tion and judgment, to contribute to the Orphan House of Georgia; and also when he said: "Look yonder!" stretching out his hand and pointing while he spoke, "what is that I see? It is my agonized Lord! Hark! hark! Do you not hear? O my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine, O God, be done."

Of the blind and solitary beggar of Jericho, when groping his to the road side where our Savior was to pass, he way heard in the voices of the multitude, the sound of his coming, and shouted, almost with agony: "Jesus! thou son of David, have mercy on me!"

Of the Great Physician himself, when, hearing the tone of distress, he kindly inquired, "What wilt thou have me to do?" And, again, of the blind man, when he sprang forward, threw himself at the feet of Christ, and in a voice choked with emotion, and trembling with earnestness, he answered, "Lord grant that I may receive my sight!"

Of David, when he lamented the loss of Saul and Jonathan, thus: "The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen! I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:" and when he mourned over the death of Absalom, and said, in the deep anguish of his soul: "O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee! O Absalom, my son, my son."

Of St. Paul, when his peerless eloquence made Felix, the Roman governor, tremble, and extorted from King Agrippa the acknowledgment, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a christian."

Of Daniel Webster, when speaking, in 1830, on Foote's land resolution, in the senate of the United States, he said: “When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther on the waves of debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to form some conjecture where we now are."

The names of many others might be added to this brilliant list, whose elocution has not been artificial, but

and the thrilling, melting tones of whose voices came so melodiously, that

"Certain stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the undying music."

Books in which "a key of rhetorical notation," or "marks of inflection," are attached to the pieces, leave the pupil no opportunity to exercise his own good sense; and necessarily make him a mere automaton.

Walker, in his "Rhetorical Grammar," calls the inflections rising, falling, and circumflex; and other writers are chiefly indebted to him, for rules on the subject. He, however, recognized the difficulty if not the inexpediency, of attempting to reduce the doctrine of inflections to a system, The rising and falling inflections, to some extent, define themselves; the former ends higher than it begins; the latter turns the voice downward. The circumflex unites the two inflections, by beginning with the falling and ending with the rising slide, or by commencing with the rising and ending with the falling inflection. The monotone, which consists of sameness of sound, is another absolute modification of the voice. The rising inflection is marked thus (/); the falling thus (\); the circumflex thus (A); the monotone thus (—).

Let us consider the upward and downward slides of the voice to range one tone in music. It is an easy matter to give the inflections.

EXAMPLES.

Did you say one or twò?

Must my

voice rise or fall?

66 Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?"

Judas betrayed him in that mànner.

Did you say she shells?

No, I said sea shells.

He said six slim, slick sàplings; not six slim, sick sláplings. "The child is father of the man."

"To be, or not to be; that is the question."

"Died Abner as a fool dieth?" If the falling inflection be given thus: Died Abner as a fool dìeth, it implies that Abner, in the opinion of King David, died as a fool dieth.

"He sees his fellow guilty of a skin, not colored like his own." The falling inflection thus: He sees his fellow guilty of a skìn, conveys the idea that it is a crime to have a skin.

"The curfew tolls; the knell of parting dày." The rising inflection thus: The curfew tólls the knell of parting dày, would convey the idea that it is the curfew which tolls the knell of parting day.

"No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel.” The falling inflection thus: No man lighteth a candle, implies either that nobody ever lights a candle, or that although men do not light candles, women may.

If, when Hamlet

says:

No môre"

"To die? to sleep;

Shakspeare intends to convey the solemn idea, through the Prince of Denmark, that we fall into that sleep which knows no waking; the inflections should be given as indicated. If, on the other hand, those phrases imply that to die is merely to sleep-that is all-then, "no more," requires a rising, instead of a circumflex inflection.

"We mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fórtunes, and our sacred honor."

"Life is a torrid day, parched by the wind and sun,

And death the calm cool night,

When the weary day is done."

Aye but to die and gō, we know not where,

To lie in cōld obstruction and to rōt."

We sit lonely and weep.

"The grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom."

"Let the tomb open to Ossian. The sons of the song are gōne to rest, My võice remains like a blast that roars lonely on a sea surrounded rock. The dark mōss whistles there."

"Rōll on, thou dārk, deep, blue ōcean."

"Read this declaration at the head of the army. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it thère."

"In the spring time, your fields shall grow gréen, but they shall not gladden your eyè; your flocks shall sport thereon, but it shall bring no delight to yoù; the brier and the thorn shall flourish around your hédge, because your hand is not there to prùne; your children shall prattle around the lonely fire-side, but it shall bring no joy to your bosom; the sun shall rise in its wonted splendor, and go down with all its gorgeous beauty, but the cold walls of a prison shall bound your vision, confine your hópes, and prolong your woes."

SELECT PIECES

FOR

EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION.

1. ELOCUTION.-Dr. Channing.

1. A PEOPLE should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures, by furnishing the means of innocent ones. There is an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be usefully introduced among us-I mean elocution. A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and good elocution, is a very pure and high gratification.

2. Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their excellence and power. It is not easy to conceive of a more effectual way of spreading a refined taste through a community. The drama undoubtedly appeals more strongly to the passions than recitation, but the latter brings out the meaning of the author more.

3. Shakspeare, well recited, would be better understood than on the stage. Then, in recitation, we escape the weariness of listening to poor performers, who, after all, fill up most of the time at the theatre. Recitation, sufficiently varied, so as to include pieces of chaste wit, as well as of pathos, beauty and sublimity, is adapted to our present intellectual progress, as much as the drama falls below it.

4. Should this exhibition be introduced among us sucress

fully, the result would be, that the power of recitation would be extensively called forth, and this would be added to our social and domestic pleasures.

The above extract is from a discourse, delivered before the Massachusetts Temperance Society, in the year 1836, by the Rev. William E. Channing, of Boston. It shows clearly that Elocution is calculated to elevate the standard of morality. It, moreover, sets forth, most happily, its_superiority over the drama. Dr. Channing was born at Newport, in Rhode Island, on the seventh day of April, 1780, and he died at Bennington, Vermont, October 2d, 1842. As a literary and philosophical essayist, he ranks high abroad, as well as at home. His name has been rendered familiar in foreign countries, by his articles on Fenelon, Milton, and Napoleon. England has, at length, unequivocally acknowledged the capability of America of producing native writers of the first order. When Spurzheim, the celebrated phrenologist, was asked, what prompted him to leave Europe and visit the United States, he replied: "Shall I not see Dr. Channing ?” It has been too much the custom in the mother country, to undervalue their transatlantic rivals. She is justly proud of Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and Brougham. America, too, has produced men of surpassing intellect. The writings of Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Wirt, Channing, Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, J. C. Calhoun, Gerrit Smith, and Washington Irving, are not inferior to the best productions of those great men.

The first ten pieces in this "Elocution," like all others which are not of an unusually solemn nature; or, of a rhetorical character, require a colloquial manner of reading.

2. ELOCUTION OF LADIES.-Mrs. Sigourney.

1. Reading aloud, with propriety and grace, is an accomplishment worthy of the acquisition of females. To enter into the spirit of an author, and convey his sentiments with a happy adaptation of tone, emphasis, and manner, is no common attainment. It is peculiarly valuable in our sex, because it so often gives them an opportunity of imparting pleasure and improvement to an assembled family, during the winter evening, or the protracted storm. In the zeal for feminine accomplishments, it would seem that the graces of elocution had been too little regarded.

2. Permit me to fortify my opinion, by the authority of the Rev. Mr. Gallaudet. "I cannot understand why it should be thought, as it sometimes is, a departure from female delicacy, to read in a promiscuous, social circle, if called upon to do so, from any peculiar circumstance, and to read too, as well as