Page:A study of Ben Jonson (IA studyofbenjonson00swinrich).pdf/185

 so they have their strength too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear, so, if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor mind.

All must remember how the second great dictator of literary London who bore the name of Johnson expressed the same very rational objection:—'I have found you a reason, sir; I am not bound to find you an understanding.'

The following precept is of perennial value—and of perennial application.

Nor is this less weighty or less true:—

Language most shows a man. Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.