us to defend our rights, so also is delivery a powerful auxiliary in giving force, efficacy, and weight to argument.

The great pains and excessive exertions employed by the ancients in order to overcome the various difficulties of articulation, pronunciation, rate of utterance, and natural defects of the vocal organs, were more than could possibly be expected from persons living in our age. The extraordinary labours of Demosthenes, who built himself a subterraneous cave where he might strive, in solitude, to correct a defective enunciation-adding to his seclusion the shaving of half his head, that he might not be able to go abroad-amply illustrate the value attached to the study of elocution in his time. The consequence of his drudgery, if I may so call it, and his constant practice in the early portion of his lifetime, was, that he became the greatest orator the world has witnessed. So high was his fame, even when alive, that, as soon as it was heard that Demosthenes was to deliver an oration, crowds flocked from all parts of Greece to hear him. Cicero, Hortensius, schines, and Isocrates were all incessant and indefatigable in their exertions to acquire perfection in this art. The genius and abilities of the moderns, assisted by the experience of the ancients, together with their own greater refinement of civilization, ought to be able to effect a great deal; yet, it is to be deplored that the present age seems to be fast receding even

from an attempt to bring the art to perfection. With regard to the English nation, in particular, there appears to exist a strong prejudice either, in the one instance, towards an invective style of oratory, or, in the other, towards mere witticism and drollery -the comic taste of the age being decidedly opposed to the progress of the art.

In

It is but natural, however, that the inhabitants of southern and warmer climes should have a greater facility of diction and delivery than those of colder and more northern countries. Thus, the Italians and Spaniards would excel the French, and these in their turn would surpass the English. Still, it does not follow that a native of the British Isles ought to despair of attaining an equal degree of excellence with the very best of orators. order to ensure complete success, one should be instructed early in life in the rudiments of this art; for the vocal organs and the limbs of the body not having attained their full development at a tender age, all defective tendencies are easily removed, either in pronunciation or in action. A correct pronunciation, accent, and mode of address may be thus acquired during youth, advantages, which will render all further progress comparatively easy; the stages of advancement being from articulation and modulation of the voice to that graceful gesture and delivery suitable to perfect oratory: delivery, be it remembered, including all that can be embraced by the term elocution.

"How much stress," says Dr. Blair, "was laid upon delivery by the most eloquent of all orators, Demosthenes, appears from a noted saying of his, related both by Cicero and Quintilian, when being asked, What was the first point in oratory? he answered, Delivery; and being asked, What was the second? and afterwards, What was the third? he still answered, Delivery." Hortensius was the rival of Cicero himself, though no one can doubt the superiority of the latter's compositions. And it is probable that both Demosthenes and Cicero shook the forum and the senate-house more by their manner of delivery than by the style of their discourses.

But, whilst advocating most strongly the early study of elocution as an art, be it remembered that the theory will not suffice: the actual practice thereof will alone furnish a readiness and facility of using this art to advantage. How many do we observe, at the present day, in assemblies of every kind, more especially where previous preparation has been a matter of consideration, who try to suit their manner, inflection, and gesture to their verbal utterance, and in consequence of not being acquainted with the rules of the art, draw down ridicule upon their performance instead of applause. Again, many set out with the broad principle that nature is the best model; but if such people are impressed with the idea that nature is all-powerful in this department, let them remember that

"Art is but nature better understood."

How unsightly and ungraceful does it appear for a man to emphasize his words and sentences with the ungainly contortions of the trunk, which his own misconceived notions prompt him to make use of! Some (unconsciously perhaps) forcibly close their eyes in their discourse, for emphasis; others contort their countenance almost to the mimicry of a buffoon, even in solemn passages; whilst others, again, are, on the contrary, so cold and stiff that they resemble statues rather than living men.

"Most men," says Gregory, says Gregory, "when strongly affected by any passion or emotion, have some peculiarity in their appearance which does not belong to the natural expression of such an emotion. If this be not properly corrected, a public speaker, who is really warm and animated with his subject, may, nevertheless, make a very ridiculous and contemptible figure. It is the business of art to show nature in her most amiable and graceful forms, and not with those peculiarities in which she appears in particular instances; and it is this difficulty of properly representing nature, that renders the eloquence and action, both of the pulpit and the stage, acquisitions of such difficult attainment."

Ludovicus Cresollius* thus enumerates the most

* Ludovicus Cresollius was a Jesuit of Brittany, who wrote a treatise upon the perfect action and pronunciation

remarkable faults of bad speakers. "Some hold their heads immoveable, and turned to one side, as if they were made of horn; others stare with their eyes as horribly as if they intended to frighten everybody; some are continually twisting their mouths and working their chins, while they are speaking, as if, all the time, they were cracking nuts; some, like the apostate Julian, breathe in-* sult, and express in their countenance contempt and impudence. Others, as if they personated the fictitious heroes of tragedy, gape enormously, and extend their jaws as widely as if they were going to swallow up everybody; above all, when they bellow with fury, they scatter their foam about, and threaten, with contracted brow and eyes, like Saturn. These, as if they were playing some game, are continually making motions with their fingers, and, by the extraordinary working of their hands, endeavour to form in the air, I may almost say, all the figures of the mathematicians. Those, on the contrary, have hands so ponderous, and so fastened down by terror, that they could more easily move beams of timber: others labour so with their elbows, that it is evident, either that they had been formerly shoemakers, or had lived in no other society but that of cobblers. Some are so unsteady in the motions of their bodies, that they

of an orator, published at Paris in 1620, and entitled “Vacationes Auctumnales."