cks
which we had witnessed of men who had set out in life from the humbler
levels, with the determination of pressing their way upwards. And
feeling somewhat after the manner that an old sailor would feel who saw
a crew of young ones setting out to thread their way through some
dangerous strait, the perils of which he had already encountered, or to
sail round some formidable cape, which, after many an unsuccessful
attempt, he had doubled, we fancied ourselves in the position of one
qualified to give them some little advice regarding the navigation of
the seas on which they were just entering. But, be the fact of
qualification as it may, we found ourselves, after leaving the room,
addressing them, in imagination, in a few plain words, regarding some
of the rocks, and shoals, and insidious currents, which we knew lay in
their course. Men whose words come slowly and painfully when among
their fellows, can be quite fluent enough when they speak inwards
without breaking silence, and have merely an imaginary assemblage for
their audience; and so our short address went off glibly, without
break or interruption, in the style of ordinary conversational
gossip. There are curious precedents on record for the printing of
unspoken speeches. Rejecting, however, all the higher ones, we shall be
quite content to take our precedent from the famous speech which the
'indigent philosopher' addresses, in one of Goldsmith's _Essays_, to Mr.
Bellowsmender and the Cateaton Club. The philosopher begins, it will
be remembered, by telling his imaginary audience, that though Nathan
Ben Funk, the rich Jew, might feel a natural interest in the state of
the stocks, it was nothing to them, who had no money; and concludes
by quoting the 'famous author called Lilly's Grammar.'

'Members of the Scottish Young Men's Society,' we said, 'it is rather
late in life for the individual who now addresses you to attempt
acquiring the art of the public speaker. Those who have been most in
the habit of noticing the effect of the several mechanical professions
on character and intellect, divide them into two classes--the
_sedentary_ and the _laborious_; and they remark, that while in the
_sedentary_, such as the printing, weaving, tailoring, and shoemaking
trades, there are usually a considerable proportion of fluent
speakers, in the _laborious_ trades, on the other hand, such as those
of the mason, ship-carpenter, ploughman, and blacksmith, one
generally meets wit