of their opponents; and misguides the judgment in the estimate of their arguments. A speaker, sure of being in the majority when the vote comes to be taken, has a constant stimulus to subdue argument by arrogance, and to shield his inability to answer with disdain. An orator, certain of appearing in the minority upon the question, is discouraged from exerting that energy, which he knows must be ineffectual; and leaves the apparent triumph of reason, to follow the real victory of suffrage. In both these cases they answer too little; a fault, into which I hope none of you will ever suffer yourselves to be betrayed by the insolence of conscious strength, or the despair of conscious weakness. But the most inexcusable of all the errors in confutation is that of answering yourself, instead of your adversary; which is done whenever you suppress, or mutilate, or obscure, or misstate, his reasoning, and then reply not to his positions, but to those, which you have substituted in their stead. This practice is often the result of misapprehension, when a disputant mistakes the point of the argument, urged by his adversary; but it often arises also from design; in which case it should be clearly detected and indignantly exposed. The duty of a disputant is fairly to take

and fully to repel the idea of his opponent, and not his own. To misrepresent the meaning of your antagonist evinces a want of candor, which the auditory seldom fail to perceive, and which engages their feelings in his favor. When involved in controversy then, never start against yourself frivolous objections for the sake of showing how easily you can answer them. Quinctilian relates an anecdote of the poet Accius, which every controversial writer or speaker will do well to remember. Accius was a writer of tragedies, and being once asked why he, whose dialogue was cel ebrated for its energy, did not engage in the prac tice at the bar, answered, because in his tragedies he could make his characters say what he pleased; but that at the bar he should have to contend with persons, who would say any thing but what he pleased. There can be no possible advantage in supposing our antagonist a fool. The most probable effect of such an imagination is to prove ourselves so.

We have now gone through the consideration of that most important of all the parts of a discourse, the proof. We have investigated its nature in both its branches; of confirmation and With respect to the order, in

of confutation.

which they are to be adduced, the ancient precepts and the modern practice make it follow the natural order of accusation and defence. The plaintiff first brings forth his confirmation, and canvasses objections afterwards. The defendant pursues an inverted order. In the arrangement of our proofs we are directed to imitate the principles, upon which armies are arrayed for battle; to place our strongest arguments in the front and the rear, and inclose those of untested courage and doubtful fidelity in the centre. But for the purposes of conviction the station, in which your arguments are posted, is far less important, than their quality. They are to be estimated by their weight, and not by their numbers. Their efficacy may depend upon the manner, in which they are presented. They are never averse, and seldom inaccessible to ornament. But strength is the touchstone of their existence; and there is perhaps no question so intricate, but that for its decision we may say in the familiar language of the poet, that

Where one's proofs are aptly chosen,

Four are as valid, as four dozen.

LECTURE XXIII.

DIGRESSION AND TRANSITION.

IT is perhaps impossible to form a systematic classification of any great and complicated object in nature, art, or science, which shall include, within a formal distribution of parts, every particular incidental to its composition. There are certain anomalies belonging to the system, as fully as any of its regular parts, which yet resist every attempt to bring them under the discipline of a general arrangement. The framers of systems are commonly driven to the expedient of assigning them a separate and miscellaneous apartment by themselves; and, however different their characters may be from each other, to assemble them under the single standard of their common insubordination.

Of this description are those accidents of discourse, concerning which I am now to speak, digression and transition. They are thrown together, not from any natural similitude between them, but merely because they are not reducible to any of the heads of a general division, and yet are among the most common ingredients of every public discourse.

I have thought them entitled to a particular lecture by themselves, under this general department of disposition. From their very miscellaneous nature, it was not very material where in the order of arrangement this lecture should be assigned. The practice of preceding writers has so much varied, as to leave the choice of position quite arbitrary; but I have concluded, that the most suitable place for a lecture, itself digressional from our regular subject, would be immediately before that, which will treat of the conclusion; and after those, which have explained all the other essential parts of a public oration.

The terms of art, originally used by the Greek writers, are almost universally significant. The digression was by them termed Tagenbaσis, meaning literally something outside of the foundation; and it is defined by Quinctilian an extraordinary