and which was so fashionable in our country during the reign of Queen Mary, that in a passage of an author quoted by Monsieur Baylen it is said the price of wood was raised in England, by reason of the executions that were made in Smithfield. These disputants convince their adversaries with a Sorites", commonly called a pile of faggots. The rack is also a kind of syllogism which has been used with good effect, and has made multitudes of converts. Men were formerly disputed out of their doubts, reconciled to truth by force of reason, and won over to opinions 10 by the candour, sense, and ingenuity of those who had the right on their side; but this method of conviction operated too slowly. Pain was found to be much more enlightening than reason. Every scruple was looked upon as obstinacy, and not to be removed but by several engines invented for that purpose. In a word, the application of whips, racks, gibbets, galleys, dungeons, fire and faggot, in a dispute, may be looked upon as popish refinements upon the old heathen logic". There is another way of reasoning which seldom fails, though it be of a quite different nature to that I have last mentioned. 20 I mean, convincing a man by ready money, or, as it is ordinarily called, bribing a man to an opinion. This method has often proved successful, when all the others have been made use of to no purpose. A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous; and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most 30 invincible reason this way". He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties. Having here touched upon the several methods of disputing, as they have prevailed in different ages of the world, I shall very suddenly give my reader an account of the whole art of cavilling; which shall be a full and satisfactory answer to all such papers and pamphlets as have yet appeared against the Spectator.-C. WOMEN BORN ORATORS. 447 No. 247. Rhetoric comes natural to Women; Female Orators; the Scolds; the Censorious; the Gossips; the Coquettes; the causes of this remarkable fluency. Τῶν δ ̓ ἀκάματος ῥέει αὐδὴ Ἐκ στομάτων ἡδεῖα. HESIOD. Their untir'd lips a wordy torrent pour. We are told by some ancient authors that Socrates was instructed in eloquence by a woman, whose name, if I am not mistaken, was Aspasia. I have indeed very often looked upon that art as the most proper for the female sex, and I think the universities would do well to consider, whether they should not fill the rhetoric-chairs with she-professors. It has been said in the praise of some men, that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honour of the other sex, that there are many among them 10 who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman branch out into a long extempore dissertation upon the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for breaking a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric. Were women admitted to plead in courts of judicature, I am persuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubts this, let him but be present at those debates which frequently arise among the ladies of the British fishery. The first kind therefore of female orators which I shall take 20 notice of, are those who are employed in stirring up the passions, a part of rhetoric in which Socrates his wife had perhaps made a greater proficiency than his above-mentioned teacher. The second kind of female orators are those who deal in invectives, and who are commonly known by the name of the Censorious. The imagination and elocution of this set of rhetoricians is wonderful. With what fluency of invention, and copiousness of expression, will they enlarge upon every little slip in the behaviour of another? With how many different circumstances, and with what variety of phrases, will they tell over 30 the same story? I have known an old làdy make an unhappy marriage the subject of a month's conversation. She blamed the bride in one place; pitied her in another; laughed at her in a third; wondered at her in a fourth; was angry with her in a fifth; and in short, wore out a pair of coach-horses in expressing her concern for her. At length, after having quite exhausted the subject on this side, she made a visit to the new married pair, praised the wife for the prudent choice she had made, told her the unreasonable reflexions which some malicious people had cast upon her, and desired that they might be better acquainted. The censure and approbation of this kind of women are therefore only to be considered as helps to discourse. ΙΟ A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word Gossips. Mrs. Fiddle Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this sort of eloquence; she launches out into descriptions of christenings, runs divisions upon an head-dress, knows every dish of meat that is served up in her neighbourhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy before he is able to speak. The Coquette may be looked upon as a fourth kind of female orator. To give herself the larger field for discourse, she hates and loves in the same breath, talks to her lap-dog or parrot, is 20 uneasy in all kinds of weather, and in every part of the room: she has false quarrels and feigned obligations to all the men of her acquaintance; sighs when she is not sad, and laughs when she is not merry. The coquette is in particular a great mistress of that part of oratory which is called action, and indeed seems to speak for no other purpose, but as it gives her an opportunity of stirring a limb or varying a feature, of glancing her eyes or playing with her fan. As for news-mongers, politicians, mimics, story-tellers, with other characters of that nature, which give birth to loquacity, 30 they are as commonly found among the men as the women; for which reason I shall pass them over in silence. I have often been puzzled to assign a cause why women should have this talent of a ready utterance in so much greater perfection than men. I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of suppressing their thoughts, as men have, but that they are necessitated to speak every thing they think, and if so, it would perhaps furnish a very strong argument to the Cartesians ", for the supporting of their doctrine that the soul always thinks. But as several are of opinion that 40 the fair sex are not altogether strangers to the art of dissembling and concealing their thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish that opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to seek after some better reason. In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an excellent anatomist, has promised me by the first opportunity to dissect a woman's tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain juices which render it so wonderfully voluble or flippant, or whether the fibres of it may not be made up of a finer or more pliant thread, or whether there are not in it some particular muscles which dart it up and down by such 10 sudden glances and vibrations; or whether, in the last place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and heart, to this little instrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluence of animal spirits. Nor must I omit the reason which Hudibras has given ", why those who can talk on trifles speak with the greatest fluency; namely, that the tongue is like a race-horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carries. Which of these reasons soever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's thought was very natural, 20 who, after some hours conversation with a female orator, told her that he believed her tongue was very glad when she was asleep, for that it had not a moment's rest all the while she was awake. That excellent old ballad of the 'Wanton Wife of Bath'n has the following remarkable lines. I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues And Ovid, though in the description of a very barbarous circumstance, tells us, That when the tongue of a beautiful female was cut out, and thrown upon the ground, it could not forbear 30 muttering even in that posture. If a tongue would be talking without a mouth, what could it have done when it had all its organs of speech, and accomplices of sound about it? I might here mention the story of the pippin woman, had I not some reason to look upon it as fabulous. Gg I must confess that I am so wonderfully charmed with the music of this little instrument, that I would by no means discourage it. All that I aim at by this dissertation is, to cure it of several disagreeable notes, and in particular of those little jarrings and dissonances which arise from anger, censoriousness, gossiping, and coquetry. In short, I would always have it tuned by good nature, truth, discretion, and sincerity.-C. No. 261. On Courtship and Marriage; long engagements; grounds of choice; happiness arising from a virtuous marriage. Γάμος γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν εὐκταῖον κακόν.—Frag. Vet. Poet. My father, whom I mentioned in my first speculation, and whom I must always name with honour and gratitude, has very 10 frequently talked to me upon the subject of marriage. I was in my younger years engaged, partly by his advice, and partly by my own inclinations, in the courtship of a person who had a great deal of beauty, and did not at my first approaches seem to have any aversion to me; but, as my natural taciturnity hindered me from shewing myself to the best advantage, she by degrees began to look upon me as a very silly fellow, and being resolved to regard merit more than any thing else in the persons who made their applications to her, she married a captain of dragoons, who happened to be beating up for recruits in those parts. 20 This unlucky accident has given me an aversion to pretty fellows ever since, and discouraged me from trying my fortune Iwith the fair sex. The observations which I made in this conjuncture, and the repeated advices which I received at that time from the good old man above-mentioned, have produced the following essay upon love and marriage. 30 The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing motions of the soul rise in the pursuit. It is easier for an artful man who is not in love to persuade his mistress he has a passion for her, and to succeed in his pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, and resentments, that render |