Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/17

served of Tully in his general Rules of Oratory. No body produces Examples of consistent Writers by particular Quotations, and the several Rules I have given for the Idiom, Purity, Plainness, and Decorations of Speech, &c. cannot be farther illustrated by any Passages from Authors; for we have natural Notions of these Things, and can only set them off by showing the several Ways of offending against them.

Rules speak themselves; they draw the Picture of Nature, and give us sure Criterions of an Original in every Performance. I am very certain, the World had seen the fairest Draughts before any settled Rules were given;