do justice to the sublime descriptions of poetry, or the animated language of the paffions. The student should perform these exercises, at firft, with a view of correcting his prevailing faults only, whatever they be, whether they regard the articulation, command of voice, emphafis, or cadence and content himself with reading with this particular intention, before he aims at any thing higher. This may be irkfome and difagreeable; it will require much time and patience; but it is the only way to fucceed. It is recorded of Demofthenes, the greateft orator the world ever produced, that he, though not formed by nature either to please or to perfuade, ftruggled with, and furmounted, the most formidable impediments. He fhut himself up in a cave, that he might study with lefs diftraction: he declaimed by the fea-fhore, that he might be used to the noife of a tumultuous affembly; and with pebbles in his mouth, to correct a defect in his speech: he practised at home, with a naked fword hanging over his fhoulder, that he might check an ungraceful motion to which he was fubject. Thus, this great pattern of perfection, both in elocution and eloquence, affords the most encouraging example to every ftudent; fince it fhews how far art and application could avail, in acquiring an excellence which nature appeared willing to have denied. When the ftudent, by a strict attention to what has been delivered, has perfectly corrected any ungraceful habits, he may then, and not before, begin to recite some of the higher fpecies of compofition; fuch as, fublime poetry, paffronate orations, declamations, and the like; with a view to express the paffions, feelings, and fympathies of the author. For this intention, he fhould daily read aloud, and by himself; and as often as convenient, under the direction of some ingenious perfon. He should also, if poffible, recite compofitions from memory. A few felect fentences, treasured up in the memory, and frequently, repeated, has feveral advantages attending it. It enables the speaker to enter more fully into the meaning and spirit of the piece, by obliging him to dwell upon Vol. I. I the the ideas which he is to exprefs. It gives him a previous knowledge of the feveral inflexions, emphafes, and tones, which the words require. And by not having his eye confined to the book, it relieves him from the fchool-boy habit of holding down his head, and, confequently, reading in a different key and tone from that of conversation; and leaves him at full liberty to exprefs his own feelings, by all the varieties of countenance and gesture. It generally requires fome time, and many and frequent exercises, before the student can be brought to consider reading in the fame fight as converfation; and be perfuaded that it should be conducted in the fame manner. There is, more or lefs, in all people (except in a very few accomplished fpeakers), an artificial uniformity, which always diftinguishes reading from converfation; the fixed posture, the bending of the head, and the attentive look at the book, which are requifite, are all deftructive of that eafe, freedom, and variety of both expreffion and action, neceffary to a juft elocution. It would fuperfede the neceffity of most of the foregoing rules, if public fpeakers world deliver their discourses from immediate conception, or from memory. But if this be too much to be expected, efpecially from preachers of divinity, who have fo much to compofe, and are fo frequently called upon to fpeak in public; it is, however, very neceflary, that they fhould make themfelves fo well acquainted with their difcourfe, that they may be able to take in a confiderable portion with a fogle glance of the eye. After the student has acquired a just and natural elocution, it is, perhaps, not the leaft difficult part of this art to apply this accomplishment to the purposes of real life. Many can deliver their difcourfes in a graceful manner in private, or before a few felect friends, who, when required to fpeak in a public capacity, at the bar, from the pulpit, or in the fenate, generally betray either a timid bashfulness, or an impertinent affurance. The former is apt to lead the fpeaker into an awkward uniformity, the latter into a difgufting affectation; the the former arifes from an humble diffidence of the speaker's own abilities, and refpect for the understandings of his hearers; the latter is the effect of conceit, and a contempt for the opinions of his auditors: the former may foon be overcome by a fuccessful attention to the foregoing rules; the latter can feldom be fubdued, till, by repeated difap. •pointments, the rash adventurer is convinced, that he made a false estimate of his own value. We fall clofe this fection with Hamlet's inftructions to the players, taken from Shakespeare; which has always been confidered as containing an important leffon on elocution, and may exemplify moft of the foregoing rules. "Speak the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town-crier had fpoke my lines. And do not faw the air too much with your hand, thus; but ufe all gently: for in the very torrent, tempeft, and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothnefs. O it offends me to the foul to hear a robuftious periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhows, and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. "Be not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erstep not the modefty of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing; whofe end, both at the firft and now, was, and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and preffure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of one of which muft, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole I 2 a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to speak it profanely), that neither having the accent of Chriftians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor Man, have so ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably. O, reform it altogether. And let thofe that play your clowns, speak no more than is fet down for them; for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though in the mean time, fome neceffary queftion of the play be then to be confidered: —that's villainous; and fhews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.”. CHAP. CHAP. II. OF PENMANSHIP, SECT. I. RULES FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF THE ART OP THERE is no part of literature acquired with lefs difficulty than the art of writing. Few people, be their capacities ever so mean, are incapable of learning this. Hence we fee fo many, who, though ignorant of the more early parts of fcience, fuch as English grammar, and even fpelling good English, yet can write a tolerably good hand. This is a glaring fault; for the more correct the penmanship, the more does it difplay the orthographical and grammatical errors. I therefore advise all those who may have occafion to write much, to make themselves perfectly acquainted with what has been delivered in the former chapter concerning English grammar. I trust it need not be mentioned, that they should render themselves perfect in fpelling; every one knows the neceffity of this, and the ridicule and contempt which only one or two words wrongly fpelled bring upon the writer. I fhall proceed to give a few directions, by the help of which an inexperienced perfon may qualify himself in this art; |