astonishing degree of parts, will not talk nonsense upon any subject; nor will he, if he has the least taste or application, talk inelegantly.  What then does all this mighty art and mystery of speaking in parliament amount to?  Why, no more than this, that the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that house, and to four hundred people, that opinion upon a given subject which he would make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps, and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of Commons.

I have spoken frequently in parliament, and not always without some applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there is very little in it.  The elegancy of the style and the turn of the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers.  Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught.  Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, such as they are.

Cicero, conscious that he was at the top of his profession (for in his time eloquence was a profession), in order to set himself off, defines, in his treatise de Oratore, an orator to be such a man as never was, or never will be; and, by this fallacious argument, says that he must know every art and science whatsoever, or how shall he speak upon them?  But with submission to so great an authority, my definition of an orator is extremely different from, and I believe much truer than, his.  I call that man an orator who reasons justly, and expresses himself elegantly, upon whatever subjects he treats.  Problems in geometry, equations in algebra, processes in chemistry, and experiments in anatomy, are never, that I have heard of, the objects of eloquence; and therefore I humbly conceive that a man may be a very fine speaker, and yet know nothing of geometry, algebra, chemistry, or anatomy.  The subjects of all parliamentary debates are subjects of common sense singly.

Thus I write whatever occurs to me, that I think may contribute either to form or inform you.  May my labour not be in vain! and it will not, if you will but have half the concern for yourself that I have for you.  Adieu.

TO THE SAME

The new Earl of Chatham

Blackheath, 1 Aug. 1766.

MY DEAR FRIEND,