that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to
defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us,
to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you
would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your
sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention.
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others,
and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your
present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation,
will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself
in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence
you desire. Pope says, judiciously:

"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"

farther recommending to us

"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."

And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled
with another, I think, less properly,

"For want of modesty is want of sense."

If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,

"Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of modesty is want of sense."