He stood before them with his body swayed, and bent forwards just so
far, as to make an angle of 85 degrees and a half upon the plain of the
horizon; --which sound orators, to whom I address this, know very well
to be the true persuasive angle of incidence; --in any other angle you
may talk and preach; --’tis certain; --and it is done every day; --but
with what effect, --I leave the world to judge!
The necessity of this precise angle, of 85 degrees and a half to a
mathematical exactness, ----does it not shew us, by the way, how the
arts and sciences mutually befriend each other?
How the duce Corporal _Trim_, who knew not so much as an acute angle
from an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly; ----or whether it was
chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c., shall be commented
upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the
instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the
bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under
consideration.
He stood, ----for I repeat it, to take the picture of him in at one
view, with his body swayed, and somewhat bent forwards, --his right leg
from under him, sustaining seven-eighths of his whole weight, ------the
foot of his left leg, the defect of which was no disadvantage to his
attitude, advanced a little, --not laterally, nor forwards, but in a
line betwixt them; --his knee bent, but that not violently, --but so as
to fall within the limits of the line of beauty; --and I add, of the
line of science too; --for consider, it had one eighth part of his body
to bear up; --so that in this case the position of the leg is
determined, --because the foot could be no farther advanced, or the knee
more bent, than what would allow him, mechanically to receive an eighth
part of his whole weight under it, and to carry it too.
[-->] This I recommend to painters: --need I add, --to orators! --I
think not; for unless they practise it, ------they must fall upon their
noses.
So much for Corporal _Trim’s_ body and legs. ----He held the sermon
loosely, not carelessly, in his left hand, raised something above his
stomach, and detached a little from his breast; ----his right arm
falling negligently by his side, as nature and the laws of gravity
ordered it, ----but with the palm of it open and turned towards his
audience, ready to aid the sentiment in case it stood in need.
Corporal _Trim’s_ eyes and the muscles of his face were in full harmony
with the other parts of him; --he looked frank, --unconstrained,
--something assured, --but not bordering upon assurance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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