passions. Love, terror, and pity alternately possess you. But, if ill
spoken and acted, it would only excite your indignation or your laughter.
Why? It is still Corneille's; it is the same sense, the same matter,
whether well or ill acted. It is, then, merely the manner of speaking and
acting that makes this great difference in the effects. Apply this to
yourself, and conclude from it, that if you would either please in a
private company, or persuade in a public assembly, air, looks, gestures,
graces, enunciation, proper accents, just emphasis, and tuneful cadences,
are full as necessary as the matter itself. Let awkward, ungraceful,
inelegant, and dull fellows say what they will in behalf of their solid
matter and strong reasonings; and let them despise all those graces and
ornaments which engage the senses and captivate the heart; they will find
(though they will possibly wonder why) that their rough, unpolished
matter, and their unadorned, coarse, but strong arguments, will neither
please nor persuade; but, on the contrary, will tire out attention, and
excite disgust. We are so made, we love to be pleased better than to be
informed; information is, in a certain degree, mortifying, as it implies
our previous ignorance; it must be sweetened to be palatable.

To bring this directly to you: know that no man can make a figure in this
country, but by parliament. Your fate depends upon your success there as
a speaker; and, take my word for it, that success turns much more upon
manner than matter. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Murray the solicitor-general, uncle
to Lord Stormount, are, beyond comparison, the best speakers; why? only
because they are the best orators. They alone can inflame or quiet the
House; they alone are so attended to, in that numerous and noisy
assembly, that you might hear a pin fall while either of them is
speaking. Is it that their matter is better, or their arguments stronger,
than other people's? Does the House expect extraordinary informations
from them? Not, in the least: but the House expects pleasure from them,