THE SELECT ACADEMIC SPEAKER; CONTAINING A Large Number of New and Appropriate Pieces, FOR PROSE DECLAMATION, POETICAL RECITATION, CAREFULLY SELECTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORS, AMERICAN, ARRANGED IN A RHETORICAL ORDER, AND ADAPTED TO THE SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, AND COLLEGES. B: HENRY COPPÉE, LL.D., PRESIDENT OF THE LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 3x SIXTH EDITION. PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY J. H. BUTLER & CO. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by E. H. BUTLER & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern h PREFACE. THE great extent and variety of English and American literature, are a sufficient warrant for publishing a new book of extracts from their valuable stores. Add to this the importance which literature has attained in this age; the new authors of merit and genius who are almost daily appearing, and the correspondent increase in our standard literature, and what was before simply warrantable, becomes almost a necessity. Without, disparagement of many excellent books already published, it must be said that we have delayed too long upon the hackneyed though beautiful periods of a few favorite orators or authors; and that those acquainted with the wants of academies and colleges, know how difficult it is, in any such work, to find what young speakers, and their hearers, alike crave,-something new. Such is the experience of the compiler of this volume, an experience of years in the suggestion and selection of pieces for declamation by students: and this has prompted the publication of the present volume. To meet these wants, he offers the following as among the claims of "The Select Academic Speaker": The selections are with few exceptions new: they have not |