be thanked and rewarded, than censured. You know, I presume, that liable can never be used in a good sense. [Same date.]
Books for Oratory.—You have read Quintilian—the
best book in the world to form an orator; pray
read Cicero, de Oratore—the best book in the world
to finish one. Translate and retranslate, from and
to Latin, Greek, and English; make yourself a pure
and elegant English style: it requires nothing but
application. I do not find that God has made you a
poet; and I am very glad that he has not; therefore,
for God's sake, make yourself an orator, which you
may do. Though I still call you a boy, I consider
you no longer as such; and when I reflect upon the
prodigious quantity of manure that has been laid
upon you, I expect you should produce more at
eighteen, than uncultivated soils do at eight and
twenty. [Same date.]
Chesterfield a Censor-Critic.—While the
Roman republic flourished, while glory was pursued
and virtue practised, and while even little irregularities
and indecencies, not cognizable by law, were,
however, not thought below the public care, censors
were established, discretionally to supply, in particular
cases, the inevitable defects of the law, which
must, and can only be general. This employment
