by your negligence or mine, become habitual to you, as in a couple of years more it would have been, what a figure would you have made in company, or in a public assembly? Who would have liked you in the one, or have attended to you in the other? Read what Cicero and Quintilian say of enunciation, and see what a stress they lay upon the gracefulness of it; nay, Cicero goes further, and even maintains that a good figure is necessary for an orator; and, particularly, that he must not be vastus; that is, overgrown and clumsy. He shows by it that he knew mankind well, and knew the powers of an agreeable figure and a graceful manner. [June 21, 1748.]
Enunciation—Eloquence.—Your figure is a
good one; you have no natural defect in the organs
of speech; your address may be engaging, and your
manner of speaking graceful, if you will; so that, if
they are not so, neither I nor the world can ascribe
it to any thing but your want of parts. What is the
constant and just observation as to all actors upon
the stage? Is it not, that those who have the best
sense always speak the best, though they may happen
not to have the best voices? They will speak
plainly, distinctly, and with the proper emphasis,
be their voices ever so bad. Had Roscius spoken
