COURSE of LECTURES

For A. MILLAR, R. and J. DODSLEY, T. DAVIES, C. HENDERSON,

J. WILKIE, and E. DILLY.

M DCC LXII.

RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND,

THE FOLLOWING COURSE OF LECTURES,

AND TRACTS ON ELOCUTION,

ARE MOST HUMBLY INSCRIBED,

By his LORDSHIP'S

moft obliged,

most devoted,

and

moft humble Servant,

THOMAS SHERIDAN.

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE.

TH

HERE has been no maxim more frequently inculcated, or more generally affented to, than that human nature, ought to be the chief study of human kind; and yet it is of all fubjects, about which the bufy mind of man has been employed, that which has been least attended to; or with regard to which, the feweft difcoveries have been made, founded upon any certain knowlege.

Is it not amazing to reflect, that from the creation of the world, there was no part of the human mind clearly delineated, till within the laft fixty years? when Mr. Locke arose, to give us a juft view, of one part of our internal frame, the understanding,' upon principles of philosophy founded on reason and experience.

THE chief cause of the very erroneous, or inaccurate views, given of that part of our nature, before his time, was, as he himself confeffes, accidentally difcovered by Mr. Locke, long after he had begun his work; and not 'till after he had found himself intangled in many perplexities, during the pursuit of his fubject; when lighting accidentally upon this clue, he was happily guided thro' all the mazes of that labyrinth, in which so many had fruitlefly wandered, or been loft before.