οὐδὲν δεῖ παραμπέχειν λόγους.1
You have seldom or never had the truth spoken to you when you have been directly addressed. You have been called the enlightened Public, the generous Public, the judicious Public, the liberal Public, the discerning Public, and so forth. Nay your bare title THE PUBLIC, oftentimes stands alone par excellence in its plain majesty like that of the king, as if needing no affix to denote its inherent and pre-eminent importance. But I will speak truth to you my Public.
Be not deceived! I have no bended knees,
No supple tongue, no speeches steep'd in oil,
No candied flattery, nor honied words!2
1 EURIPIDES.
2 RANDOLPH'S ARISTIPPUS.
I must speak the truth to you my Public,
Sincera verità non vuol tacersi.3
Where your enlightenedness (if there be such a word) consists and your generosity, and your judgement, and your liberality, and your discernment, and your majesty to boot,—to express myself as Whitfield or Rowland Hill would have done in such a case (for they knew the force of language)—I must say, it would puzzle the Devil to tell. Il faut librement avec verité francher ce mot, sans en estre repris; ou si l'on est, c'est très-mal à propos.4
3 CHIABRERA.
4 BRANTOME.