are of no use. I look for
good and solid reasons at the first dash. I am for discourses that give
the first charge into the heart of the doubt; his languish about the
subject, and delay our expectation. Those are proper for the schools,
for the bar, and for the pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may
awake a quarter of an hour after, time enough to find again the thread
of the discourse. It is necessary to speak after this manner to judges,
whom a man has a design, right or wrong, to incline to favour his cause;
to children and common people, to whom a man must say all he can. I
would not have an author make it his business to render me attentive; or
that he should cry out fifty times _O yes_! as the clerks and heralds
do.

"As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, learning excepted, he
had no great natural parts. He was a good citizen, of an affable
nature, as all fat heavy men--(_gras et gausseurs_ are the words in the
original, meaning perhaps broad jokers, for Cicero was not fat)--such as
he was, usually are; but given to ease, and had a mighty share of vanity
and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking his
poetry fit to be published. 'Tis no great imperfection to write ill
verses; but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy
bad verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his
eloquence, that is totally out of comparison, and I believe will never
be equalled."

PREFACES.

A preface, being the entrance to a book, should invite by its beauty. An
elegant porch announces the splendour of the interior. I have observed
that ordinary readers skip over these little elaborate compositions. The
ladies consider them as so many pages lost, which might better be
employed in the addition of a picturesque scene, or a tender letter to
their novels. For my part I always gather amusement from a preface, be
it awkwardly or skilfully written; for dulness, or impertinence, may
raise a laugh for a page or two. A preface is frequently a superior
composition to the work itself: for, long before the days of Johnson, it
had been a custom for many authors to solicit for this department of
their work the ornamental contribution of a man of genius. Cicero tells
his friend Atticus, that he had a volume of prefaces or introductions
always ready by him to be used as circumstances required. These must
have been like our periodical essays. A good preface is as essential to
put