Imatges de pàgina
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Judges, audience, or perfons he would perfuade : that the thing perfuaded may also appear honorable, just, and serviceable, &c.

Q. What is the bufinefs of arguments from the Affections?

A. To move the paffions, or to pleafe.

Q What is meant by arguments from the affections or paffions?

A. That he, who would gain his point in perfuafion, must endeavour thoroughly to understand the frame of human nature, and thereby work upon the affections, which God has placed in human minds as fecret fprings to all our actions. For as Tully obferves, plura enim multo homines judicant odio, aut amore, aut cupiditate, aut iracundiâ, aut spe, aut timore, aut errore, aut aliquá permotione mentis, quàm veritate. .Cic. de Orat 2. 42.

Q. How do you define the affections or paffions? A. They are certain emotions of the foul,accompa nied either with pleasure or pain. The four chief paffions are, joy, refulting from fome present good; hope, arifing from fome future good; grief, occafioned by fome present evil; and fear, caused by some future evil. To thefe may be added, anger, lenity, madefty, impudence, love, hatred, matice, envy, compaffion, emulation, &c.

Q. What is difpofition?

A. Difpofition is the proper ranging of the arguments or parts of an oration.

Q. How many parts are there in an oration, and in what order fhould they stand?

A. The parts of an oration or declamation are ufually reckoned fix, and generally stand in this order exordium, narration, propofition, confirmation, refutation, and peroratian.

Q. What do you understand by the exordium of an oration?

A. The exordium, or beginning of an oration, is that part, in which we are to give our audience fome intimation of our subject, and from the nature of it to prepare their minds to benevolence and attention. In which part the speaker ought to be clear, modeft, and concise.

Q. What is the narration?

A. The narration is a brief recital of the whole cafe from beginning to end: which ought to be plain, that it may be understood; likely, that it may be credited; pleafing, that it may be listened to; and short, that it may not tire.

Q. What do you understand by the propofition? A. The propofition is an explanation of the purport, or fum of the whole difcourfe, or thing in difpute. If it divides the oration into parts, (which ought never to exceed three or four at most) it is called partition.

Q. What is the confirmation in the oration?

A. The confirmation is that part, which contains the proofs or arguments we use to strengthen and enforce our fubject. In this part of a discourse rhetoricians advife, that our strongest arguments be fet in the front, the weakest in the middle, and that some few of the best be kept as a referve. Vid. Cic. de Orat. 2. 27.

Q. What is the refutation?

A. The refutation, or confutation, is an answer to all our adverfary's arguments; and takes off all his objections, by fhowing them to be abfurd, false, or inconfiftent.

QWhat is the peroration?

A. The peroration, or conclufion, is a recapitulation of the strongest arguments, brought into one view, as the rays of the fun are drawn into a focus; efpecially fuch as are most likely to move the paffions, and affect the heart, convince the judgment, or enlighten the understanding.

EXAMPLES,

BY WAY OF

Illuftration of the foregoing RULES.

SATAN's Speech to his Rebel Hoft.

(a) MYRIADS of immortal Spi'rits, O powers
Matchlefs, but with the Almighty, and that ftrife
Was not inglorious, though the event was dire,
As this place teftifies, and this dire change
Hateful to utter.-(b)-But what pow'r of mind
Foreseeing or prefaging, from the depth

Of knowledge paft or prefent, could have fear'd,
How fuch united force of gods, how such
As flood like these, could ever know repulse?
For who can yet believe, though after loss,
That all these puiffant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heaven, fhall fail to reafcend
Self-rais'd, and repoffefs their native seat?
For Me be witnefs all the hoft of Heaven,
If counfels different, or danger fhun'd
By Me, have loft our hopes. But he who reigns
Monarch in Heaven, till then at once fecure

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Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,
Confent or custom, and his regal state

Put forth at full, but ftill his ftrength conceal'd,
Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.
Henceforth His might we know, and know our own
So, as not either to provoke, or dread

New war, provok'd-(c)—Our better part remains
To work in clofe defign, by fraud or guile,
What force effected not: that he no lefs
At length from us may find, Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
(d)-Space may produce new worlds; whereof so

rife

There went a fame in Heav'n that He ere-long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the fons of Heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, fhall be perhaps
Our firft eruption, thither or elsewhere:
(e)-For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial fp'rits in bondage, nor th' abyfs
Long under darkness cover. (f)But these thoughts
Full counfel must mature: peace is defpair'd,
For who can think fubmiffion?-War then, War
Open or understood must be refolv'd.

MILTON, Parad. Loft, Book 1. 622.

(c) Propofition.
(d) Confirmation.

(e) Refutation.

(f) Peroration.

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