But the question of style is still under discussion here, and no wonder that with _such_ views of the value of the 'current coin,' and with a regard and reverence for the received sciences so deeply qualified; or, as the other has it, with a humour so unfit either to speak or write for _beginners_, a style which admitted of other efficacies than bare _proofs_, should appear to be demanded for popular purposes, or for beginners. And no wonder that with views so similar on this first and so radical point, these two men should have hit upon the same method in _Rhetoric_ exactly, though it _was_ then wholly new. But our Gascon, goes on to describe its freedoms and novelties, its imitations of the living conference, its new vitalities. 'May we not,' says the successful experimenter in this very style, 'mix with the subject of conversation and communication, the quick and sharp repartees which mirth and familiarity introduce amongst friends pleasantly and _wittingly_ jesting with one another; an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, if it be not so extended and serious as _the other I just spoke of_, 'tis no less smart and ingenious, nor of less utility _as Lycurgus thought_.' CHAPTER II. FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF 'PARTICULAR METHODS OF TRADITION.'--EMBARRASSMENTS OF LITERARY STATESMEN. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing. I hear it sing in the wind. My, best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud, till the dregs of the storm be past.--_Tempest_. Here then, in the passages already quoted, we find the plan and theory--the premeditated form of a new kind of Socratic performance; and this whole work, as well as some others composed in this age, make the realization of it; an invention which proposes to substitute for the languishing feeble motion which is involved in the study of _books_--the kind of books which this author found invented when he came--for the passive, sluggish receptivity of another's thought, the living glow of pursuit and discovery, the flash of self-conviction.