"There is my friend and merry companion Daniel;[5] he knows a great deal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well as any orthodox neighbour. But he knows very well that to bawl out, 'My beloved!' and the words 'grace! regeneration! sanctification! a new light! the day! the day! ay, my beloved, the day! or rather the night! the night is coming!' and 'judgment will come when we least think of it!' and so forth. He knows, to be vehement is the only way to come at his audience. Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, can give a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! the regenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all the incoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan, and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parish goes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, it is not the shepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows. [Footnote 5: The celebrated Daniel Burgess, whose meeting-house near Lincoln's Inn was destroyed by the high-church mob upon occasion of Sacheverell's trial.] "Another thing, very wonderful this learned body should omit, is learning to read; which is a most necessary part of eloquence in one who is to serve at the altar; for there is no man but must be sensible that the lazy tone and inarticulate sound of our common readers depreciates the most proper form of words that were ever extant in any nation or language, to speak their own wants, or his power from whom we ask relief. "There cannot be a greater instance of the power of action than in little parson Dapper, who is the common relief to all the lazy pulpits in town. This smart youth has a very good memory, a quick eye, and a clean handkerchief. Thus equipped, he opens his text, shuts his book fairly, shows he has no notes in his Bible, opens both palms, and shows all is fair there too. Thus, with a decisive air, my young man goes on without hesitation; and though from the beginning to the end of his pretty discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet, at the conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his hands; 'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of action is such, that it is more prevalent, even when improper, than all the reason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concluded his discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers would learn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time we should not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in Great Britain." "The Tatler," No. 66. THE ART OF POLITICAL LYING