INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ELOCUTION, AND THE NECESSITY OF STUDYING IT AS AN ART.

THAT a good Elocution is a highly useful accomplishment, is a truth too obvious to require any laboured proof. Every one must acknowledge it to be desirable that whatever be read or spoken should not only be barely understood, but conveyed with its full force and spirit to those to whom it is addressed. The object of all public speaking is either instruction or persuasion, or both; and it is certain that these objects will be but imperfectly accomplished, by him whose enunciation is hurried and indistinct, whose tone is monotonous, or whose gesture is awkward and inappropriate. We are always pleased with the speaker whose manner of delivery is just and graceful, though his matter be of little weight; and we are equally wearied with him whose manner is faulty and unnatural, though his matter may be fitted to instruct or to convince us.

But, although the importance of a good elocution is generally acknowledged, this accomplishment is seldom

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possessed. Few of our public speakers can be accounted finished orators; and it is a general complaint against the great majority, that there is something in their delivery which is disagreeable, or at best uninteresting. The mannerism of the Senate is almost proverbial; at the Bar there is comparatively but a small number of speakers who can address a Jury with effect; and in the Church there is even more to be complained of than either in Parliament or the Courts of Law; for nothing is more common than to hear people assign as a reason for their absence from public worship, that their Preacher is so inaudible, so ungraceful, or so dull, that they can derive but little either of pleasure or profit from attending on his ministry.

As the first step to the removal of an evil is the knowledge of its cause, it is important to inquire, To what are we to attribute this want of a good elocution? To this the answer is obvious, that no man can be expected to excel in that in which he has never been instructed in other words, that it would be unreasonable to look for good public speakers, in a country in which elocution forms no regular part of a liberal education. Those of our youth who are the expectants of an ample fortune, or who are destined for a profession, are instructed at our Colleges in the whole circle of the sciences; they spend year after year in the acquisition of the dead languages and of profane and sacred learning; but in reading and speaking they have either no instruction at all given them, or such only as is very general and insufficient. They are supplied with abundance of learning, but as to the art of applying it directly to the instruction and persuasion of their fellow-men, they are left almost entirely to themselves; so that there is much pertinency in the following query of a late Bishop of Cloyne, namely, "Whether half the learning of these kingdoms be not lost, for want of having a proper delivery taught in our Schools and Colleges?" This is the immediate source of the evil; but before we can discover the true remedy, we must trace it still higher, and ask, Why it is that Elocution is not taught in our places of public education? The reason of this is, because they who are at the head of these establishments, do not think that it is a thing to be taught. They are possessed with a very common prejudice, that Elocution is a subject to which few rules are applicable, and that a young man has himself only to blame, if he do not attain a good delivery by his own unaided exertions. This is the principal reason of the neglect; but there is another which has no doubt considerable influence: it is, the idea that systematic instruction in Elocution is likely to induce an artificial and unnatural manner. Let us examine these two objections at length.

-It is said that Elocution cannot be taught as an art. But why not? We have an art of Painting and of Sculpture, of Fencing and of Riding, and why should we not have an art of Reading and Speaking? They who refuse to consider Elocution in this light, are too apt to regard nature and art as opposed to each other -than which notion none can be more unfounded. Art is a system of rules drawn from the observation of nature, or, as Pope has well expressed it,

Art is but nature better understood.

To study Elocution as an art, therefore, is not to give up nature, but only to follow her in a more regular and systematic manner. In the old treatises on this subject we are perpetually exhorted to follow nature; and the direction is given so repeatedly, that our ears are wearied with the very sound of the words. But the only question which can here be of any importance, is, What is natural? What are those pauses, those elevations or depressions of the voice, those tones, and those gestures, which we should naturally and spontaneously adopt, if we were engaged in conversation, or which would characterize the discourse of a man of good natural powers, and a correct taste, when speaking extempore? If we can discover these, why not point them out, and endeavour to reduce them to general rules? Why not consider the kind and quality of voice, the pauses, the emphasis, and the inflections, which some particular sentence, or member of a sentence, requires, and on this found a general rule, which will be applicable to all sentences of similar import and construction? Let us take an example:

The soul, considered abstractedly from its passions, is of a remiss and sedentary nature, slow in its resolves, and languishing in its executions.

In this sentence it is natural to let the voice fall on the words, sedentary nature, and on inquiring the reason, we find that it is, because the first part ending at nature makes perfect sense, and is not modified by what follows. Why then should we not lay it down as a general rule, that all sentences of this construction require a fall of the voice where the sense is completed; or, in other words, that all loose sentences require the falling inflection before the loose clause? Again,

Physicians recommend temperance as one of the best means of preserving health.

In this sentence it is as natural to keep up and suspend the voice on the word temperance, as it is to let it fall on the words sedentary nature in the former instance; and on inquiry, we find the reason to be, that, although the first member makes perfect sense, it is yet so modified by the second, as to form what may be called a compact sentence. Why then may we not lay it down as a rule here also, that all sentences of this kind require the rising inflection at the end of the first principal constructive part, or immediately preceding the modifying member? Again,

A few sighs, ejaculated in an hour like this, are but a poor atonement for a life spent in vicious pursuits.

In this sentence we naturally suspend the voice not only on the words sighs, this, and atonement, but on pursuits at the end; and the reason is, because the sentence throughout denotes what is negative, weak, inconsiderable, insufficient, and to express this, the rising inflection is much more appropriate than the falling. Why then should we not lay it down as a rule, that all sentences expressive of what is weak or inconsiderable must terminate with the rising inflection? Thus to deduce general rules from the observation of particular instances, is what the art of Elocution professes to do; and it is clear that when this is done, a great point is gained; the business of learning to read or speak is wonderfully facilitated, and the progress which an attentive student may make is both rapid and sure.

It is in vain to urge, that good sense, and a cultivated taste, are all that are requisite to form a good