barrafTment. If an Orator be not perfectly 
at eafe, he will give to his audience rather 
pain than pleafure: they perceive his em- 
bar raflment, and they feel it : let it, there- 
fore, be his firfl care, to diveft himfelf of 
that troublefome companion which the 
French call mauvaife honte-, that offspring of 
confcious inferiority; that badge of low 
breeding; that frequent, very frequent, ob- 
flacle in the road to pre-eminence; that dif- 
grace of man ! 
But, you will afk me, by what means this 
gracefulnefs, this urbanity of manner, is to 
be attained ? Is it by precepts or rules ? 
By neither; but by example and by prac- 
tice: for, without example, you can form 
no idea of aje nefcai quoi; a thing incapable 
of defcription. Yet, in faying, that it is to 
be learnt by example, I do not mean that 
the manner of any individual orator is to be 
copied. No: he mud be ftudied folely for 
the purpofe of afllfting your mind in form- 
ing a juft idea of that kincj of action and at- 
titude, which, at once, diftinguifhes a man 
of the polite world from a ruftic. 
Where are we to look for thefe examples, 
thefe modals of gracefulnefs? In the Se- 
nate ? I have heard, in my time, fome 
graceful 
