CHAPTER VII.. Of the Convenience or Decency of Elocution.

OF THE CONVENIENCE OR DECENCY OF ELOCUTION.

Elocutions are made decent:

1. By speaking feelingly; that is, with such passion as is fit for the matter he is in; as, angerly in matter of injury.

2. By speaking as becomes the person of the speaker; as for a gentleman to speak eruditely.

3. By speaking proportionably to the matter; as of great affairs to speak in a high, and of mean, in a low style.

4. By abstaining from compounded, and from out-landish words: unless a man speak passionately, and have already moved, and, as it were, inebriated his hearers; or ironically.

It confers also to persuasion very much, to use these ordinary forms of speaking; all men know, it is confessed by all, no man will deny, and the like. For the hearer consents, surprised with the fear to be esteemed the only ignorant man.

It is good also, having used a word that signifies more than the matter requires, to abstain from the pronunciation and countenance that to such a word belongs; that the disproportion between it and the matter may the less appear. And when a man has said too much, it will show well to correct himself: for he will get belief by seeming to consider what he says. But in this a man must have a care not to be too precise in showing of this consideration. For the ostentation of carefulness is an argument oftentimes of lying; as may be observed in such as tell particularities not easily observed, when they would be thought to speak more precise truth than is required.

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