The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture XVII. ^a

Wednesday, Jan.^ry 5^th 1763

Having now given those observations I think necessary to the describing single objects both externall and internall, and the more important complex ones, as the characters of men and the more important and interesting actions; I might now proceed to Shew how [in] these are to be applied to the Oratoricall Composition; what objects, and what manner of describing them, and what circumstances were most Proper ^b to interest us and fixing our attention on one side perswade us to be of that opinion.

But as the particular directions already laid down naturally lead us to consider how they are to be applied in the most distinct manner, and where they are all conjoin’d, I shall first consider how they are to be applied to the historicall stile. Besides the narration makes a considerable part in every ^c Oration. It requires no small art to narrate properly those facts which are necessary for the | 13 Groundwork of the Oration. So that I would be necessitated to lay down rules for narration in generall, that is for the histo<ricall> Stile, before I could thoroughly explain The Rhetoricall composition.

The End of every discourse is either to narrate some fact or prove some proposition. When the design is to set the case in the clearest light; to give every argument its due force, and by this means persuade us no farther than our unbiassed judgement ^d is Convinced; this is no<t to> make use of the Rhetoricall Stile. But when we propose to persuade at all events, and for this purpose adduce those arguments that make for the side we have espoused, and magnify these to the utmost of our power; and on the other hand make light of and extenuate all those which may be brought on the other side, then we make use of the Rhetoricall Stile.

But when we narrate transactions ^e as they happened without being inclined to any party, we then | 14 write in the narrative Stile. The Didactic and the oratoricall compositions consist of two parts, the proposition which we lay down and the proof that is brought to confirm this; whether this proof be a strict one applyed to our reason and sound judgement, or one adapted to affect our passions and by that means persuade us at any rate. But in the narrative Stile there is only one Part, that is, the narration of the facts. There is no proposition laid down or proof to confirm it. When a historian brings anything to confirm the truth of a fact it is only a quotation in the margin or a parenthesis and as this makes no part of the work it can not be said to be ^f a part of the didactick. But when a historian sets himself to compare the evidence that is brought for the proof of any fact and way the arguments on both Side<s> this is assuming the Character of a Didactick writer.

| 15 The facts which are most commonly narrated and will be most adapted to the taste of the generality of men will be those that are interesting and important. Now these must be the actions of men; The most interesting and important of these are such as have contributed to great revolutions and changes in States and Governments. The changes or accidents that have happend to innanimate or irrationall beings can not greatly interest us; we look upon them to be guided in a great measure by chance, and undesigning instinct; Design and Contrivance is what chiefly interests us, and the more of this we conceive to be in any transaction the more we are concerned in it. A history of earthquakes or other naturall Phenomena, tho it might Contain great variety of incidents, and be very agreable to a naturallist 1 who had entered deeply into these matters, and by that means concei| 16ved them to be of considerable importance, as we do of everything that we have gone so far into as to have some notion of its extent, yet it would appear very dull and uninteresting to the generallity of mankind. The ^g accidents that befall irrationall objects affect us merely by their externall appearance, their Novelty, Grandeur etc. but those which affect the human Species interest us greatly by the Sympatheticall affections they raise in us. W<e> enter into their misfortunes, grieve when they grieve, rejoice when they rejoice, and in a word feel for them in some respect as if we ourselves were in the same condition.

The design of ^h historicall writing is not merely to entertain; (this perhaps is the intention of an epic poem) besides that it has in view the instruction of | 17 the reader. It sets before us the more interesting and important events of human life, points out the causes by which these events were brought about and by this means points out to us by what manner and method we may produce similar good effects or avoid Similar bad ones.

{Should one lay down certain principles which he afterwards confirmed by examples This work would have the same end as a history but the means would be different, it would not be a narrative but a didactick writing.} — —

In this it differs from a Romance the Sole view of which is to entertain. This being the end, it is of no consequence whether the incidents narrated be true or false. A well contrived Story may be as interesting and entertaining as any real one: the causes which brought about the several incidents that are narrated may all be very ingeniously contrived and well adapted to their severall ends, but still as the facts are not such as have realy existed, the end pro| 18posed by history will not be answered. The facts must be real, ⁱ otherwise they will not assist us in our future conduct, by pointing out the means to avoid or produce any event ^j . Feigned Events and the causes contrived for them, as they did not exist, can not inform us of what happend in former times, nor of consequence assist us in a plan of future conduct.

Some hints of this Sort, pointing out the view with which the author undertook his Work, whether he was induced to it by the importance of the facts or whether it was to remedy the innaccuracy or ^k partiallity of former writers, and also showing us what we may expect to find in the work, would form a much better subject for the preface or beginning of the work (where Tacitus 2 has applied them) than Commonplace–morality as that with which Sallust introduces his works. These however pretty have no connection with the matter in hand, and might have been any| 19where else as well as where they are. This much with regard to the preface.

The next thing that comes to be considered in the course of the history is the Causes which brought about the effects that are to be narrated. And here it may be questioned whether we are to relate the remoter causes or only the more immediate ones which preceded the events. If the events are very interesting they will so far attract our attention that we can not be satisfied unless we know something of the causes which brought them about. If these causes again be very important, we for the same reason require to have some account of the causes which produced them. But these need not be so accurately explaind as the more ^l immediate ones, and so on gradually diminishing the importance of the cause till at last we satisfy the Reader.

In general the more remote any cause is the less circumstantially it may be | 20 described. Thus Sallust in his Jugurthan war, where the immediate cause of that event was the character of that Prince and the State of the Numidian affairs at the death of Micipsa, dwells but little on the events that preceded that Reign. These he points out more minutely but less so than those that happened in Jugurthas life; and in it too those that happen’d in his infancy or when he was in the Roman Camp are much less accurately explained than those which immediately preceded and were intimately connected with the Chief events. Had he dwelt more on the events that happend before Micipsa’s reign, he would have been necessitated to have explained those that preceded them and so on in infinitum. By not attending to this method the Introduction to the ^m history fills a whole folio volume; Gordon 3 who translated Tacitus tells us that when he set about writing the ⁿ Life of | 21 Oliver Cromwell he found the Events in that Period so connected with those before the Reformation and those again with the former Reigns that he was obliged to go as far back as the ^o Conquest, and by going on in the same way he would have fou[u]nd himself ^p reduced to the necessity of tracing the whole back even to the ^q fall of Adam. It is always however necessary to give some reason for the events which more immediately preceded the Chief cause, but this may often be done in such a manner as to prevent any farther Curiosity. Thus Sallust when he tells us that the Cause of the Cataline conspiracy 4 was the Temper and character of that man and the circumstances of his life, join’d with the corrupt manners of the people. Here we naturally demand how it came to pass that a people once so strictly virtuous and sober should have degenerated so much, he tells us that it was owing to the Luxury introduced by their Asiatick conquests. This altogether | 22 satisfies us; as those conquests and their circumstances however interesting appear no way connected with the matters in hand.

| v.18 ^r {The more lively and shocking the impression is which any Phænomenon makes on the mind the greater curiosity does it excite to know its Causes, tho perhaps the Phænomenon may not be intrinsically half so grand or important as another less Striking. Thus it is that we have have a greater Curiosity to pry into the cause of thunder and Lightning and of the Cœlestiall Motions | v.19 than of Gravity because they naturally make a greater impression on us. Hence it is that we have naturally a greater curiosity to examine the Causes and Relations of those things which pass without us than of those which pass within us, the latter naturally making very little impression. The associations of our Ideas, the progress and origin of our Passions, are what very few think of enquiring into. But when one has turned his thoughts that way and made some enquiries he begins to think these matters to be of importance and is therefore interested in them. ^s

A Historian therefore is to expose the causes of every thing only in proportion to the impression it makes. Now the Cause of the Event makes a less impression than the Event itself and so excites less curiosity with regard to its Cause; that cause therefore is to be touched upon more slightly, and by being so it excites but very little Curiosity about its Cause, which therefore | v.20 may be still more superficially mentioned. It is thus that Salust ascribes the Conspiracy of Cataline to the Characters and Circumstances of Certain Persons in the State; these he traces to the Generall profligacy and Luexury then prevailing in Rome, which at length he deduces from the Conquest of Asia, where he leaves us fully satisfied that we know all that is necessary of the matter and not disposed to enter into the origin of these conquests, however convinced that the enquiry would be curious at a proper time} ^r

The causes that may be assigned for any event are of two Sorts; either the externall causes which directly produced it, or the internall ones, that is those causes that tho’ they no way affected the event yet had an influence on the minds of the chief actors so as to alter their conduct from what it would otherwise have been . . . ^t We may observe on this head that those who have been engaged in the transactions they relate or others of the same Sort, generally dwell on those of the first Sort. Thus Cæsar, Polybius and Thucydides, who had all been engaged in most of the battles they describe, account for the fate of the battle by the Situation of the two armies, the nature of the Ground, the weather etc.—Those on the other hand who have little acquaintance with the particular incidents of this sort that determine events, but have made enquiries into the nature of the human mind and | 23 the severall passions, endeavour by ^u means of the circumstances that would influence them, to account for the fate of battles and other events, which they could not have done by those causes ^v that immediately determine them. Thus Tacitus who seems to have been but little versant in Military or indeed publick affairs of any sort, always account<s> for the event of a battle by the circumstances that would influence the mind of the Combatants.

This difference in the manner of accounting for events is very plainly seen in the Description of a battle in the night; one by Thucydides and the other by Tacitus. 5 The former mentions all the causes the nature of the ^w circumstances would have on the armies; whereas the Other has entirely omitted these and mentiond solely those that would affect the minds of the Combatants with lesser courage etc. The 1^st is the account of the attack of Syracuse by the Athenians and the latter of the battle betwixt Vespasian and Vitellius generall.

| 24 The describing of characters is no essentiall part of a historicall narration; The temper of the person of the actors at the different times will be sufficient. Xenophon in his account of the Retreat of the 10000 Greeks describes very accurately the Characters of the 3 commanders who were betrayed by Artaxerxes. 6 {Xenophon is almost the only antient Historian who professedly draws characters} ^x In his Greek history likewise tho he does <not> enter on purpose on the describing of characters but ^y by the different circumstances and particular incidents he relates the characters are sufficiently plain. Herodotus and Thucydides hard[ad]ly describe any characters. Herod<otus> indeed has ^z some exclamations on the characters of the different persons, but such generall ones as are not to be called characters, and might be equally applicable to 100 others. {as in the Exclamations on the virtues of Pericles. 7 —A man of grave or a merry, of a good nature, or morose temper, may advance to battle or scale the walls with equall intrepidity.} Tis not the degrees of virtue or vice, of courage, good nature etc. that distinguish a character, as the particular turns they have received from the temper and turn of the mind of the severall individualls. Thucydides | 25 gives us no account of characters at all. This we can not attribute to want of ability, as he was personally acquainted with most of the characters he would have had occasion to describe and has shewn his skill in this art, in the admirable Characters he has given of whole communities, as of the Athenians 8 after the ^a and of ^a which is still more difficult than the describing of characters of single persons; we must then attribute this conduct to an opinion that it ^b was not at all necessary.

There is no author who has more distinctly explained the causes of events than Thucydides. He is in this respect far superior to Polybius, who is at such great pains in minutely explaining all the externall causes of any event that his labour appears visibly in his works and is not only tiresome but at the same time is less pleasant by the constraint the author seems to have been in. Thucydides on the o| 26ther hand often expresses all that he labours so much in a word or two, sometimes placed in the middle of the narration but in such a manner as not in the least to confound it. Next to Thucydides come Xenophon and Tacitus; This last has often been censured as being too deep a Politician. The author of this remark was I think {Trajan Boccalini 9 } ^c an Italian, who has been implicit<l>y <followed> ^d by all the petty criticks since his time. This remark was very naturall at that time when such subtility prevailed and Machiavelian politicks were in fashion; but does not seem at all suitable to the ingenuous temper of Tacitus, nor is it confirmed by his writings. In the beginning of his history of the affaires in the Reign of Tiberius he gives us some politicall remarks on the Genius and temper of that Prince, 10 but this ^e is sufficiently justified by the character of cunning and design given him by other authors. In other parts of his work the pains he is | 27 at to explain the causes of events from the ^f internall causes seems to pont out a conterary temper.

Livy seldom endeavours to account for events in either way, by the external or internal causes, and those who are acquainted with millitary affairs affirm that he is not altogether clear in his accounts of battles or sieges. He supports the dignity of his narration by the interesting manner in which he relates the severall events; which he does so admirably that we enter into all the concerns of the parties and are allmost as much affected with them as if we ourselves had been concerned in them.

Events as we before observed may be described either in a direct or indirect manner. We observed also that in most cases the indirect method is much preferable, even when the objects were inanimate; much more then will it be to be chosen when we describe the ^g actions | 28 of men where the effects are so much stronger; as the actions themselves are more interesting. ’Tis ^h the proper use of this method that makes most of the ancient historians, as Thucydides, so interesting; and the neglecting it that has rendered the modern historians for the most part so dull and so lifeless. The ancients carry us as it were into the very circumstances of the actors, we feel for them as it were for ourselves. {They show us the feelings and agitation of Mind in the Actors previous to and during the Event. They Point to us also the Effects and Consequences of the Event not only in the intrinsick change it made on the Situation of the Actors but the manner of behaviour with which they supported them} ⁱ

One method which most modern historians and all the Romance writers take to render their narration interesting is to keep their event in Suspense. Whenever the story is beginning to point to the grand event they turn to something else and by this means get us to read thro a number of dull nonsensicall stories, our ^j curiosity prompting us to get at the important event, as {Ariosto in his Orlando Furioso.} This method the ancients never made use of, they trusted not to the readers Curiosity alone, but relied on the | 29 importance of the facts and the interesting manner in which they narrated them. Livy when he relates the affecting catastrophe of the Fabii and the ^k Battle of Cannæ does not endeavour to conceall the event but on the other hand gives us a plain intimation what will be the event of those expeditions before they are related. 11 {In cassum misse ^l Preces} ^m Yet this does not in the least diminish our concern on the relation, which by the lively manner in which he has executed it engage<s> ⁿ us as much as if it had been intirely unknown. This method has besides this advantage that ^o we can then with patience attend to the less important intervening accidents, which if the great event had been intirely concealed, our curiosity would make us hurry over; We would count the pages we had to read to get to the event, as we generally do in a Novel. {Nay in some cases ^p this warning has a very manifest and considerable advantage. Thus after being given to know that the Generous attempt of the Fabii was to fail we read every future circumstance and the progress of their expedition with a melancholy which is extremely pleasing. Livy seems almost with design to give Warning of the Event of his battles as of Thrasymene 12 and Cannæ} ^q

| 30 As newness is the only merit in a Novel and curiosity the only motive which induces us to read them, the writers are necessitated to make use of this method to keep it up. Even ^r the Antient Poets who had not reality on their side never have recourse to this method, the importance of the naration they trust will keep us interested. Virgil in the beginning of the Æneid and Homer in both his heroick poems inform us in the beginning of the chief events that are told in the whole poem.

Even in Tragedy where it is reckoned an essentiall part to keep the plot in Suspence this is not so necessary as in Romance. ^s A tragedy can bear to be read again and again, tho the incidents be not new to us they are new to the actors and by this means interest us as well as by their own importance.

{The graduall and just developement of the Catastrophe constitutes a great beauty in any Tragedy yet is it not a necessary one, otherwise we could never with any pleasure hear or see acted a play for the Second time; yet that pleasure often grows by Repetition.

Euripides often in his Prologues by means of a God or a Ghost makes us acquainted with the Events and puts us on our Guard that we may be free to attend to the Sentiments and Action of each Scene, some of which he has laboured greatly.} ^t

[a]MS XVI

[b]to perswade, deleted

[c]replaces the

[d]incline deleted

[e]replaces facts

[f]said to be replaces called any

[1 ]The common seventeenth– and eighteenth–century word for student of natural philosophy, physicist.

[g]affairs deleted; of naturall deleted after accidents

[h]a deleted

[i]for deleted

[j]This deleted

[k]ig deleted

[2 ]This does no justice to the skill with which both Tacitus and Sallust lead into their particular histories from an observation on the great deeds of the past, the need to preserve them from oblivion, and the disinterestedness which historians share with those they chronicle: cf. Agricola i and Bellum Catilinae I.i. But Bolingbroke thought introductions such as Sallust’s or Thucydides’ might introduce any history: see his letter to Pope, 18 Aug. 1724, The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. G. Sherburn (1956), ii.252 (printed in Bolingbroke’s Works, 1754, ii.501 8, as ‘A plan for a general history of Europe’). He considered Machiavelli’s History of Florence, Book i. ‘a noble Original of this kind’ and Paolo Sarpi’s Treatise on benefices inimitable in this respect.

[l]import deleted

[m]blank of ten letters in MS

[3 ]Thomas Gordon (1690?–1750), miscellaneous writer and pamphleteer, translated the works of Tacitus (1728, 1731) with twenty–two extensive ‘Political Discourses’ on him. In the preface to his translation of the works of Sallust (1744, p.xxi) he tells of the history of England on which he is engaged: ‘My first intention was to write the life of Cromwell only, but, as I found that, in order to describe his times it was necessary to describe the times which preceded and introduced him, and that I could not begin even at the Reformation without recounting many public incidents before the Reformation, I have begun at the Conquest and gone through several Reigns, some of these seen and approved by the ablest judges, such judges as would animate the slowest ambitions. Half of it will probably appear a few years hence; the whole will conclude with the “History of Cromwell”.’ His History of England (British Library Add. MS 20780) ends in mid–sentence at 1610; but small parts were printed in his Collection of Papers (1748) and Essays against Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Power (1750?).

[n]events in the Blac deleted

[o]Reformation, deleted

[p]as much deleted

[q]very deleted

[4 ]Bellum Catilinae, I.xi.

[r–r]Hand B’s note begins on v.18 opposite If these causes (19) and ends opposite the appropriate point corrupt manners of the people (21)

[s]this sentence inserted by Hand A vertically in inner margin of v.19, keyed for insertion after into

[   ][[see note r–rabove]]

[t]so in MS

[u]their deleted

[v]procee deleted

[5 ]Thucydides, VII.xliii–xlv; Tacitus, Historiae, III.xxii–xxiv but the Vitellians, in the absence of Vitellius, had no ‘generall’.

[w]Army deleted

[6 ]Anabasis, II.vi: Clearchus, Proxenus, Menon.

[x]Hand B

[y]i.e. yet

[z]replaces gives

[7 ]Not traceable in Herodotus.

[8 ]i.e. after the disaster of Syracuse (VII.lxxxvii), cf. ii.8 n.3 above. VIII.i describes the effects on the Athenians of the news of the disaster.

[a–a]two blanks in MS of about ten letters each

[b]replaces this

[9 ]Traiano Boccalini: Commentari sopra Cornelio Tacito (1669); cf. ii.69 n.4 below.

[c]Hand B, correcting Hand A’s Bathesar Castigliond (deleted)

[d]supplied conjecturally: reading doubtful

[10 ]Annales, I.iv.

[e]conduct deleted

[f]character deleted

[g]effects deleted

[h]is in deleted

[i]Hand B

[j]replaces by the; prompting us replaces we have

[k]ruinous deleted

[11 ]II.xlviii–l. The crowd cheering the Fabii on their way against the Veientes pray to the gods for their success, but ‘in cassum missae preces’, in vain (xlix.8). Cf. ii.43 n.9 below. The battle of Cannae, Hannibal’s great victory in 216 bc, is described by Livy at XXII.xliii–xlix; cf. ii.56 n.8 below.

[l]or missi (?)

[m]Hand B

[n]replaces interests

[o]replaces which

[p]it has deleted

[12 ]Hannibal’s destruction of the army of Flaminius at Lake Trasimene in 217 bc: Livy XXII.iv–vi.

[q]Hand B

[r]But deleted; Even and Antient in Hand B above the line

[s]It is not the novelty alone that deleted

[t]Hand B, but last seven words in Hand A, last five vertically in margin