upon the speaker, till every fifth or sixth word, and sometimes almost every second word, or even syllable, must have upon it this recurring beat or emphasis. Who has not heard Speakers that, from habit, could not utter more than five or six sounds of any sort without the kind of explosive or pounding emphasis we speak of? And this weight or force of sound is the greater if the interval has been from any cause a little prolonged, though the sense may have required even less of force, or emphasis, at that particular point than anywhere beside. The result is that we have one fault intensifying another. The delivery vitiates the style, and the style tends to spoil the delivery. The settled and habitual beat or cadence being what it is, the composition gradually adapts itself to it. At the right point, or as nearly so as may be, some word or syllable is slipped in that will bear this recurring beat or emphasis. Thus a person accustomed to write and to speak in what Rhetoricians call Trochees, may compose after the fashion of the following sentence, "Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, she had known and loved, and lost, and long remembered too;" a long syllable invariably followed by a short. One of the most common forms of oratorical heaviness is this, that the acquired necessity of coming down with some pounding emphasis operates when there is no word requiring to be emphasised. The weight then falls upon some wretched little conjunction or adverb, and we have

the bathos in perfection. Let the beginner be fully alive to his danger at this point. Before he has spoken many times in public-even if not repeating the same discourse-he will find this recurring beat or periodic emphasis, and possibly also a settled inflection of tone and a certain unmanageable pitch or keynote, beginning to form in and around his speaking. The strait-waistcoat is being put on. Now is the time to shake and arouse himself, if liberty be worth keeping.

6. The danger is increased from the curious circumstance that the more common faults of public speaking are, at the beginning, agreeable to the listener, rather than otherwise. Prolongation of sound (for example) is indulgently attributed to emotion; undue emphasis is accepted as a proof of earnestness. Intoning is itself a species of music. There is something of dignity, too, about a pompous professional delivery, be it called "mouthing," or what it may. Thoughts that would look bare and weak if simply spoken, may pass for something important if sounded forth with a little of oratorical assumption, or if sung out with tones which seem to indicate that the heart is glowing, and would have all other hearts glow in unison. It used to be said of Whitefield that he could utter the word "Mesopotamia" so as to throw an audience into tears; and, on the other hand, some men would read David's lament over

Absalom as a schoolboy would recite an ill-learnt problem from Euclid; feeling, either in speaker or hearers, being out of the question. This goes to prove, not that "delivery" is everything, but that it has very much to do with the effect of public speaking; and the point at present in view is this, that in their incipient stages, faults put on the guise of excellencies. There is something bewitching and seductive about them. They seem to recommend themselves as helps and attractions; and, what is more, under this character they are looked for by the less reflecting of our auditors, who, as Archbishop Whately says, will either allow the natural manner to pass without any remark, or observe that it is a pity the Preacher's discourse was merely "spoken," and not "preached"-the highest recommendation passing for a defect!

7. It must be regretted that in regard to faults of delivery attention is seldom aroused till there is much to unlearn. As to its main characteristics, a young Preacher's manner is formed and "set" in the first four or five years of his course. To speak of a single point-that of loudness. During those years it may be obvious to an intelligent listener that the Preacher's delivery is either needlessly and disagreeably loud, or that it needs to be yet louder —say by a third, or even a half. The young man is more than ordinarily fortunate if any one will make him know the state of the case, and that not

in a casual or ambiguous way, but explicitly and earnestly, as a thing that calls for serious attention. Meanwhile, the probability is that, with regard to loudness or quietness, his manner is becoming unalterably fixed. If it be faulty, he will suffer a lifelong injury; if correct, the result will be attributable to mere accident. And this, be it observed, with regard to the most mechanical and simple of all the qualities of public-speaking—a thing far more easy of adjustment than pitch, or emphasis, or speed, or, what is beyond them all, expression. This kind of observation may seem not a little strange, since wherever there is a Speaker there will be hearers, and among them there must be individuals who are competent to judge, and who feel interested in the results produced. The simple fact, however, is that hearers whose opinions would command attention, are generally diffident and over-kind; or else they act upon the presumption that Speakers, as a class, instead of welcoming friendly and intelligent criticism, will resent it. It may even be supposed that they will be found to pique themselves upon the qualities which others regard as faults, or imagine that they are to be congratulated on having escaped the imperfections on which others would be the first to remark. This presumption, so much to the disadvantage of Speakers as a class, is, in many instances, an entire mistake. A desire for friendly criticism is often felt when it is not expressed, and, unfortunately, the frank con

fession of the feeling may be set down as a mere "fishing" for praise.

8. Few persons really know how they themselves speak. Unnoticed influences, and unconscious processes, have made them what they are. Describe to them their own habitual mode of speaking -a thing not to be done, unfortunately, without an approach to mimicry-and they will wonder about whom you are talking. In proportion as speaking is faultless the imitation becomes difficult, simply because in absolutely correct speaking there is nothing to remark upon; there is literally no mannerism to be reproduced. But when there is mannerism, and that in a very palpable form, it may be wholly unperceived by the speaker himself. We have known an intelligent man, when saying "Grace before meat," pronounce the word "Father" with an a as long as four or five a's, and when the fault was pointed out, it became evident that its existence had been wholly unperceived; many words were required to show that the proper quantity of the vowel had been exceeded. Faults which have become habitual, partake of that "second nature" which has almost the force and the unconsciousness of the first.

9. When a fault is fairly detected it is far from being easy to shake it off. No one who is conscious of having acquired a "pulpit-tone "- i.e.,