All affectation, particularly in the French gaiety and freedom, is ungraceful in a courtier, and in a monarchy every gentleman ought to be fashioned according to the court model; for which reason, an easy and natural negligence does well.

I no more like a web where the knots and seams are to be seen, than a fine figure, so delicate, that a man may tell all the bones and veins: "Quae veritati operam dat oratio, incomposita sit et simplex." ["Let the language that is dedicated to truth be plain and unaffected .-- Seneca, Ep.

40.] "Quis accurat loquitur, nisi qui vult putide loqui ?" ["For who studies to speak accurately, that does not at the same time wish to perplex his auditory ?"--Idem, Ep., 75.] That eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance, that wholly attracts us to itself.

And as in our outward habit, 'tis a ridiculous effeminacy to distinguish ourselves by a particular and unusual garb or fashion; so in language, to study new phrases, and to affect words that are not of current use, proceeds from a puerile and scholastic ambition.
May I be bound to speak no other language than what is spoken in the market-places of Paris! Aristophanes the grammarian was quite out, when he reprehended Epicurus for his plain way of delivering himself, and the design of his oratory, which was only perspicuity of speech.
The imitation of words, by its own facility, immediately disperses itself through a whole people; but the imitation of inventing and fitly applying those words is of a slower progress.

The generality of readers, for having found a like robe, very mistakingly imagine they have the same body and inside too, whereas force and sinews are never to be borrowed; the gloss, and outward ornament, that is, words and elocution, may.