3 16 On the Nature and Utility of Eloquence. 



on interefting occafions, to ufe thofc forms of 

 fpeech (even the mod complex) which rhetori- 

 cians have arranged and named. Perhaps no 

 language is more natural than that which abounds 

 with figure and allufion. Yet Hill ability alone 

 is not fufficient; and a living man, of high rank 

 in politics, might be pointed out, who, though 

 gifted far beyond any of his cotemporarie's, and 

 greatly fuperior to them in acquirements, has 

 yet been often found an ufelefs, and fometimes a 

 dangerous auxiliary, becaufe he wanted the fkill 

 to manage his prodigious powers. He is ever 

 faying fomething only for the fake of faying it ; 

 merely becaufe it is fingular, beautiful or fub- 

 lime, and without any regard to its efFeft on his 

 auditors. A real thought he never can difmifs, 

 till he has made it the fubjedt of innumerable 

 comparifons, or darkened it by fuperabundant il- 

 luftration. If it be poflible for fuch a wafte of 

 talents to be occafioned by a deficiency in the art 

 we are fpeaking of, it may not be amifs to con- 

 fider, whether the definition of it given by Dr. 

 Campbell be the true one, and, at the fame 

 time, to examine the opinions of the other cele- 

 brated writers, whofe definitions I have quoted, 

 as they are maintained and defended by two au- 

 thors of great reputation, and of peculiar abi- 

 lities for the difcuflion of fuch a fubjeft. Dr. 

 Browne and Dr. Leland, both of whorp have 

 ftated their fentiments at length j the former in 



his 



