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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1798 edition. Excerpt: ...depends upon eafe and fluency of fpeech. The talent is rendered a peculiar one: two circumftances have rendered it fo; the variety and the inftantaneoufnefs of the occafions. Hence not only tedenefs and elegance are required from the advocate upon important and elaborate matters, but a quicknefs of exprefllon alfo, calculated for fhort and fhrewd debate; for you muft have obferved that there are numberlefs occafions, in the courfe of pra&ice, in which a readinefs of obfervation and reply have ftood him in better ftead, than all the mof t foh'd powers of the judgment combined together at that moment could perform. Men are apt to be caught by that activity of fpeech, which, as it is often the talent of an inferior mind, is not to be regarded as the ftandard of great powers; but which will ever be advantageous to them in this fort of commerce with the world. The minds of very few men are patient of long or thorough inveftigation, even where the thing in contemplation requires it; much lefs will it be bora where the determinate quality of the fubject is light-nefs and velocity. For this reafon, I have feen much impatience in a court where a man of fuperior under-(tanding, but of a deliberative turn, and flow of fpeech, has been many minutes gravely combating the trivial pofition of fome artful adverfary, who, though his inferior in every other refpect, knew he could conquer him in this. In fuch a cafe, to what end ferved his profundity? However valuable it might be be on another occafion, at this moment no man attended to it but with pain and reluctance: where ten words of a gay and lively import would have abafhed his adverfary, and procured him a triumph, five hundred have been uttered with prodigious labour only to produce him vexation and defeat....

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