LONDON,July 9,O.S.1750.
MY DEAR FRIEND:I should not deserve that appellation in return from you,if I did not freely and explicitly inform you of every corrigible defect which I may either hear of,suspect,or at any time discover in you.
Those who,in the common course of the world,will call themselves your friends;or whom,according to the common notions of friendship,you may possibly think such,will never tell you of your faults,still less of your weaknesses.But,on the contrary,more desirous to make you their friend,than to prove themselves yours,they will flatter both,and,in truth,not be sorry for either.Interiorly,most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.The useful and essential part of friendship,to you,is reserved singly for Mr.Harte and myself:our relations to you stand pure and unsuspected of all private views.
In whatever we say to you,we can have no interest but yours.We are therefore authorized to represent,advise,and remonstrate;and your reason must tell you that you ought to attend to and believe us.
I am credibly informed,that there is still a considerable hitch or hobble in your enunciation;and that when you speak fast you sometimes speak unintelligibly.I have formerly and frequently laid my thoughts before you so fully upon this subject,that I can say nothing new upon it now.I must therefore only repeat,that your whole depends upon it.
Your trade is to speak well,both in public and in private.The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter,as more people have ears to be tickled,than understandings to judge.Be your productions ever so good,they will be of no use,if you stifle and strangle them in their birth.The best compositions of Corelli,if ill executed and played out of tune,instead of touching,as they do when well performed,would only excite the indignation of the hearer's,when murdered by an unskillful performer.But to murder your own productions,and that 'coram Populo',is a MEDEAN CRUELTY,which Horace absolutely forbids.
Remember of what importance Demosthenes,and one of the Gracchi,thought ENUNCIATION;and read what stress Cicero and Quintilian lay upon it;even the herb-women at Athens were correct judges of it.Oratory,with all its graces,that of enunciation in particular,is full as necessary in our government as it ever was in Greece or Rome.No man can make a fortune or a figure in this country,without speaking,and speaking well in public.If you will persuade,you must first please;and if you will please,you must tune your voice to harmony,you must articulate every syllable distinctly,your emphasis and cadences must be strongly and properly marked;and the whole together must be graceful and engaging:If you do not speak in that manner,you had much better not speak at all.
All the learning you have,or ever can have,is not worth one groat without it.It may be a comfort and an amusement to you in your closet,but can be of no use to you in the world.Let me conjure you,therefore,to make this your only object,till you have absolutely conquered it,for that is in your power;think of nothing else,read and speak for nothing else.Read aloud,though alone,and read articulately and distinctly,as if you were reading in public,and on the most important occasion.Recite pieces of eloquence,declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr.
Harte,as if he were a numerous audience.If there is any particular consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating,as I think you had with the R,utter it millions and millions of times,till you have uttered it right.Never speak quick,till you have first learned to speak well.In short,lay aside every book,and every thought,that does not directly tend to this great object,absolutely decisive of your future fortune and figure.
The next thing necessary in your destination,is writing correctly,elegantly,and in a good hand too;in which three particulars,I am sorry to tell you,that you hitherto fail.Your handwriting is a very bad one,and would make a scurvy figure in an office-book of letters,or even in a lady's pocket-book.But that fault is easily cured by care,since every man,who has the use of his eyes and of his right hand,can write whatever hand he pleases.As to the correctness and elegance of your writing,attention to grammar does the one,and to the best authors the other.In your letter to me of the 27th June,N.S.,you omitted the date of the place,so that I only conjectured from the contents that you were at Rome.
