patterns for their daily imitation.

When they understand how to write Englifh with due connexion, propriety, and order, and are pretty well mafters of a tolerable narrative file, they may be advanced to writing of letters; wherein they fhould not be put upon any firains of wit or compliment, but taught to exprefs their own plain eafy fenfe, without any incoherence, confufion or roughnefs. And.when they are perfect in this, they may, to raife their thoughts, have fet before them the example of Voiture, for the entertainment of their friends at a distance, with letters of compliment, mirth, raillery or diverfion; ard Tully's epiftles, as the best pattern, whether for bufinefs or converfati00. The writing of letters has fo much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that

no

no gentleman can avoid fhewing himLetters. felf in this kind of writing. Occfions will daily force him to make this ufe of his pen; which, befides the confequences that, in his affairs, his well or ill managing of it often draws after it, always lays him open to a feverer examination of his breeding, fenfe, and abilities, than moral difcourfes, whofe tranfient faults dying for the most part with the found that gives them life, and fo not fubject to a strict review, more eafily efcape obfervation and cenfure.

But cu

Had the methods of education been directed to their right end, one would have thought this fo neceffary a part could not have been neglected; whilft themes and verses in Latin, of no ufe at all, were fo conftantly every where preffed, to the racking of children's inventions beyond their ftrength, and hindering their chearful progrefs in learning the tongues by unnatural difficulties. flom has fo ordained it, and who dares difobey? And would it not be very unreasonable to require of a learned country school-mafter (who has all the tropes and figures in Farnaby's rhetorick at his finger ends) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in Englith when it appears to be fo little his bufinefs or thought, that the boy's mother (defpifed, 'tis like, as illiterate for not having read a

fyftem

fyftem of logick and rhetorick) outdoes him in it?

To write and fpeak correctly, gives a grace, and gains a favourable attention to what one has to fay and fince 'tis English that an Englih gentleman will have conftant ufe of, that is the language he should chiefly culti vate, and wherein moft care fhould be taken to polifh and perfect his ftile. To speak or write better Latin than English, may make a man be talked of; but he will find it more to his purpose to exprefs himself well in his own tongue, that he ufes every moment, than to have the vain commendation of others for a very infignificant quality. This I find univerfally neglected, nor no care taken any where to improve young men in their own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be mafters of it. If any one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in his mother-tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or any thing, rather than to his education, or any care of his teacher. To mind what English his pupil fpeaks or writes, is below the dignity of one bred up amongst Greek and Latin, though he have but little of them himself. These are the learned languages, fit only for learned men to meddle with and teach; English is the language of the illiterate vulgar: Tho' yet we fee the polity of fome of our neighbours hath not

thought it beneath the publick care to promote and reward the improvement of their own language. Polishing and enriching their tongue is no fmall business amongst them; it hath colleges and ftipends appointed it, and there is raifed amongst them a great ambition and emulation of writing correctly: and we see what they are come to by it, and how far they have spread one of the worst languages poffibly in this part of the world, if we look upon its ic was in fome few reigns backwards, whatever it be now. The great men among the Romans were daily exercifing themfelves in their own language; and we find yet upon record the names of orators, who taught fome of their emperors Latin, though it were their mother tongue.

'Tis plain the Greeks were yet more nice in theirs. All other fpeech was barbarous to them but their own, and no foreign language appears to have been studied or valued amongst that learned and acute people; tho' it be paft doubt that they borrowed their learning and philofophy from abroad.

I am not here fpeaking against Greek and Latin; I think they ought to be studied, and the Latin at least understand well by every gentleman. But whatever foreign languages a young man meddles with (and the more he knows the better) that which he fhould critically fludy, and labour to get a facility, clear

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