e lump, and are, like uncoined bullion,
of more weight than use; the liberal illustrator, who shows by examples
and comparisons what was clearly seen when it was first proposed; and
the stately son of demonstration, who proves with mathematical formality
what no man has yet pretended to doubt.

There is a mode of style for which I know not that the masters of
oratory have yet found a name; a style by which the most evident truths
are so obscured that they can no longer be perceived, and the most
familiar propositions so disguised that they cannot be known. Every
other kind of eloquence is the dress of sense; but this is the mask by
which a true master of his art will so effectually conceal it, that a
man will as easily mistake his own positions, if he meets them thus
transformed, as he may pass in a masquerade his nearest acquaintance.

This style may be called the _terrifick_, for its chief intention is to
terrify and amaze; it may be termed the _repulsive_, for its natural
effect is to drive away the reader; or it may be distinguished, in plain
English, by the denomination of the _bugbear style_, for it has more
terrour than danger, and will appear less formidable as it is more
nearly approached.

A mother tells her infant, that _two and two make four_; the child
remembers the proposition, and is able to count four to all the purposes
of life, till the course of his education brings him among philosophers,
who fright him from his former knowledge, by telling him, that four is a
certain aggregate of units; that all numbers being only the repetition
of an unit, which, though not a number itself, is the parent, root, or
original of all number, _four_ is the denomination assigned to a certain
number of such repetitions. The only danger is, lest, when he first
hears these dreadful sounds, the pupil should run away; if he has but
the courage to stay till the conclusion, he will find that, when
speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

An illustrious example of this species of eloquence may be found in
"Letters concerning Mind." The author begins by declaring, that "the
sorts of things are things that now are, have been, and shall be, and
the things that strictly _are_." In this position, except the last
clause, in which he uses something of the scholastick language, there is
nothing but what every man has heard, and imagines himself to know. But
who would not believe that some wonderful novelty is pre