38. Of Death. Why do we mourn departing friends, "Tis but the voice that Jesus sends, Why should we tremble to convey There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, Then let the last, loud trumpet sound 39. Eloquence of the Battle-Field. BOZZARIS CHEERS HIS BAND. 1. Strike! till the last armed foe expires;- 2. Stand! the ground's your own, my braves, Will ye give it up to slaves? Will ye look for greener gravesi Hope ye mercy still? What's the mercy despots feel? Hear it in that battle-peal;— Read it on yon bristling steel;— Ask it-ye who will ! 8. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upor the start. The game's afoot-follow up your spirit, and upon this charge-ory, God for Harry England and St. George! PART II. RHETORICAL, CLASSICAL, AND POETICAL. LESSON I. ELOCUTIONARY ENTERTAINMENTS. DR. CHANNING. There 1. A PEOPLE should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing the means of innocent ones. is an amusement having an affinity to 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 wake up to their excellence and power. It is not easy to conceive 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 cf listening to poor performers, who after all, fill up most of the time at the theater. 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 successfully, the re sult would be that the power of recitation would be extensively called forth, and this would be added to our social and domes tic pleasures. LESSON II. JENNY LIND'S GREETING TO AMERICA. BAYARD TAYLOR. 1. I GREET, with a full heart, the Land of the West, Where the sons of the nighty from slumber awake 2. Thou cradle of empire! though wide be the foam For song has a home in the hearts of the free! And peace shed her light on thy banner of stars! LESSON III. ORATORICAL ACTION. FORDYCE 1. Ir will not, I think, be pretended, that any of our public speakers have often occasion to address more sagacious, learned, or polite assemblies, than those which were composed of the Roman senate, or the Athenian people, in their most enlightened times. But it is well known what great stress the most celebrated orators of those times laid on action; how exceedingly imperfect they reckoned eloquence without it, and what wonders they performed with its assistance; performed upon the greatest, firmest, most sensible, and most elegant spirits the world ever saw. It were easy to throw together a number of common-place quotations, in support, or illustration of this, and almost every other remark that can be made upon the present subject. 2. But as that would lead me beyond the intention of this address, I need only mention here one simple fact, which everybody has heard of; that whereas Demosthenes himself did not succeed in his first attempts, through his having neglected to study action, he afterward arrived at such a pitch in that fac ulty, that when the people of Rhodes expressed in high terms their admiration of his famous oration for Ctesiphon, upon hearing it read with a very sweet and strong voice by Æschines, whose banishment it had procured, that great and candid judge said to them, "How would you have been affected, had you seen him speak it? For he that only hears Demosthenes, loses much the better part of the oration." 3. What an honorable testimony this from a vanquished adversary, and such an adversary! What a noble idea doth it give of that wonderful orator's action! I grasp it with ardor; I transport myself in imagination to old Athens. I mingle with the popular assembly, I behold the lightning, I listen to the thunder of Demosthenes. I feel my blood thrilled, I see the auditory lost and shaken, like some deep forest by a mighty storm. I am filled with wonder at such marvelous effects. I am hurried almost out of myself In a little while I endeavor to be more collected. 4. Then I consider the orator's address. I find the whole inexpressible. But nothing strikes me more than his action. I perceive the various passions he would inspire, raised in him by turns, and working from the depth of his frame. Now he glows with the love of the public; now he flames with indignation at its enemies; then he swells with disdain, of its false, indolent, or interested friends, anon he melts with grief for its misfortunes; and now he turns pale with fear of yet greater ones. Every feature, nerve, and circumstance about him is in tensely animated; each almost seems as if it would speak. discern his inmost soul, I see it as only clad in some thin, tra parent vehicle. It is all on fire. I wonder no longer at the effects of such eloquence. I only wonder at their cause. LESSON IV. NEW ENGLAND, I LOVE THEE. ANONYMOUS 1. THE hills of New England-how proudly they rise, 2. The vales of New England, that cradle her streams - |