INTRODUCTION.

PART I. ELOCUTION.

1. Elocution is the art of delivering written or spoken language in the way best calculated to express the sense, beauty, or force of the words employed by the speaker.

2. The requisites of a good delivery are :

1. The clear Enunciation of separate words and their ele

ments.

2. The just Expression of the sense of words in connected discourse.

3. Appropriate Gesture, comprehending under this head the attitude, motions, and aspect of countenance most suitable to lend animation and force to speech.

ENUNCIATION.

3. Enunciation is the distinct utterance of words in reading and speaking.

4. Enunciation depends for its distinctness on due attention to

1. Articulation.

2. Syllabication.

3. Accent.

ARTICULATION.

5. A good articulation consists in giving every letter and syllable of a word its due proportion of sound and distinct

ness.

6. In a perfect alphabet every sound would have its own letter, and every letter its own sound. But ours is not a perfect alphabet; for while there are forty-two simple sounds in the language,

B

there are but twenty-six letters by which they can be expressed. These sounds and the expedients adopted for representing them are exhibited in the following table, where they are indicated by the italic letters.

Table of Elementary Sounds.

Ex. 1.

The letters c, x, q being superfluous letters (c hard=k, c soft=s, x=ks, q=cu) are in the above arrangement omitted.

ALPHABETIC EQUIVALENTS.

7. Tried by the test of the foregoing table, the English alphabet is both defective and redundant. There are simple sounds in the language for which there are no separate letters, and there are letters which represent several distinct sounds. Nor do the irregularities of our alphabet end here; for, as is shown in the subjoined lists, these sounds can in their turn be represented by a variety of other letters and combinations which are equivalent to them. A careful study of these equivalents is necessary to a complete view of the elementary sounds of the language.

Ex. 2.

Substitutes for the Vowel Elements.

For a as in fate,' we have au, ai, ao, au, ay, ea, ei, cy; as in Aaron, sail, aorist, gauge, lay, great, vein, they.

For a as in fat,' we have ai, ua; as in plaid, guaranty.

For a as in 'far,' we have au, e, ea, ua; as in daunt, sergeant, heart, guard.

For a as in fall,' we have au, aw, eo, o, oa, ou; as in pause, hawk, George, horn, broad, sought.

For e as in me,' we have ea, ce, ei, eo, ey, i, ie, uay; as in weak, deep, seize, people, key, pique, brief, quay.

For e as in met, we have ai, ay, ea, ei, eo, ie, u, ue; as in saith, says, dead, heifer, leopard. friend, bury, guest.

For e as in her,' we have ea, i, ou, ue, y; as in learner, fir, scourge, guerdon, myrrh.

For i as in pine,' we have ai, ei, eye, ie, ui, uy, y, ye; as in aisle, sleight, eye, die, guide, buy, try, rye.

For i as in in,' we have e, i, ie, o, u, ui, y; as in English, forfeit sieve, women, busy, build, cygnet.

For o as in 'no,' we have au, eau, eo, ew, oa, oe, ou, ow; as in hautboy, beau, yeoman, sew, loaf, hoe, soul, flow.

For o as in not,' we have a, au, ou, ow, ua; as in what, nauseate, cough, knowledge, quantity.

For o as in 'move,' we have ew, oe, oo, ou, u, ui; as in grew, shoe, soon, soup, rude, fruit.

For u as in 'tube,' we have eau, eu, ew, ieu, iew, ue, ui, you; as in beauty, feud, dew, adieu, view, hue, juice, youth.

For u as in 'tub,' we have o, oe, oo, ou; as in love, does, blood, young.

For u as in 'bull,' we have o, oo, ou; as in wolf, cook, could.
For y as in 'yes,' we have i; as in onion, valiant.

For oi as in oil,' we have oy; as in joy.

For ou as in house,' we have ow; as in now.

Ex. 3.

Substitutes for Consonant Elements.

For f as in 'fox,' we have gh, ph, as in laugh, sphere.
For j as in 'judge,' we have g as in gem, gin, gyre.
For k as in 'kill,' we have c, ch, , q, as in can, chord, etiquette.
For s as in 'son,' we have c, as in cent, city, cygnet.
For t as in 'top,' we have d, th, as in faced, Thames.
For v as in 'van,' we have f, ph, as in of, Stephen.
For z as in 'zeal,' we have s, x, as in rose, xebec.
For ch as in church,' we have t, as in fustian, mixtion.
For sh as in 'she,' we have c, ch, s, as in ocean, chaise, sure.

CONSONANT SOUNDS.

8. To ensure a clear and distinct articulation it is necessary, while giving to each vowel its proper sound, to take especial care to give full effect to the consonants, simple and compound, and more particularly those with which words begin and terminate. It is the consonant sounds which are mainly subservient to articulation; and hence the pupil should be well exercised in the repetition of such sounds, particularly those which he finds difficult to his organs. The following exercises, arranged with reference to the organs of speech, by which the requisite sounds are in each case produced, will be found well suited for this purpose. The letters requiring particular attention are printed in italics.

9. The sound of the consonants is modified by the position of the tongue, palate, lips, and teeth, and by the degree in which the air is permitted to pass between them or through the nose in the act of articulation.* Hence the terms, lingual (Lat. lingua,

• An articulate sound, in its literal meaning, is a sound proceeding from the articulation or jointing of the organs (Lat. articulus, a joint), and articulation is thus the art of closing or joining the organs in the production of speech.

the tongue); palatal (Lat. palatum, the palate); labial (Lat. labia, the lips); dental (Lat. dentes, the teeth); guttural (Lat. guttur, the throat), which appear in the following table :

Organic Classification of Consonant Sounds.

Voiceless.

บ

th (then)
d, i, n, r, z

The column headed 'voiceless,' includes the consonants which are produced by the breath alone without voice; and that headed 'Voice' those to which voice is superadded. The distinction, which will be readily observed in attempting to pronounce the sounds represented by the corresponding pairs of consonants, p-b, t-d, f-v, k-g, is one of some importance in Elocution. The voice consonants partake much of the nature of vowels; and it is a pleasure to a good reader,' says Mr. Smart, when he has such sounds to utter. He dwells upon them, throws into them all the voice they are capable of receiving, and, through their means, mellows his whole pronunciation. But to an uncultivated reader all sounds come alike indifferent. He clutters them together, curtails them of their due length, deprives them of the share of voice which belongs to them, and thereby reduces them all to mutes or aspirates.'

EX.

Labials (bp, m).

Formed by the contact of the lips.

pay, peer, pine, pope, pompous, sharp, deep, help, type, bay, beer, bend, babe, bubble, rub, barb, bulb, tube, grub, may, mean, mind, maim, remember, rhythm, drachm. Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper.

The barbarous Hubert took a bribe

To kill the royal babe.

Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears the palm.

And bubbling and troubling and doubling

And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,

And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping;

All at once and all o'er with a mighty uproar,

And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

Ex. 5.

Labio-dentals (f, v).

Formed by the contact of the lower lip with the upper teeth. feel, fee, fine, foe, fifty, fifth, phial, wife, rough, stuff. vain, veer, vile, voice, revive, evolve, nephew, hive, nerve.

The flag of freedom floats once more aloft.
He filled the draught and freely quaffed,
And puffed the fragrant fume and laughed.
Progressive virtue and approving heaven.

Wave your tops, ye pines,

With every plant in sign of worship wave.

Ex. 6. Lingua-dentals (th [thin] th [thine]).
Formed by the application of the tongue to the fore-teeth.

thane, think, through, thwack, thousandth, warmth, health, than, they, thus, then, thyself, wither, lathe, breathe, clothes. Theodore Thickthorn thrust thistles through the thick of his thumb.

Soft as the thrill that memory throws across the soul.
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
Almighty! Thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair, Thyself how wondrous then!
Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?

Ex. 7. Lingua-palatals (d, 1, n, r*, s*, sh, t, z*). Formed by the application of the fore-part of the tongue to the forepart of the palate.

day, dew, did, drove, adjudged, derided, strengthenedst, lass, let, lip, love, lily, lovely, blame, lull, unable, pestle, nay, new, nip, none, gnash, nun, inn, impugn, scenery, ray,† red, rid, road, rural, roarer, very, wiry, wrestlers, bar, ‡ here, third, pure, commerce, northern, arm, hearth, sad, send, siege, soil, serious, sense, sceptre, hosts, Psyche, shame, shell, shirk, shore, shriek, sash, shrove, rush, shawl, tan, tear, tease, torn, toast, tart, tempt, debt, brittlest, zeal, zest, zebra, zone, zigzag, blaze, zephyr, doze, amaze. His sister is a thistle-sifter, and she sifts thistles with a thistlesifter.

What man dare I dare!

Approach thou, like the rugged Russian bear,

The armed rhinoceros, the Hyrcan tiger.

The shade he sought, and shunned the sunshine,

In the case of r, s, and z the contact of the tongue and palate is not complete. R has two sounds, the trilled 'r' before a vowel and at the beginning of words or syllables, produced by the rapid vibration of the tip of the tongue; and the smooth 'r' before a consonant, when the trill is either omitted or feebly uttered.

† Trilled.

+ Smooth.