resort to other departments of knowledge for exemplifications of the principles laid down; and it would have been impossible, without confining myself so the most insipid truisms, to avoid completely all topics on which there exists any difference of opinion. If, in the course of either work, I have advocated any erroneous tenet, the obvious remedy is, to refute it. I am utterly unconscious of having in any instance resorted to the employment of fallacy, or substituted declamation for argument; but if any such faults exist, it is easy to expose them. Nor is it necessary that when any book is put into the hands of a young student, he should understand that he is to adopt implicitly every doctrine contained in it, or should not be cautioned against any erroneous principles which it may inculcate otherwise, indeed, it would be impossible to give young men what is called a classical education, without making them Pagans.

That I have avowed an assent to the evidences of Christianity, (that, I believe, is the point on which the greatest soreness is felt,) and that this does incidentally imply some censure of those who reject it, is not to be denied. But they again are at liberty, and they are not backward in using their liberty, to repel the censure, by refuting, if they can, those evidences. And as

long as they confine themselves to calm argumentation, and abstain from insult, libellous personality, and falsification of facts, I earnestly hope no force will ever be employed to silence them, except force of argument. I am not one of those jealous lovers of freedom who would fain keep it all to themselves; nor do I dread ultimate danger to the cause of truth from fair discussion.

It may be objected by some, that in the fore

going words I have put forth a challenge which cannot be accepted; inasmuch as it has been declared by the highest legal authorities, that "Christianity is part of the Law of the Land;" and consequently any one who impugns it, is liable to prosecution. What is the precise meaning of the above legal maxim, I do not profess to determine; having never met with any one who could explain it to me but evidently the mere circumstance, that we have a Religion by Law established, does not, of itself, imply the illegality of arguing against that Religion. The regulations of Trade and of Navigation, for instance, are unquestionably part of the Law of the Land; but the question of their expediency is freely discussed, and frequently in no very measured language; nor did I ever hear of any one's being menaced with prosecution for censuring

them.

I presume not however to decide what steps might, legally, be taken; I am looking only to facts and probabilities; and I feel a confident trust, as well as hope, (and that, founded on experience of the past,) that no legal penalties will, in fact, be incurred by temperate, decent, argumentative maintainers even of the most. erroneous opinions.

I have only to add my acknowledgements to those friends for whose kind and judicious suggestions I am so much indebted; and to assure them, that whatever may be the public reception of the work, I shall never cease to feel flattered and obliged by the diligent attention they have bestowed on it.

ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC.

INTRODUCTION.

§ 1.

Various defi

Rhetoric.

OF Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions nitions of of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term. Not only the word Rhetoric itself, but also those used in defining it, have been taken in various senses; as may be observed with respect to the word "Art" in Cic. de Orat. where a discussion is introduced as to the applicability of that term to Rhetoric; manifestly turning on the different senses in which "Art " may be understood.

To enter into an examination of all the definitions that have been given, would lead to much uninteresting and uninstructive verbal controversy. It is sufficient to put the reader on his guard against the common error of supposing that a general term has some real object, properly corresponding to it, independent of our conceptions; - that, consequently, some one definition is to be found which will comprehend every thing that is rightly designated by that term; ;- and

that all others must be erroneous: whereas, in fact, it will often happen, as in the present instance, that both the wider, and the more restricted sense of a term, will be alike sanctioned by use, (the only competent authority,) and that the consequence will be a corresponding variation in the definitions employed; none of which perhaps may be fairly chargeable with error, though none can be framed that will apply to every acceptation of the term.

It is evident that in its primary signification, Rhetoric had reference to public Speaking alone, as its etymology implies: but as most of the rules for speaking are of course applicable equally to Writing, an extension of the term naturally took place; and we find even Aristotle, the earliest systematic writer on the subject whose works have come down to us, including in his Treatise rules for such compositions as were not intended to be publicly recited.* And even as far as relates to Speeches, properly so called, he takes, in the same Treatise, at one time, a wider, and at another, a more restricted view of the subject; including under the term Rhetoric, in the opening of his work, nothing beyond the finding of topics of Persuasion, as far as regards the matter of what is spoken; and afterwards embracing the consideration of Style, Arrangement, and Delivery.

The invention of Printing, by extending the

*Aristot. Rhet. book iii.

Or rather of Paper; for the invention of printing is too obvious not to have speedily followed, in a literary nation, the introduction of a paper sufficiently cheap to make the art available. Indeed the seals of the ancients seem to have been a kind of stamps, with which they in fact printed their names.