paper I had been long accustomed to read, made me, about a twelvemonth fince, order the Oracle instead of it. With the Oracle, Sir, I must own myself not ill pleased. I fhall now give you a moft fubftantial proof of my favour, by communicating fecrets to which you feem yet a stranger, but by which alone it is poffible to attain true newspaper perfection.

In the first place, Sir, let me, with the freedom of a friend, tell you you know nothing of that which conftitutes the true fine writing for a newspaper. What have you to do with purity of ftyle, delicacy of phrafe, finical correctnefs in grammar, the elegant turn of periods, or juftnefs and fplendid felicity of metaphors?

You write for the multitude, and they are any thing rather than finical in their tafte in literary compofition. A man likes beft that newspaper, which returns to his eye and ear the language he is himself accustomed to speak. Nay, he understands it beft. To the tradefman, to the farmer, to the fine gentleman looking on no books but newfpapers, and on newfpapers only for fporting intelligence; your grammatical accuracy, and your claffical phrases, are abfolutely as odious, and almoft as unintelligible, as Greek or Hebrew. No; you must catch the dialect of every trade and every province. Remember that London contains people from all parts of the British dominions: and if you only take care to give a preference to the favourite Cockney phrafes; the more you dafh your ftyle with what are by the pedantry of criticifm called provincialifms and colloquial barbarifms-why, fo much the better. They may talk of your slang; but the coarseft flang is the trueft eloquence, when it is adapted to the tafte of the great body of English readers.

"But," lay you, "there are ladies of tafts, and coffee-houfe critics, who deniand fine compofition in a morning paper." True, there are: but are you yet

to learn, that long fonorous words, a dashing pomp and incongruity of mixed metaphors, now the quaint, and now the low familiar; at all times a copious infufion of the cant words of fashionable converfation, are the beauties which the tafte of fuch readers chiefly admires? Are you a ftranger to the fuccefs of the Della Crufca poetry? Don't you know what novels are the greateft favourites with the ladies? Have you never looked into the verfes of the late Mary Robinson, or the profe of Mrs. Piozzi? What was it made Gibbon fo much a favourite with people of fashion, and with coffee-house critics? Undoubtedly the rumbling pomp of his ftyle; not at all, thofe claffical and philofophical beauties, which fome perfons who know not better, may, perhaps, fancy they admire.

A graceful negligence is, in drefs, in converfation, and in literary compofition, ever one of the most attractive charms. Is any thing more difgufting than to perceive even a lovely woman remarkably folicitous to avoid flips in grammar? What more charming than folecisms from the lips of beauty? It is amazing, Sir, that you do not more attentively cultivate this excellence for a newspaper. You rarely give a fpecimen of it, and, when you do, your performance wants the grace of nature. You feem to be ungrammatical, with remorfe, or by typographical accident, not with the felicity of native genius, nor of art practifed till it has become a fecond nature; nor of a lively ignorance infinitely preferable to all the pedantry of knowledge. Does any thing excite pleafantry fo fuccefsfully as a good bull? And what is a bull, but one of those foLecifms which I recommend? If you can but make people laugh, it little matters whether they laugh at you or with you. Depend upon it they will like him who amufes them; and fo much the better, if he make no pretenfions to tafte or understanding fuperior to their own. Befides, are not these the most confpi

euous

cuous beauties of those which have, fomehow, obtained the character of being leading prints? If you would have your paper attain to their fale and their celebrity, follow their example.

In your Reports of the Debates in Parliament, I would have you to be efpecially on your guard against being too strictly grammatical in your language. The public well knows, that in the hurry of political debate, many grammatical inaccuracies muft unavoidably escape from the lips even of the most eloquent fpeaker. If, then, you give a report entirely free of fuch inaccuracies, what furer proof can there be that your report is not faithful? Befides, it is in the highest degree infolent and impertinent to pretend to put into the mouth of any man, words more correct or elegant than his own. Write under the reality, and you are fafe. As you value fuccefs, dare not to write. above it.

A newspaper fhould always have a good deal of wit in it. But then, what fort of wit? Not flights of fancy, nor unexpected combinations of ideas, nor exhibitions of ridiculous characters, fuch as were never known before, but are fresh from the mint of nature and of genius. No, no; fuch would never do. That fort of wit is only for critics and connoiffeurs. Again, remember that you write and publish for the multitude. A pun, a quibble, a flale joke, a conundrum, a rebus, however fome people may turn up their nofes at them, never fail to please nine out of every ten newfpaper readers. Such is the wit which fets the boxes of a coffee-house in a roar; fuch is that which every fmart talker, in places of public refort, filches from the morning papers, to fupply his expenditure of wit till evening, and from the evening papers, to bear him out till the morning fhall again appear. Even those who affect to defpife fuch wit, are nevertheless pleased with it. What matters it that a joke is ftale, provided

it

it be good? You are fure to fhine when you plunder Joe Miller; for jefts which have picafed fo long, must infallibly continue to pieafe. It is much more prudent, therefore, to truft that manual, than to attempt new witticifmns of your own. Another fource of wit adapted to the humour and capacity of your readers, will be found in Swift's Pulite Converfation. He made that collection with the fupercilioufnefs of a critic, to ridicule the favourite phrafeology of fashionable converfation, and the wit which prevailed in all the genteel fociety of his time. He thought that nothing more was wanted to explode them for ever. How egregiously did he err! The very fame wit, the very fame converfational phrafeology, are still almost exclusively in vogue. Let his book be compared with the prevalent ftyle of wit and fashionable converfation, the truth will decifively appear to be as I relate. His book is therefore a nionument against himfelf, that he knew not what fort of wit was the moft congenial to the character of human nature. It is, at the fame time, a complete treasury of that fort which you may ufe with beft fuccefs. I advise you to use it freely..

The felection and tranflation of the news from the French and German gazettes and journals, are matters of no fmall importance in the compilation of an Englifh newspaper. If you would thine in this branch. of your bufinefs, be fure to keep in your tranflation as much as poffible of the original. Travellers, ambaffadors, and military officers ferving on the continent, have contributed more to enrich the English language, than all our claffical scholars and fine writers. Out of affectation or ignorance, or gentlemanly negligence, they embroidered their native English with a profufion

Of which a new and improved edition has lately been published by James Ridgway.

of

of untranflated foreign phrafes, Thofe phrafes, once introduced, were gradually naturalized, and now compofe a good deal of the moft expreffive and best founding parts of our speech and writing. The gazettes and news-letters of the reign of Queen Anne, were more than one half French: and to them we owe the best of the fettled phrafeology of our military eloquence. Spite of the fneers of Johnson and other pedants, their example has been ever fince laudably followed by newswriters, to the great improvement of our language in copioufnefs, and in anomalous variety. I contemplate with pride and fatisfaction the fuccefs of the labours of English news-writers in this way fince the æra of the French revolution. Once for all then, remember, that the more French and German in your tranflation, fo much the better. Befides, fhould you make them too plain English, you might be too eafily understood; you would not leave room fufficient for wonder and conjecture; you would want that happy ambiguity, without which, there is no denying what one fays, nor claiming what one does not fay.

Make a good ufe of these advices, and you shall not want for more.

April 10.

A. J.

8IR JEFFREY DUNSTAN AND THE ELEPHANT. [From the Morning Chronicle.]

MR. EDITOR,

HISTORY is perhaps never more usefully employed

than in comparing eminent men with one another; and the comparifon is ftill more beneficial when it is made between great living characters, and the illuftrious dead. For this reafon I have long been defirous to exhibit, as it were in one picture, the late Sir Jeffrey

Dunstan,