TICKLING FOLLIES.--If you will please people, you must please them in their own way; and, as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are. I repeat it again, they are only to be taken by _agrémens_, and by what flatters their senses and their hearts. Rabelais first wrote a most excellent book, which nobody liked; then, determined to conform to the public taste, he wrote “Gargantua and Pantagruel,” which everybody liked, extravagant as it was. Adieu. [_Same date._] TRUE ELOCUTION.--What then does all this mighty heart and mystery of speaking in Parliament amount to? Why, no more than this, that the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that house, and to four hundred people, that opinion, upon a given subject, which he would make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps, and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of Commons. I have spoken frequently in Parliament, and not always without some applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there is very little in it. The elegancy of the style, and the turn of the periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied, as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favorite tunes that have struck their ears and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgments, such as they are. [_Dec. 9, 1749._] HAMPDEN A LESSON.--Lord Clarendon, in his history, says of Mr. John Hampden, _that he had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute, any mischief_. I shall not now enter into the justness of this character of Mr. Hampden, to whose brave stand against the illegal demand of ship-money, we owe our present liberties; but I mention it to you as the character, which, with the alteration of one single word, _good_, instead of _mischief_, I would have you aspire to, and use your utmost endeavors to deserve. The head to contrive, God must to a certain degree have given you; but it is in your own power greatly to improve it, by study, observation, and reflection. As for the _tongue to persuade_, it wholly depends upon yourself; and without it the best head will contrive to very little purpose. The hand to execute depends, likewise, in my opinion, in a great measure upon yourself. Serious reflection will always give courage in a good cause; and the courage arising from reflection is of a much superior nature to the animal and constitutional courage of a foot-soldier. The former is steady and unshaken, where the _nodus_ is _dignus vindice_; the latter is oftener improperly than properly exerted, but always brutally. [_Dec. 12, 1749._]