my voice is feeble, what is wanted in body must be made up in velocity." This is a mathematical figure of speech, and is more true of dynamics than rhetoric. This remark has seriously misled many young speakers. There is a distinction to be noted between a small voice arising from peculiarity in the conformation of the larynx, and the feeble voice which arises from the narrow chest or from physical debility. Unless there is a great strength to support any momentum imparted, indistinctness and alternations of screechings and whispers will be the inevitable results. At a Corn-law meeting held in Glasgow, in 1845, I sat at half distance from the platform. Having offered my services to the Lord Provost, I was uncertain whether I should not be required to take part in the proceedings. I was therefore anxious to hear all that was said. It was at this time that I first felt perfectly the annoyance of indistinct speaking. At the Newhall Hill meetings in Birmingham I had been accustomed to hear the Warwickshire orators roar, but in Glasgow I found they only spoke, and spoke as though they were paid for the sound they made, and did not get a good price for it. At length the Rev. Dr. King arose, who spoke with strong deliberateness. His speech was ably conceived and wisely delivered. Every word fell on the ear like the steady tolling of a bell. His voice was the anodyne of the night. Whenever I go to a public meeting I pray that one Dr. King may be present. It is said of Mr. Macaulay, (I think by Francis in his "Orators of the Age,") that when an opening is made in a discussion in the House of Commons, he rises, or rather darts up from his seat, and plunges at once into the very heart of his subject, without exordium or apologetic preface. In fact, you have for a few seconds a voice pitched in alto, monotonous and rather shrill, pouring forth words with inconceivable velocity, ere you have become aware that a new speaker, and one of no common order, has broken in upon the debate. A few seconds more and cheers, perhaps from all parts of the house, rouse you completely from your apathy, compelling you to follow that extremely voluble and not very enticing voice, in its rapid course through the subject on which the speaker is entering, with a resolute determination, as it seems, never to pause. You think of an express train, which does not stop even at the chief stations. On, on he speeds, in full reliance on his own momentum, never stopping for words, never stopping for thoughts, never halting for an instant, even to take breath; his intellect gathering new vigor as it proceeds, hauling the subject after him, and all its possible attributes and illustrations, with the strength of a giant, leaving a line of light on the pathway his mind has trod, till, unexhausted and apparently inexhaustible, he brings his remarkable effort to a close by a peroration so highly sustained in its declamatory power, so abounding in illustration, so admirably framed to crown and clench the whole oration, that surprise, if it has even begun to wear off, kindles anew, and the hearer is left utterly prostrate and powerless by the whirlwind of ideas and emotions that has swept over him. This, however, only illustrates the liberty a man may take with elocution if he has genius to compensate for it. That member must beware, who attempts to charm the House of Commons by a monotonous alto without Macaulay's wit, his power of enlightenment, and fecundity of illustration. From Quinctilian to Blair, rhetoricians have insisted on the value of accuracy of expression as promotive of accuracy of thought. Accuracy of delivery tends equally to this result; it does more, it improves the memory as well as the understanding, and imparts the power of concatenation of speech. The naturally voluble may dispense with this aid, but others will find it the only mode of learning public speaking. A clergyman, who in his early days denied that grammar or emphasis had anything to do with pulpit exercises, one day found his mistake by the laughter created on his reading this text: "And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me, the ass, and they saddled him." Of this same divine it is told that a man whom he reprimanded for swearing replied that he did not see any harm in it. "No harm in it," said the minister; "why do you not know the commandment, "Swear not at all?" "I do not swear at all," said the man, "I only swear at those who annoy me." An The emphasis which is suggested by the sense is the best guide. Let a person make sure of the sense and his emphasis will be natural and varied. active and original conception can alone produce personality of enunciation, which is the chief charm of oratory. Conception is the sole governor of intonation. Of the delicious magic of inflection Eben Jones has given us a poet's idea in his lines "To a Personification of Ariel at the Theater :" "If a new sound should music through the sky, How would all hearing drink the challenging tone; ners. And when thou uttered'st thy denying reply Each listener, to divine, ere it was gone, What feelings toned it; though none might learn, How many, divine and deep, in that sweet 'No' did yearn." The offensiveness of affectation was justly satirized in the confessions of a dandy given in a recent romance. Mr. Affection is recounting his rejection by a young lady, upon whom he had inflicted his attentions. "You are mistaken!' said she, replying to my look, 'it was not your dress, it was not your manThe young gentleman who comes from Bondstreet to tune our piano, is quite as affable and much more dressy.' 'The people at the Royal Lodge, probably, afford you some little insight into my condition, as a pretext for your doing me the honor of admitting me into your acquaintance,' said I with considerable bitterness, for I was stung home. 'No, it was your voice; it was the hypocritical modulation of your voice that satisfied me you had moved in the best society,' replied Miss Vavasour, with provoking coolness; 'I saw that you were a most delicate monster; that you had a voice for me and another for Annie, a third for the pony, a fourth for the lodgekeepers; there was nothing natural about you!"" Attracted by the pretensions of a placard, adorned by a testimonial from the "Times," I went, in Glasgow, to hear some professional recitations. One of them was the "Story of a Broken Heart." The unfortunate girl of whom it was told did not die immediately, but it struck me she would have done so had she heard Mr. Wilson recite her story. The subject was that piece of graceful effeminacy in which Wash ington Irving has told, with drawing-room sentimentality, the story of the proud love of the daughter of Curran for the unhappy and heroic Emmet. No one can recite with propriety what he does not feel, and the key to gesture, as well to modulation, is earnestness. No actor can portray character unless he can realize it, and he can only realize it by making it for a time his own. Roger Kemble's wife had been forbidden to marry an actor, and her father was inexorable at her disobedience; but after he had seen her husband upon the stage he relented, and forgave her with this observation: "Well, well! I see you have not disobeyed me after all; for the man is not an actor, and never will be an actor!" As the presence of genius will compensate for the neglect of the elocution of utterance, so earnestness and great ideas will produce eloquence of effect without gesture in delivery. It is said of Robert Hall that the text of his discourse was usually announced in the feeblest tone, and in a rapid manner, so as frequently to be inaudible to the majority of his congregation. After the exordium, he would commonly hint at, rather than explicitly announce, the very simple divisions of the subject on which he intended to treat. Then his thoughts would begin to multiply, and the rapidity of his utterance, always considerable, would increase as he proceeded and kindled. He had no oratorical action, scarcely any kind of motion, excepting an occasional lifting or waving of the right hand, and, in his most impassioned moments, an alternate retreat and advance in the pulpit by a short step. Sometimes the pain in his back, to which he was so great a martyr, would induce him to throw his arm behind, as if to give himself ease or support |