as is penmanship, dancing, or any handicraft employ

ment.

But can instruction improve the voice also? To this interrogatory it might seem sufficient to reply, that the attractions of the stage in all ages have depended very materially on the power of vocal execution possessed by the actors—a power not unfrequently wholly acquired, and acquired too, in the only schools where, in modern times, the art of speaking has been cultivated. Besides this, the two great orators of antiquity studied this branch of elocution in particular as an art. Demosthenes, whose voice was weak, whose articulation was defective, and whose tongue stammered, after an unsuccessful effort in which he was hissed from the assembly, was persuaded by a player whom he met, to undertake the study of elocution; and by a course of training such as few have ever subjected themselves to, he demonstrated that the practical application of the principles of this art can be learned. Even his great adversary and rival in oratory, after reciting before the Rhodians, at their request, the oration of Demosthenes for Ctesiphon, replied to their expressions of admiration, "What would you have said if you had heard him deliver it!" With Cicero, too, it was much the same. At the age of twenty-seven, according to Plutarch, after having arrived at some eminence as a pleader, "though his voice had a variety of inflections, it was at the same time harsh and unformed; and as in the vehemence and enthusiasm of speaking, he always rose into a loud key, there was reason to apprehend that it might injure his health." He consequently applied himself to teachers. At a subsequent period, this writer tells us, "his voice was formed; and at the same time that it was full and sonorous, had gained a

sufficient sweetness, and was brought to a key which his constitution could bear." But to show how elocution was studied in ancient times-he stopped not here, but visited Asia and Rhodes, to listen to the greatest orators, and to receive instruction from the best teachers. And it was at the latter place, when declaiming in Greek before Apollonius, that the rhetorician, with sadness of heart at the recollection of the wasted glory of his native land, the country of Demosthenes, said, "As for you, Cicero, I praise and admire you, but I am concerned for the fate of Greece. She had nothing left her but the glory of eloquence and erudition, and you are carrying that too to Rome." The ancient orators and rhetoricians all treated of the voice as among the first objects of culture; and wherever great excellence was attained in its management, it was duly appreciated.

This science has also been studied by many of England's most eminent orators. Mr. Pitt learned elocution under the tuition of his noble and eloquent father; and it was of one of his speeches that even Fox could say, "The orators of antiquity would have admired, probably would have envied it ;" and after listening to another, Mr. Windham says of himself, that "he walked home lost in amazement at the compass, till then unknown to him, of human eloquence." The case of Sheridan is still more striking. To adopt the language of Lord Brougham,-"With a position by birth and profession little suited to command the respect of the most aristocratic country in Europe-the son of an actor, the manager himself of a theatre-he came into that parliament which was enlightened by the vast and various knowledge, as well as fortified and adorned by the most choice literary fame of a Burke, and which owned the

sway of consummate orators like Fox and Pitt." But he had studied the elocution of the stage—his father had been his teacher; and although he never acquired any great eminence as a statesman, yet Pitt himself at one time writhed under his eloquence. It was at the close of one of his celebrated speeches before the House of Commons, that the practice of cheering the speaker was first introduced; and it was on this occasion that Mr. Pitt, then prime minister of England, besought the House, as being incapacitated for forming a just judgment under the influence of such powerful eloquence, to adjourn the decision of the question. Several of our distinguished American orators, also, it is asserted, are ever ready to acknowledge their obligation to the study of the principles of that art which is procuring for them so rich a reward of fame. And some of those who have been most admired, are far from being those for whom nature had done the most.

The following system of instruction, both as regards voice and gesture, consists of principles rather than of specific rules; and of principles believed to be drawn from nature, and which, when applied even fully to practice, will leave the learner sufficiently in possession of all his natural peculiarities. Their entire object is to refine and perfect nature; not to pervert it. The greatest orators, even the most popular players, are those who have made art subservient to the development of their own native powers; and who at least seem to have been formed on no model. Here, as elsewhere, art is supposed to be but the handmaid of nature.

It is believed that the careful study, on the part of the learner, of the principles here presented him, even though

thus restricted, if accompanied with proper practice on the tables and exercises, will do for him all that study has ever done, or can do, to make the speaker.

First, it will greatly assist to cultivate the taste, as regards all the excellences of a good delivery.

Second, it will give him a distinct articulation; and furnishes the means by which even the more permanent impediments in speech may be corrected.

Third, it will give him a distinct enunciation, by which we mean nothing more than perfect distinctness of articulation carried into the general delivery.

Fourth, it will give him the command of the various elements both of voice and gesture, which give effect to the expression of thought and feeling, and which, when properly employed, constitute the external graces of eloquence.

Fifth, it will teach him the principles on which these elements are to be employed the most successfully for the purposes just named.

Sixth, it will give him such a familiarity with these elements, and such a command of all his vocal powers, as will enable him practically to execute whatever he is disposed to attempt. And

Seventh, it will do all this, by perfecting and improving his own natural powers, rather than by substituting, or attempting to substitute, others for them.

The taste may indeed be improved in various ways,— by reading works and attending lectures on Elocution, as also by studying living models of excellence in oratory; but the power of execution can be learned only by practice. If it can be acquired by other means, the author of this Manual has not discovered them. On practice, and on that

alone, we rely in the work before us. It was this alone that perfected the orators of antiquity. But for this, Demosthenes and Cicero would not have been the master orators of Greece and Rome; yet we hesitate not to say, that the text-books of Elocution to which the scholar of our day can have access furnish him facilities for successful practice which they never enjoyed, though they sought it long and even in foreign lands. Much of the discipline of the scholar must like theirs be preparatory and private,-must consist in the practice of attitude and action, in loud reading, and in declamation, continued till all the excellences of a good elocution become a part of his own nature. Nor will it in general be so long as might be supposed, before he begins to experience these results. Then will he, without the least embarrassment, as though they were the direct gifts of nature, carry them into the practice of oratory. So will he even who is already in public life—in the habit, it may be, of daily public speaking-by such private practice find the graces of gesture imperceptibly incorporating themselves with his public action, and all the defects of his voice, whether natural or acquired, gradually supplanted by the opposite excellences. Thus may one learn to speak according to the strictest rules of art, and yet never be embarrassed in any of his public performances by the thought of these rules.

The practice recommended in the first part of this Manual has a further object than merely to give a command of the various intonations and inflections of the voice; though this of itself would be sufficient to recommend it. If it went no further than this, it would break up the dull monotony of delivery, and demonstrate to the learner, that the speaker's want of power to stir men's blood' is not to