vert attention; and to retreat at the proper time and place.

Q. How should a discourse be concluded? A. Neither abruptly, nor unexpectedly, nor by a tedious lengthening of the subject, but with dignity and spirit, that the hearers may have a favourable impression of the subject and of the speaker.

PRONUNCIATION OR DELIVERY.

Q. How should a public speaker deliver his discourse?

A. So as to be fully and easily understood by all who hear him; and to speak with such grace and force as to please and move his audience.

Q. What is requisite to be fully and easily understood?

A. A due loudness of voice; distinctness of articulation; slowness; and propriety of pronunciation.

Q. How many pitches has every man in his voice?

A. Three; the high, the middle, and the low.

Q. Which is usually employed in conversation ?

A. The middle.

Q Which should be in public speaking?
A. The same.

Q. Can we give as great power of voice to this as to the high?

A. Greater, and one much more pleasant to the hearer.

Q. What will be the effect of commencing on the high key?

A. We shall speak with pain to ourselves, and be heard with pain by our audience.

Q. What will aid a speaker in filling a house?

A. Fixing his eye upon some distant person and speaking to him.

Q. What contributes more than mere loudness of sound to our being well heard?

A. Distinct articulation. Every syllable and every letter should be heard distinctly, without slurring, whispering, or suppressing any of the proper sounds.

Q. What is requisite to distinct articulation ?

A. Moderation.

Precipitancy of speech confounds all articulation and all meaning. Q. What is the first thing to be studied by all who begin to speak in public?

A. To pronounce with a proper degree of slowness, and with full and clear articulation. Q. What should be the public pronunciation of words?

A. The same which the most polite usage sanctions in common conversation. Q. What rule is to be observed respecting accent?

A. Give every word the same accent in public speaking as in common conversation. Q. Do many persons err here?

A. Yes. They protract syllables and multiply accents from a mistaken notion that it gives gravity and force to their discourse; whereas it gives an affected air and ruins the delivery.

Q. How does a speaker give grace and force to what he utters ?

A. By emphasis, pauses, tones, and ges

tures.

Q. What is Emphasis ?

A. A stronger and fuller sound of voice, than usual, by which we distinguish the accented syllable of some word on which we design to lay a particular stress, to show how it affects the rest of the sentence.*

Q. How will a speaker acquire the proper management of Emphasis ?

A. By attaining a just conception of the

*If the emphasis be placed wrong, we pervert and confound the meaning wholly. To give a common instance; such a simple question as this: "Do you ride to town to-day?" is capable of no fewer than four different acceptations, according as the emphasis is differently placed on the words. If it be pronounced thus; Do you ride to town to-day? the answer may naturally be, No; I send my servant in my stead. If thus; Do you ride to town to-day? Answer, No; I intend to walk. Do you ride to town to-day? No; I ride out into the fields. Do you ride to town to-day? No; but I shall to-morrow.

force and spirit of the sentiments he is to pro

nounce.

Q. Against what is he carefully to guard? A. Against multiplying emphatic words too much. If they recur too often they lose their effect.

Q. How many kinds of pauses are there? A. Two; emphatical pauses, and such as mark the distinctions of sense.

Q. When should emphatical pauses be made?

A. After something has been said of peculiar moment, and on which we want to fix the hearer's attention.

Q. What is essential to the graceful adjustment of those which mark the sense?

A. A constant and full supply of breath. Q. How many kinds of pauses belong to the Music of Verse?

A. Two; the pause at the end of the line; and the cæsural pause, in the middle.*

Q. Should a pause be made at the end of the line in blank verse?

A. In reading, but not in speaking on the stage.

Q. On what should be formed the tones of public speaking?

A. On the tones of sensible, animated conversation.

"Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song, "To heav'nly themes, sublimer strains belong."

POPE.

Q. How do many public speakers vitiate and ruin their delivery?

A. By substituting certain studied musical tones in place of the genuine expressions of sentiment, which the voice carries in natural discourse.

Q. How may men become good speakers? A. By following nature; speaking always with her voice, with ease and dignity.

Q. What should be the modes for gesture or action in public speaking?

A. The looks and gestures in which earnestness, indignation, compassion, or any other emotion discovers itself to most advantage, in the common intercourse of man.

Q. With which hand should gestures generally be made?

A. With the right hand; and they should proceed from the shoulder, rather than from the elbow.

Q. What does it especially concern a public speaker to manifest?

A. Earnestness.*

Q. What to obtain ?

A. Self-possession.†

"Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face. His eyes do drop no tears; his prayers are jest; His words come from his mouth; ours from our breast; He prays but faintly, and would be denied ;

We pray with heart and soul." KING RICHARD II.

+"Use all gently, and in the very torrent and tempest of passion, acquire a temperance that may give it smoothness." SHAKESPEARE.