It is certain that proper Gestures and vehement Exertions of the Voice cannot be too much studied by a publick Orator.  They are a kind of Comment to what he utters, and enforce every thing he says, with weak Hearers, better than the strongest Argument he can make use of.  They keep the Audience awake, and fix their Attention to what is delivered to them, at the same time that they shew the Speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so passionately recommends to others.  Violent Gesture and Vociferation naturally shake the Hearts of the Ignorant, and fill them with a kind of Religious Horror.  Nothing is more frequent than to see Women weep and tremble at the Sight of a moving Preacher, though he is placed quite out of their Hearing; as in England we very frequently see People lulled asleep with solid and elaborate Discourses of Piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the Bellowings and Distortions of Enthusiasm.

If Nonsense, when accompanied with such an Emotion of Voice and Body, has such an Influence on Men’s Minds, what might we not expect from many of those Admirable Discourses which are printed in our Tongue, were they delivered with a becoming Fervour, and with the most agreeable Graces of Voice and Gesture?

We are told that the great Latin Orator very much 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 Rhetorick, 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 streaking the sides of a long Wigg that reaches down to his Middle?  The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the Gestures 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 Cheap’ning 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 Westminster-Hall, there was a Counsellor who never pleaded without a Piece of Pack-thread in his Hand, which he used to twist about a Thumb, or a Finger, all the while he was speaking:  The Waggs of those Days used to call it the Thread of his Discourse, for he was not able 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.