may take as an example the celebrated response of the Oracle ;

Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello.

The eye has no means of judging whether the meaning is, you shall never return, or you shall never perish, unless a pause is inserted before or after nunquam, to determine with which verb it is grammatically connected.

So far the principles of written language go;—they embrace words and pauses, and here stop. But the moment we come to transform this written language into oral, by reading aloud, a new set of principles come in with their claims, for which the arts of writing and of printing have made no provision. Here the reader becomes a speaker, and is required to mark with his voice the degrees of emphatic stress, and all the varieties of pitch, quantity of sound, and rate of utterance which sentiment demands. But he is trammelled with the narrowness of language as presented to the eye. He has been accustomed to regard words and pauses only, and all the movements of his voice are adjusted accordingly. You may tell him that he has a tone, but he knows not what Tell him to be natural,-to be in earnest, you mean. and you have given him an excellent direction indeed, but how to apply it to the case in hand, is the difficulty. He is more rapid perhaps, or more loud, for this admonition, but under the dominion of inveterate habit, he goes on with his tone still.

To the above defect in the art of printing, let another fact be added, that a great proportion of language, as it appears in books, neither demands nor admits any variety of tones and emphasis; and another still, that, in most

men, habits of voice, once established, cannot be changed without great and persevering efforts; and it will not seem strange that the number of good readers is so small, even among educated and professional men. British writers have constantly complained of the dull, formal manner in which the Liturgy and the sacred Scriptures are read in their churches. And often, in the pulpits of this country, the reading of the Bible is apparently so destitute, not of feeling and devotion merely, but of all just discrimination, as to remind one of the question put by Philip to the nobleman of Ethiopia ; "Understandest thou what thou

readest ?"

When we consider the extent to which these faults prevail in rhetorical reading, and the correspondent faults which of course prevail in public speaking, it is time that this greatly neglected subject should receive its due share of attention, amid the general advances in other departments of literature and taste.

Now, if there could at once spring up in our country a supply of teachers, competent, as living models, to regulate the tones of boys, in the forming age,-nothing more would be needed. But, to a great extent, these teachers are to be themselves formed. And to produce the transformation which the case demands, some attempt seems necessary to go to the root of the evil, by incorporating the principles of spoken language with the written. Not that such a change should be attempted in respect to books generally; but in books of elocution, designed for this single purpose, visible marks may be employed, sufficient to designate the chief points of established correspondence between sentiment and voice. These princi

ples being well settled in the mind of the pupil, may be spontaneously applied, where no such marks are used.

But as this subject is to be resumed under the head of inflections, I drop it here, with a remark or two in passing.

Be it remembered then, that all directions as to management of the voice, must be regarded as subsidiary to expression of feeling, or they are worse than useless. 'Emotion is the thing. One flash of passion on the cheek, one beam of feeling from the eye, one thrilling note of sensibility from the tongue,-have a thousand times more value than any exemplification of mere rules, where feeling is absent.'* The benefit of analysis and precept is, to aid the teacher in making the pupil conscious of his own faults, as a prerequisite to their correction. The object is to unfetter the soul, and set it free to act. In doing this a notation for the eye, designed to regulate the voice in a few obvious particulars, may be of much advantage: otherwise why shall we not dismiss punctuation too from books, and depend wholly on the teacher for pauses, as well as tones?

The reasonable prejudice which some intelligent men have felt against any system of notation, arises from the preposterous extent to which it has been carried by a few popular teachers, and especially by their humble imitators. A judicious medium is what we want. Five characters in music, and six vowels in writing, enter into an infinitude of combinations in melody and language. So the elementary modifications of voice in speaking are few, and easily

* Knowles.

understood; and to mark them, so far as distinction is useful, does not require a tenth part of the rules, which some have thought necessary.

The intellectual and moral qualities indispensable to form an orator, are brought into view in the following pages, no farther than they modify delivery. The parts of external oratory, as voice, look, and gesture, are only instruments by which the soul acts;-when the inspiration of soul is absent, these instruments cannot produce eloquence. A treatise on delivery then, must presuppose the existence of genius, mental discipline, and elevation of moral sentiment ;-though a distinct consideration of these belongs to RHETORIC, as a branch of intellectual and Christian philosophy.

The parts of delivery, to be considered in their order, are,―ARTICULATION, INFLECTION, ACCENT and EMPHASIS, MODULATION, AND ACTION.

I premise here, once for all, that I employ terms according to the best modern use, with as little as possible of technical abstractness. Elocution, which anciently embraced style, and the whole art of rhetoric, now signifies manner of delivery, whether of our own thoughts or those of others. Pronunciation, which anciently signified the whole of delivery, is now equivalent to orthöepy, or the proper utterance of single words. It were easy, by a critical disquisition, to trace out the etymological affinities of all these terms, and to teach the pupil a distinction between an oratör, and an eloquent man, between articulation, and distinct enunciation of words &c; but instead of the scientific air adopted in some works on elocution, it seems to me that the better, because the simpler course, is

to use words as they will be most readily understood by men of reading and taste.

In this view I have chosen to make the head of Modulation so generic, as to include pitch, quantity, rate, rhetorical pause, transition, expression, and representation.

SECT. 1. Importance of a good articulation.

ON whatever subject, and for whatever purpose, a man speaks to his fellow men, they will never listen to him with interest, unless they can hear what he says; and that without effort. If his utterance is rapid and indistinct, no weight of his sentiments, no strength or smoothness of voice, no excellence of modulation, emphasis, or cadence, will enable him to speak so as to be heard with pleasure. For his own sake too, the public speaker should feel the importance of a clear articulation. Without this, the necessary apprehension that his voice may not reach distant hearers, will lead to elevation of pitch, and increase of quantity; till he gradually forms a habit of vociferation, at the expense of all interesting variety, if not, (as in too many cases it has turned out,) with the