evinced a great susceptibility of emotion and energy, or it will assume the character of sluggishness. In the gentlest mood, however light the feeling, to influence and move others we must ourselves be influenced and moved. In every shade of emotion persons should guard watchfully against styles-the bombastic, the theatrical, the lofty-which betray themselves by the tones of the voice failing to penetrate to the very bottom of the soul, and which are ready instantly to die away in the ear of the auditor which derives no internal animation from the effort.

Cicero says he requires not a feigned compassion, nor incentives to sorrow, but that which is real, flowing from the sighs of a wounded heart. He also remarks that commiseration ought to be of short duration, for nothing dries up sooner than a tear.

Even in pathos and emotions of pity the orator himself must not weep, but control his feelings, or the delivery is degraded.

The poet cannot see to write when his eyes are filled with tears; he must rise superior to his grief before he can sublimate his grief in song.

The artist is a master, not a slave; he wields his passion, he is not hurried along by it. He possesses and is not possessed. Art enshrines the great sadness of the world, but is itself not sad. Hazlitt says, that whatever is genuine in art must proceed from the impulse of nature and individual genius. The ideal is not the preference of that which exists only in the mind to that which is fine in nature, but to that which is less so. There is nothing fine in art but what is taken almost immediately, and as it were in the mass, from what is finer in nature. Where there have been the finest models in nature, there have been the finest works in art. In the study of this art, the

proper object, when a good foundation is laid in the voice, is the directness of one's endeavor to acquire that exacting habit which is able to exclude all that is foreign and omit nothing in expression that is essential to its just and elegant proportions.

A speaker should be artless, even in vehemence; and have a negligent air of naturalness, and yet be able to fill even plain truths with feeling. In the most exciting expressions the words must not be given so rapidly as to prevent the proper emphasis and thorough intonation of each syllable. Precipitation kills the meaning.

Sensibility will move even ordinary men to speak well at times; it is this which prompts the words that burn, but it must be genuine. It must be delicate, not tampered with; it cannot be forced. It must be an urgent thirsting for truth, a tortured mental struggling within for outward vocal life.

The voice can be cultivated to work out the feelings which are already in the soul ready to be summoned into action. It can breathe them out with a glow of animation and purpose that eventually assumes a character of reality. A few words show the presence of the orator; as with a painter the roughest sketch betrays the hand of the master. The most eloquent manner of speaking is the most easily acquired, for it is as simple as it is natural. Many overreach and work themselves up by extraordinary instead of gentle means beyond the fervid and simple style to a bombastic and frigid declamation.

The aim should be the repose, not absence of expression. Taste will refine a sufficiently cultivated voice; and sincerity, vigor, and power can never be harmonized until softened by taste.

When expression is the result of mere feeling, truth

is sacrificed for its appearance; show is mistaken for substance; and the result is violent, bizarre, capricious.

There is also great danger of overdoing the technical principles, and mere imitation is imbecility. Here imitation is used as the end instead of the corrective, the improvement and bringing out of natural powers.

To imitate, for something beyond the principles, will exalt not degrade originality.

When a pupil has once laid hold of a principle he will see where his teacher deviates, and even be able to correct him. Principles will guide also in the study of deformities for the very purpose of avoiding them.

The rules of criticism are not arbitrary. In the mind there is an innate power which only requires development to appreciate the true, and separate it from the false.

Wayward prejudices may for a time esteem even deformities as excellencies, and even take delight in distortion. Eye and ear may become the slave of habit and receive most pleasure from the peculiarities to which they have been accustomed.

Public speakers of all kinds, especially lawyers and clergymen, from the fact of their occupying high intellectual positions, have a great controlling influence over younger aspirants in the same directions.

Many speakers have faults peculiar to themselves, and they become, by their examples, the instructors of herds of worthless imitators. The youthful Demosthenes is told to watch the best (?) speakers; he copies alike both good and bad habits and the result is merely a confirmed imitation; the bad habits of course display themselves to a very disagreeable extent, as the idiosyncracies of the former do not sit well on the latter.

The only sure means is by a study of the principles, referring constantly to nature for their application Nature is varied, refined, and subtle beyond retention, therefore refer to her continually; recur to her at every step and in this way daily renew strength. The principles of art endue nature with an air of intellect and sentiment.

If we are not natural we are repulsive. Affectation will be detected. Sometimes we put on airs when striving to be natural; this is absurd, for we ought rather to ascertain faults with a determination to remove them.

If the speaker feels the sentiment, even a bad voice will show it in every degree, for it never plays false, and there is no substitute for reality. We can seem to be real till living reality comes, and is gracefully natural. Discipline will effect this, and will awaken dormant energies to an extent little suspected by most people.

Success depends upon filling the soul with the mighty purpose of excelling; of shrinking from no labor that is essential to the purpose, and keeping constantly in view the reality and simplicity of nature. There should be a right-onwardness in expression; a rushing to the end, which keeps the mind awake and on the alert.

There should be a freedom from superflousness of feeling, and a point or focus to which all should tend ; everything foreign to this is ruinous, yet it should have all that is necessary to completeness.

Anxious, critical study, however, is apt, unless properly directed, to interfere with nature; for we study principles merely as such, and apply them to words merely as words, instead of cultivating the voice to bring out the meaning and feeling from those otherwise silent symbols.

The voice, from improper application, is apt to be loud, instead of intense, dignified, and conversational in tone. This makes a speaker unnatural, no matter how natural his common utterance, and he displays himself like an actor; for there are so few good actors that it is generally conceded that in the mass they do display themselves to the entire neglect of the characters they vainly strive to sustain.

The ancients represented existencies, we the effects; they portrayed the terrible, we terribly. Hence our exaggeration, mannerism, false grace, and excess. For when we strive after effect we never think we can be effective enough.

Feeling cannot be expressed by words alone, or even by tones of voice; but by the flash on the cheek, the look of the eye, the contracted brow, the compressed lip, the heaving breast, trembling frame, rigid muscle, the general bearing of the whole body.

A slight movement of the head, a turn of the hand, a judicious pause or interruption of gesture, or change of position of the feet, often illuminates the meaning of a passage and sends it glowing into the understanding; and yet, there are times when even the wonders of the eye will lose much of their charm, if not supported by the still more imposing organ of the voice.

We are told by an author that it made the blood run cold and the hair to almost stand on end to hear Edward Irving read the 137th Psalm, in the old Scotch version, (see Contents,) and it was the richest treat to hear him repeat the Lord's Prayer.

Mr. Windham, after hearing Pitt, walked home lost in amazement at the compass of human eloquence. But even Pitt writhed under the eloquence of Sheridan. On one occasion the House was adjourned, so as not to decide a question under the influence of such powerful eloquence.