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rule, it ought to be the only uncovered vessel in every assembly
where it is rightfully used, by which means, from its near
resemblance to a pillory, it will ever have a mighty influence on
human ears.

Of Ladders I need say nothing. It is observed by foreigners
themselves, to the honour of our country, that we excel all nations
in our practice and understanding of this machine. The ascending
orators do not only oblige their audience in the agreeable delivery,
but the whole world in their early publication of their speeches,
which I look upon as the choicest treasury of our British eloquence,
and whereof I am informed that worthy citizen and bookseller, Mr.
John Dunton, has made a faithful and a painful collection, which he
shortly designs to publish in twelve volumes in folio, illustrated
with copper-plates,--a work highly useful and curious, and
altogether worthy of such a hand.

The last engine of orators is the Stage-itinerant, erected with much
sagacity, sub Jove pluvio, in triviis et quadriviis. {62a} It is
the great seminary of the two former, and its orators are sometimes
preferred to the one and sometimes to the other, in proportion to
their deservings, there being a strict and perpetual intercourse
between all three.

From this accurate deduction it is manifest that for obtaining
attention in public there is of necessity required a superior
position of place. But although this point be generally granted,
yet the cause is little agreed in; and it seems to me that very few
philosophers have fallen into a true natural solution of this
phenomenon. The deepest account, and the most fairly digested of
any I have yet met with is this, that air being a heavy body, and
therefore, according to the system of Epicurus {62b}, continually
descending, must needs be more so when laden and pressed down by
words, which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as is
manifest from those deep impressions they make and leave upon us,
and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or else they
will neither carry a good aim nor fall down with a sufficient force.


"Corpoream quoque enim vocem constare fatendum est,
Et sonitum, quoniam possunt impellere sensus."
- Lucr. lib. 4. {62c}


And I am the readier to favour this conjecture from a common
observation, that in the several assemblies of these orators Nature
itself has instructed the hearers to stand with their mouths open
and erected parallel to the horizon, so as they may be intersected
by a perpendicular line from the zenith to the centre of the earth.
In which position, if the audience be well compact, every one
carries home a share, and little or nothing is lost.

I confess there is something yet more refined in the contrivance and
structure of our modern theatres.

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