confused images of vulgar poetry. Do not make
him repeat the finest passages of Shakespeare and Milton; the effect
is lost by repetition; the words, the ideas are profaned. Let your
pupils hear eloquence from eloquent lips, and they will own its power.
But let a drawling, unimpassioned reader, read a play of
Shakespeare's, or an oration of Demosthenes, and if your pupil is not
out of patience, he will never taste the charms of eloquence. If he
feels a fine sentiment, or a sublime idea, pause, leave his mind full,
leave his imagination elevated. Five minutes afterwards, perhaps, your
pupil's attention is turned to something else, and the sublime idea
seems to be forgotten: but do not fear; the idea is not obliterated;
it is latent in his memory; it will appear at a proper time, perhaps a
month, perhaps twenty years afterwards. Ideas may remain long useless,
and almost forgotten in the mind, and may be called forth by some
corresponding association from their torpid state.

Young people, who wish to make themselves orators or eloquent writers,
should acquire the habit of attending first to the general impression
made upon their own minds by oratory, and afterwards to the cause
which produced the effect; hence they will obtain command over the
minds of others, by using the knowledge they have acquired of their
own. The habit of considering every new idea, or new fact, as a
subject for allusion, may also be useful to the young orator. A change
from time to time in the nature of his studies, will enlarge and
invigorate his imagination. Gibbon says, that, after the publication
of his first volume of the Roman history, he gave himself a short
holyday. "I indulged my curiosity in some studies of a very different
nature: a course of anatomy, which was demonstrated by Dr. Hunter, and
some lessons of chemistry, which were delivered by Dr. Higgins. The
principles of these sciences, and a taste for books of natural
history, contributed to multiply my ideas and images; and the
anatomist and chemist may sometimes track me in their own snow."

Different degrees of enthusiasm are requisite in different
professions; but we are inclined to think, that the imagination might
with advantage be cultivated to a much higher degree than is commonly
allowed in young men intended for public advocates. We have seen
several examples of the advantage of a general taste for the belles
lettres in eminent lawyers;[72] and we have lately seen an ingeni