Imprimis. Oratio Floridensis.
GENTLEMEN,
Though tautology is allowable in practice, I don’t approve on’t theoretically; therefore I shall plainly, fully, openly, and concisely, I hope, acquit myself, without being critical, or political, or satyrical, or mystical, or rhetorical, or schismatical, or chimerical, or whimsical.—I’ll give no utterance to any arrogance, with dissonance of deliverance, nor countenance any exorbitance of intemperance, ignorance, or extravagance: what I communicate I shall authenticate, and I beg you’ll compassionate: I will not exaggerate, nor contaminate, nor depreciate, nor discriminate, an intemperate candidate, at any rate. But I prognosticate he must be a profligate, reprobate, and illiterate, apt to prevaricate, hesitate, and degenerate.—I’ll use no eloquence in this conference, in confidence, the consequence of my diligence will evidence the excellence of my innocence, with reference to your preference.
Let others, by a flourish of words, fancy it an accomplishment or an embellishment, by the tongue’s blandishment, it is an astonishment that some speakers are so impertinent to the detriment of every eminent fundament of rudiment.
I take this opportunity without ambiguity, void of incongruity, with perspicuity by narrative, to assert my prerogative without preparative, or provocative.
I shall now conclude without a multitude of solicitude; for the aptitude of men to ingratitude is too plain, so I’ll insist that Shakespeare, and Milton, were sophistical scribblers, and bad luck to the man, who invented the alphabet; oratory is composed of two parts, weeds and flowers; the weeds of metaphor are the roots of Rhetorick; and the flowers of phrase compose the nosegay of Eloquence. A set of Philosophers are like a bundle of brushwood, when they are lighted up by the fire of dispute, and put into the oven of altercation; then out comes the crum and crust of fair argument.
LIFE.
In considering the impatient ardour of the passions in youth, we might be led to suppose that life was to last but for a day; but the precautions of the aged seem to be such as if it was eternal.