Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/99

Rh and a plain sermon intended for the middle or lower size of people. Neither do they seem to remember the many alterations, additions, and expungings made by great authors in those treatises, which they prepare for the publick. Besides, that excellent prelate above-mentioned, was known to preach after a much more popular manner in the city congregations: and if in those parts of his works he be any where too obscure for the understandings of many, who may be supposed to have been his hearers, it ought to be numbered among his omissions.

The fear of being thought pedants, has been of pernicious consequence to young divines. This has wholly taken many of them off from their severer studies in the university; which they have exchanged for plays, poems, and pamphlets, in order to qualify them for teatables and coffeehouses. This they usually call "polite conversation, knowing the world, and reading men instead of books." These accomplishments, when applied to the pulpit, appear by a quaint, terse, florid style, rounded into periods and cadences, commonly without either propriety or meaning. I have listened with my utmost attention for half an hour to an orator of this species, without being able to understand, much less to carry away, one single sentence out of a whole sermon. Others, to show that their studies have not been confined to sciences, or ancient authors, will talk in the style of a gaming ordinary, and White Friars, when I pose

offices,