These were sensible editorial decisions, and the reader can only benefit. The letters are thoroughly annotated, for the most part in exemplary fashion, though it is occasionally a little obvious that the editors are historians and not literary scholars. It can be warmly recommended. Given Amyot's high regard for Johnson, one can speculate that his description of Thelwall was coloured by Johnson's well-known contempt for gesticulation. Johnson 'repeated his usual paradoxical declamation against action in publick speaking.
Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds.
It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. Enfield's essay, 'Is Verse Essential to Poetry', appeared in the July 1796 Monthly Magazine .