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variety of different humours or passions. So that fome masters, as well as all pupils, may find their account in ufing this collection, till a better be published.

Whoever imagines the English tongue unfit for oratory, has not a just notion of it. That, by reason of the difproportion between its vowels and confonants, it is not quite fo tractable as the Italian, and confequently, not fo eafly applied to amorous, or to plaintive mufic, is not denied. But it goes better to martial mufic, than the Italian. And in oratory and poetry, there is no tongue, ancient, or modern, capable of expreffing a greater variety of humours, or paffions, by its founds (I am not speaking of its copioufnefs, as to phrafeology) than the English. The Greek, among the ancient, and the Turkish and Spanish, among the modern languages, have a loftier found, though the gutturals in them, of which the English is free (for it is probable, that the ancient Greeks pronounced the letter x gutturally) are, to moft ears, disagreeable. But there is not in thofe languages, the variety of found which the English affords. They never quit their stiff pomp, which, on fome occafions, is unnatural. Nor is there, as far as I know, any language more copious, than the English; an eminent advantage for oratory. And if we muft fall out with our mother-tongue, on account of fome hard and un-liquid fyllables in it, how fhall we bear the celebrated Roman language itself, in every fentence of which we find fuch founds as tot, quot, fub, ad, fed, eft, ut, et, nec, id, at, it, fit, funt, dat, dant, det, dent, dabat, dabant, daret, darent, hic, hæc, hoc, fit, fuit, erat, erunt, fert, duc, fac, dic, and so on.

It is greatly to our fhame, that, while we do fo little for the improvement of our language, and of our manner of fpeaking it in public, the French fhould take fo much pains in both these refpects, though their language is very much inferior to ours, both as to emphafis and copioufnefs.

It is true, there is not now the fame fecular demand for eloquence, as under the popular governments of antient times, when twenty talents (feveral thousands of pounds) was the fee for one fpeech; when the tongue of an orator could do more than the fceptre of a monarch, or the word of a warrior; and when fuperior skill in the art of haranguing was the certain means for elevating him, who poffeffed it, to the highest honours in the state. Even in our-own country, that is partly the cafe; for the inftances of bed

Pliny fays, Ifocrates was paid that fum for one oration.

Speakers

Peakers rifing to eminent ftations in the government are rare. But it must be owned, our politics now turn upon other hinges, than in the times when Greek and Roman eloquence flourished. Nor are we, accordingly, like to bestow the pains, which they did, for confummating ourselves in the art of Speaking. We fhall hardly, in our ages, hear of a perfon's fhutting himself up for many months in a cell under ground, to study and practise elocution uninterrupted: or declaiming on the fea-fhore, to accuftom himself to harangue an enraged multitude without fear; or under the points of drawn fwords fixed over his fhoulders, to cure himself of a bad habit of fhrugging them up; which, with other particulars, are the labours recorded to have been undertaken by Demofthenes, in order to perfect himself, in fpite of his natural disadvantages, of which he had many, in the art of elocution. What is to be gained by skill in the art of speaking may not now be fufficient to reward the indefatigable diligence used by a Demofthenes, a Pericles, an Æschines, a Demetrius Phalereus, an Ifocrates, a Carbo, a Cicero, a M. Antony, an Hortenfius, a Julius, an Auguftus, and the reft. Yet it is ftill of important advantage for all that part of youth, whose station places them within the reach of a polite education, to be qualified for acquitting themselves with reputation, when called to fpeak in public. In parliament, at the bar, in the pulpit, at meetings of merchants, in committees for managing public affairs, in large focieties, and on fuch like occafions, a competent address and readiness, not only in finding matter, but in expressing and urging it effectually, is what, I doubt not, many a gentleman would willingly acquire at the expence of half his other improvements.

The reader will naturally reflect here upon one important ufe for good fpeaking, which was unknown to the ancients, viz. for the minifterial function. I therefore have faid above, page 4, that we have not the fame fecular demand for elocution, as the ancients; meaning, by reservation, that we have a moral, or fpiritual ufe for it, which they had not.

And no small matter of grief it is to think, that, of the three learned profeffions, real merit is there the most ineffec tual toward raifing its poffeffor, where it ought to be most; which must greatly damp emulation and diligence. An able phyfician, or lawyer, hardly fails of fuccefs in life. But a clergyman may unite the learning of a Cudworth with the eloquence of a Tillotson, and the delivery of an Atterbury: but, if he cannot make out a connection with fome great man, and it is too well known by what means they are most com

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monly gained, he must content himself to be buried in a country curacy, or vicarage, at most, for life.

If nature unaffifted could form the eminent speaker, where were the ufe of art or culture; which yet no one pretends to queftion? Art is but nature improved upon and refined. And before improvement is applied, genius is but a mafs of ore in the mine, without luftre, and without value, because unknown and unthought of. The ancients used to procure for their youth, mafters of pronunciation from the theatres, and had them taught gefture and attitude by the palaæftritæ. These laft taught what is, among us, done by the dancing. mafter. And, as to the former, no man ought to prefume to fet himself at the head of a place of education, who is not in fome degree capable of teaching pronunciation, However, I could with, that gentlemen, who have made themselves perfect masters of pronunciation and delivery, would undertake to teach this branch at places of education, in the fame manner as masters of music, drawing, dancing, and fencing, are used to do.

It is well when a youth has no natural defect or impedi ment, in his fpeech. And, I fhould, by no means, advise, that he, who has, be brought up to a profeffion requiring elocution. But there are inftances enough of natural defects furmounted, and eminent fpeakers formed by indefatigable diligence, in fpite of them. Demofthenes could not, when he begun to ftudy rhetoric, pronounce the first letter of the name of his art. And Cicero was long-necked, and narrow-chefted. But diligent and faithful labour, in what one is in earnest about, furmounts all difficulties. Yet we are commonly enough difgufted by public fpeakers lifping and ftammering, and fpeaking through the nofe, and pronoun cing the letter R with the throat, inftead of the tongue, and the letter S like Th, and fereaming above, or croaking be low all natural pitch of human voice; fome mumbling, as if they were conjuring up fpirits; others bawling, as loud as the vociferous venders of provisions in London streets; fome tumbling out the words fo precipitately, that no ear can catch them; others dragging them out fo flowly, that it is as tedious to listen to them, as to count a great clock; fome have got a habit of fhrugging up their fhoulders; others of fee-fawing with their bodies, fome backward and forward, others from fide to fide; fome raise their eye-brows at every third word; fome open their mouths frightfully; others keep their teeth fo close together, that one would think their jaws were fet; fome fhrivel all their features together into the middle

* Quint. C, x,

middle of their faces; fome pufh out thei lips, as if they were mocking the audience; others hem at every paufe; and others fmack with their lips, and roll their tongues about in their mouths, as if they laboured under a continual thirft. All which bad habits they ought to have been broken of in early youth, or put into ways of life, in which they would have, at leaft, offended fewer perfons.

It is through neglect in the early part of life, and bad habits taking place, that there is not a public speaker among twenty, who knows what to do with his eyes. To fee the venerable man, who is to be the mouth of a whole people confeffing their offences to their Creator and Judge, bring out thefe awful words, " Almighty and moft merciful Fa"ther, &c." with his eyes over his shoulder, to fee who is just gone into the pew at his elbow; to obferve this, one would imagine there was an abfolute want of all feeling of devotion. But it may be, all the while, owing to nothing but aukwardness; and the good man looks about him the whole time, he is going on with the fervice, merely to keep himself in countenance, not knowing, elfe, where to put his

eyes.

Even the players, who excel, beyond comparison, all other fpeakers in this country, in what regards decorum, are, some of them, often guilty of monftrous improprieties as to the management of their eyes. To direct them full at the audience, when they are fpeaking a foliloquy, or an afideSpeech, is infufferable. For they ought not to feem fo much as to think of an audience, or of any perfon's looking upon them, at any time; efpecially on thofe occafions; thofe fpeeches being only thinking aloud, and expreffing what the actor fhould be fuppofed to wifh concealed. Nor do they always keep their eyes fixed upon thofe they speak to, even in impaffioned dialogue. Whether it is from beedleffness, or that they are more out of countenance by looking one another ftedfaftly in the face, I know not: but they do often ramble about with their eyes in a very unmeaning, and unnatural

manner.

A natural genius for delivery fuppofes an ear; though it does not always fuppofe a mufical ear. I have never heard poetry, particularly that of Milton, better spoken, than by a gentleman, who yet had fo little difcernment in mufic, that, he has often told me, the grinding of knives entertained him as much as Handel's organ.

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Yet Quintilian would have his orator by all means study mufic. C. viii.

As foon as a child can read, without fpelling, the words in a common English book, as the SPECTATOR, he ought to be taught the ufe of the ftops, and accuftomed, from the beginning, to pay the fame regard to them as to the words. The common rule, for holding them out to their juft length, is too exact for practice, viz. that a comma is to hold the length of a fyllable, a femicolon of two, a colon of three, and a period of four. In fome cafes, there is no ftop to be made at a comma, as they are often put merely to render the fenfe clear; as thofe, which, by Mr. Ward, and many other learned editors of books, are put before every relative. It likewife often happens, that the ftrain of the matter fhews a propriety, or beauty, in holding the paufe beyond the proper length of the ftop; particularly when any thing remarkably striking has been uttered; by which means the hearers have time to ruminate upon it, before the matter, which follows, can put it out of their thoughts. Of this, inftances will occur in the following lessons.

Young readers are apt to get into a rehearfing kind of monotony; of which it is very difficult to break them. Monotony is holding one uniform humming found through the whole difcourfe, without rifing or falling. Cant, is, in fpeaking, as pfalmody and ballad in mufic, a ftrain confifting of a few notes rifing and falling without variation, like a peal of bells, let the matter change how it will. The chaunt, with which the profe pfalms are half-fung, halffaid, in cathedrals, is the fame kind of abfurdity. All these are unnatural, becaufe the continually varying ftrain of the matter neceffarily requires a continually varying feries of founds to exprefs it. Whereas chaunting in cathedrals, pfalmody in parish-churches, ballad mufic put to a number of verfes, differing in thoughts and images, and cant, or monotony, in expreffing the various matter of a difcourfe, do not in the leaft humour the matters they are applied to; but on the contrary, confound it.

Young people must be taught to let their voice fall at the ends of fentences; and to read without any particular whine, cant, or drawl, and with the natural inflections of voice, which they ufe in Speaking. For reading is nothing but peaking what one fees in a book, as if he were expreffing his own fentiments, as they rife in his mind. And no perfon reads well, till he comes to speak what he fees in the book before him in the fame natural manner as he speaks the thoughts, which arife in his own mind. And hence it is,

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* See SPECT. No. 18.

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