single work of nature in this-that it is the assemblage in one example of the finest points of many models, forming, in their aggregate, such a perfect whole as was, perhaps, never found in nature.

Nature's laws reduced to system, and put into practice, lie at the base of all really fine elocution.

Mouthing is not elocution; ranting is not elocution; declamatory excess is not elocution; nor is elocution to be acquired by imitation of any one person's style. A good elocution is distinct without pedantry, forcible without exaggeration, energetic without strain, elegant without affectation. Ease is the distinguishing characteristic of finished utterance as of all perfect art. Apparent effort is a vice and a blemish, and straining after effect loses its aim by overleaping the mark. The maxim of the great Master, 'Use all gently,' cannot be too often repeated nor too reverently followed.

INTRODUCTION TO LESSON I.

To be a good reader aloud a man must have brains. Brains are essential; as essential as a fine ear to a musician.

If you aspire to be a fine reader, capable of holding and delighting an audience, you should possess poetic feeling and quickly-awakened sympathy with the beautiful and the emotional in oratory and poetry. I speak here of premeditated reading, either of the works of others, or of your own written compositions or prepared discourses.

You need not have, naturally, a fine voice; that can be cultivated and improved both in compass and quality. The ear, also, as far as is necessary to the reader's purpose, can also be improved by exercise.

To read intelligently and effectively at sight, on the sudden, without preparation, the faculty of quick analysis is necessary. Reading aloud is based on analysis and synthesis, taking to pieces and putting together; that is, first understanding the matter yourself, then presenting it to your hearers so that they will understand it as you do.

This is what I mean by analysis and synthesis. To analyse quickly you must keep your

eye always a little in advance of your tongue, and become master of phrasing a term which I will presently explain.

Now phrasing is intimately connected with time or quantity in speech; and, therefore, that is the first accident of speech that it is necessary for the aspirant to elocutionary excellence to appreciate and observe.

To a bad reader all sentences are alike; to a good one they have great variety of time, pitch, and cadence. When you thoroughly understand and can command these three leading accidents of speech, you will have taken a long stride towards attaining a good system of reading aloud, or of speaking in public, which are our present objects.

g

LESSON I.

TIME, OR QUANTITY.

SAY aloud the three words, vitriol, victim, viper. It must be clear to every ear that the first syllable (vit) of vit-riol is short and abrupt, and that the first syllable in vi-per is long, and capable of indefinite extension in utterance; i.e. you can prolong the syllable as much as you please, which means that you can add to or diminish its time or quantity. Not so with the syllable vit in vit-riol; it is immutably short and abrupt in utterance. To give it a lengthened time or quantity would be a deformity in speech. Hence syllables of this kind, which end in t, p, and some other atonics, as they are called, may be styled immutables.

Indefinites.

The class under which the syllable vi, as in viper, occurs, we will call indefinites, because, being always long in time or quantity, that time is indefinite, and may be prolonged at will.

Mutables.

The first syllable of vic-tim is one of those syllables in our language which, being always

more near to abruptness than to long quantity, do nevertheless admit of a certain brief dwelling upon them; they may have quantity given them. We will call them mutables, and designate them by the prosodial mark of short quantity (~).

Immutables or Abrupts.

The first syllable in vit-riol is immutably short in quantity, and is to be marked with a smart stroke of sound, abrupt accentuation.

The judicious use of the proper variations in time or quantity is the very life of recitation, and the right hand of the rhythm of prose or poetry. The force and dignity of prose, and the movement, variety, and grace of verse, mainly depend on these two accidents; therefore give good attention to what follows.

Letters are the signs of elementary sounds; they make up syllables; syllables make up words.

The time or quantity of syllables is governed by law, viz. :

Syllables are long or short in time (i.e. quantity) in proportion as they may be composed of those letters which, in their elementary sounds, partake more or less of the quality of tone.

The vowel sounds (as grammarians call them) have full tone or vocality. We will therefore