Analysis of the principles of rhetorical delivery, as applied in reading and speaking

Preface

REVISED EDITION

Frequent calls for this work have induced the Publishers to issue a new and revised edition.

Few school books have met with more favor, or stood better the test of use, than Porter's Analysis; and few, if any, it is believed, have been made, on the subject of elocution, more philosophical, discriminating, and practical.

No changes have been made in this new edition which affect the original character and design of the work. For convenience in referring to principles and directions, the paragraphs have been numbered, and a suitable variety of type has been used to distinguish such as are most important from the illustrations and exercises. A few pages have been omitted in Part I., which were not deemed especially important to the student. The notation, as applied by Dr. Porter himself, and nearly all the marked exercises, have been retained. For the exercises of Part II., to which Dr. P.'s rhetorical notation was not applied, new pieces, for the most part, have been substituted, and selected in a variety

IV PREFACE.

to correspond with the principles of the work before illustrated. The selections for this Part have been made with much care from writers and orators of the highest character, and may serve as exercises, both in reading and declamation.

Boston, October, 1848.

DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS.

To those who may use this book, I have thought it proper to make the following preparatory suggestions : —

1. In a larger number of those who are to be taught reading and speaking, the first difficulty to be encountered arises from bad habits previously contracted. The most ready way to overcome these, is to go directly into the analysis of vocal sounds as they occur in conversation. But to change a settled habit, even in trifles, often requires perseverance for a long time; of course it is not the work of a moment, to transform a heavy, uniform manner of delivery, into one that is easy, discriminating, and forcible. This is to be accomplished, not by a few irresolute, partial attempts, but by a steadiness of purpose and of effort, corresponding with the importance of the end to be achieved. Nor should it seem strange if, in this process of transformation, the subject of it should at first appear somewhat artificial and constrained in manner. More or less of this inconvenience is unavoidable, in all important changes of habit. The young pupil in chirography never can become an elegant penman, till his bad habit of holding his pen is broken up ; though for a time the change may make him write worse than before. In respect to Elocution, as well as every other art, the case may be in some measure similar. But let the new manner become so familiar, as to have in its favor the advantages of habit, and the difficulty ceases. 1 *

VI DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS.

2. The pupil should learn the distinction of inflections, by reading the familiar examples under one rule, occasionally turning to the Exercises, when more examples are necessary ; and the teacher's voice should set him right whenever he makes a mistake. In the same manner, he should go through all the rules successively. If he acquires the habit of giving too great or too little extent to his slides of voice, he should be carefully corrected, according to the suggestions given in paragraphs 71, 74, 75 ; also, 83 and notes ; also, 162, 163, and 164. After getting the command of the voice, the great point to be steadily kept in view, is to apply the principles of emphasis and inflection, just as nature and sentiment demand. In respect to those principles of modulation, in which the power of delivery so essentially consists, we should always remember, too, that, as no theory of the passions can teach a man to be pathetic, so no description that can be given of the inflection, emphasis, and tones, which accompany emotion, can impart this emotion, or be a substitute for it. No adequate description indeed can be given for the nameless and ever-varying shades of expression which real pathos gives to the voice. Precepts here are only subsidiary helps to genius and sensibility.

3. Previous attention should be given to any example or exercise, before it is read to the Teacher. At the time of reading, the student should generally go through, without interruption; and then the Teacher should explain any fault, and correct it by the example of his own voice, requiring the parts to be repeated. It would be useful often to inquire why such a modification of voice occurs in such a place, and how a change of structure would vary the inflection, stress, etc. When the examples are short, as in all the former part of the work, reference may easily be made to any sentence; and in the long examples, the lines are numbered, on the left hand of the page, to facilitate the reference, after a passage lias been read.

4. When any portion of the Exercises is committed to memory for declamation, it should be perfectly committed before it is spoken;

DIRECTIONS TO TEACHERS. 7

as any labor of recollection is certainly fatal to freedom, and variety, and force, in speaking. In general, it were well that the same piece should be subsequently once or more repeated, with a view to adopt the suggestions of the Instructor. The selected pieces are short, because, for the purpose of improvement in elocution, a piece of four or five minutes is better than one of fifteen. And more advance may be made, in managing the voice and countenance, by speaking, several times, a short speech, though an old one, like that of Brutus on the Death of Csesar, (if it is done with due care each time to correct what was amiss,) than in speaking many long pieces, however spirited or new, which are but half committed, and in the delivery of which all scope of feeling and adaptation of manner, are frustrated by labor of memory. The attempt to speak with this indolent, halting preparation, is in all respects worse than nothing.

KEY OF RHETORICAL NOTATION.

KEY OF INFLECTION.

■- denotes monotone. I \ denotes falling inflection.

/ " rising inflection. I w " circumflex.

KEY OF MODULATION.

(°) high.

(00\ high and loud.

(o) low -

( 00 ) low and loud.

(=■) quick.

( — ) plaintive.

( || ) rhetorical pause.

(<^) increase.

(^>) decrease.

Chapter I. Page

Reading : its Connection with. Speaking, 17

Correct Reading, 18

Rhetorical Reading, 18

Difficulties from the Genius of Written Language, 19

All Directions subsidiary to Expression of Feeling, 21

CHAPTER H.

Importance of a Good Articulation, 22

Causes of Defective Articulation, 25

Difficulties in Articulation, 26

Difficulty of many Consonant Sounds, 26

Immediate Succession of similar Sounds, 27

Influence of Accent, 28

Tendency to slide over unaccented Vowels, 28

Cautions, 29

Impediments, 30

CHAPTER III. Tones considered as a Language of Emotion, 32

Description of Inflections, 33

Classification of Inflections, 36

Rule I. Influence of the Disjunctive Or on Inflection, 36

Rule II. Of the Direct Question and its Answer, 37

Rule III. Of Negation opposed to Affirmation, 38

PAGE.

Rule IV. Of the Pause of Suspension, 40

Rule V. Of the Influence of Tender Emotion on the Voice, 41

Rule VI. Of the Penultimate Pause, 43

Rule VII. Of the Indirect Question and its Answer, 43

Rule VIII. The Language of Authority and of Surprise, 44

Rule IX. Emphatic Succession of Particulars, 46

Rule X. Emphatic Repetition, 48

Rule XI. Final Pause, 48

Rule XII. The Circumflex, 50

CHAPTER TV.

Accent, 51

CHAPTER V. Emphasis, 52

Absolute Emphatic Stress, 56

Antithetic or Relative Emphatic Stress, 57

Emphatic Inflection, 59

Emphatic Clause, 61

Double Emphasis, 63

CHAPTER VI. Modulation, 63

Faults of Modulation, 63

Monotony, 63

Mechanical Variety, 64

Remedies, 65

The Spirit of Emphasis to be cultivated, 65

A Habit of Discrimination as to Tones and Inflections, 67

Pitch of Voice, . 69

Strength of Voice important to a public Speaker, 71

depends on Good Organs of Speech, 72

and the Proper Exercise of these Organs, 72

PAGE.

Directions for preserving and strengthening them, 73

Rate of Utterance, 74

The Reading of Poetry, 87

Part I. — Principles of Rhetorical Action, 93 Action as significant from Nature, 93

Expression of Countenance, 93

Attitude and Mien, 94

Action considered as significant from Custom, 96

Part II. — Faults of Rhetorical Action, 97 Sources of these, viz., Personal Defects, Diffidence, Imitation, 97

Mismanagement of the Eye and of Attitude, 99

Gesture may want Appropriateness and Discrimination, 101

May be too constant, or violent, or complex, or uniform, 104

Mechanical Variety, 105

EXERCISES.

PART I.

FACX.

Remarks and Directions, - 108

EXERCISES ON ARTICULATION.

Difficult Articulation from immediate Succession of the same or

similar Sounds, 109

Difficult Succession of Consonants without Accent, 110

Tendency to slide over unaccented Vowels, « . . 110

EXERCISES ON INFLECTION.

Disjunctive Or Ill

Direct Question, etc. „. 112

Conjunctive Or, 114

Negation opposed to Affirmation, 114

Comparison and Contrast 116

Pause of Suspension, 119

Tender Emotion, 124

Indirect Question, etc., 126

Language of Authority, Surprise, etc., 129

Emphatic Succession, etc., 135

Emphatic Repetition, 138

EXERCISES ON EMPHASIS.

Absolute and Relative Stress, and Emphatic Inflection, 139

Difference between the Common and the Intensive Inflection, 157

EXERCISES ON MODULATION.

PAGE.

The Power of Eloquence, , 163

Hohenlinden, 165

Hamlet's Soliloquy, 167

Battle of "Waterloo, 168

Negro's Complaint, » 170

Marco Bozzaris, 172

Extract from Paradise Lost, 174

Judah's Speech, to Joseph, 175

Joseph disclosing himself, 176

Death of a Friend 177

The Sabbath, 178

Burial of Sir John Moore, 180

Eve lamenting the Loss of Paradise, 181

Soliloquy of Hamlet's Uncle, 182

Examples from the Bible, 183 — 187

The Siege of Calais, 188

Extract from a Sermon of Robert Robinson, 189

PART II.

MISCELLANEOUS EXERCISES.

Man strong only in his Mental Faculties, H. Mann. 191

What is Time ? Marsden. 193

Address at the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument, . . Webster. 194

Hamlet and Horatio, Shakspeare. 195

Danger to Civil Liberty, L. Bacon. 198

Conversation, Coioper. 199

Quincy's Speech on the Admission of Louisiana, 201

The same Speech, continued, 202

Reply to the foregoing Speech, Toindexter. 204

The Village Blacksmith, Longfellow. 206

To-morrow, Cotton. 207

The Character of Washington Webster. 208

Man was made to mourn , Bums. 210

PAGE.

To his Grace the Duke of Grafton, Junius. 213

A small Poet, Butler. 214

Soliloquy of Anne Boleyn Milman. 216

Eulogy on John Quincy Adams, N. Lord. 217

A Case where Mercy should have mitigated Justice, Langhorne. 218

Address to the Mummy, 220

Othello and Iago, Shakspeare. 222

Macduff, Id. 223

William Tell 225

Harmony among Brethren, Percival. 230

Harley's Death Makenzie. 232

Speech on the Reform Bill, Sydney Smith. 234

Duelling, Dymond. 236

Cicero against M. Antony 237

Satan rouses his Legions lying in the Burning Lake, Milton. 239

The Poetry of Burns, Professor Wilson. 240

The Claims of Ireland, Grattan. 241

The Servility of Prance under the Imperial Government of Bonaparte, Channing. 243

The Basis of the American System of Government, Webster. 244

The " Buried Valley," Mellen. 245

Military Talent not the highest Endowment, Channing. 247

The Pilgrims, Everett. 249

Johnson and Hume, Carlyle. 252

The Perfect Orator, Sheridan. 253

Mount Sinai, J. T. Headley. 254

The Nobility of Johnson, Carlyle. 256

The " Pilgrim's Progress," Macaulay. 257

Description of a Storm, Thomson. 259

The Tale of an Indian Maid, Bryant. 261

What is Glory ? What is Fame ? Motherwell. 262

Influence of Circumstances in Education, Professor Haddock. 263

Darkness, Byron. 265

On the Occasion of presenting the Sword of Washington and the

Staff of Franklin, J. Q. Adams. 267

The Fruits of Luxury, Goldsmith. 269

The Eloquence of Demosthenes, Brougham. 270

Eulogy on J. Q. Adams, Everett. 271

From the Same, continued, 273

Rest of Empire, Mellen. 274

Resistance of Government to Natural Rights impolitic, Erskine. 276

Gratitude due to the Pilgrim Fathers, Everett. Ill

PAGE.

The Curse of a Bad Government, Burke. 279

The Death of Marmion, Scott. 280

The Silent Power of Moral Causes Everett. 283

Conquest of Canada, Randolph. 284

Human Frailty, U.K. White. 285

The Happiness and Dignity of the Unaspiring Citizen, Prof. Haddock. 287

Character of Rousseau, Carlyle. 287

Speech on a Veto Message, Clay. 289

Duelling, Beecher. 291

Character of the Puritans, Macauley. 293

Death of Hamilton Nott. 295

Thunder- Storm, Irving. 296

Overthrow of the Apostate Angels, . . v Milton. 298

The True Picture of Man, Young. 300

Rienzi's Address to the Romans, Mitford. 302

Death of General Harrison, Prof. Haddock. 303

Equality in Rank necessary to Friendship, Kenyon. 304

Fallacy in supposing our Ancestors wiser than ourselves,

Sydney Smith. 306

Speech on the Seminole War, » . . . . Clay. 308

The Romans as Conquerors, Pictorial History. 310

The Effects and Tendencies of Christianity, President Hopkins. 312

The Good Man, Young. 317

Heat, Arnott. 319

Light, Arnott. 321

Character before Scholarship, G. Putnam. 324

The Spirit of Freedom, Alison. 326

Shylock, Shakspeare. 328

Man made for Labor, Everett. 329

The Murderer detected, Webster. 330

A Cultivated Imagination, Akenside. 332

Literature and Morals, Professor Frisbie. 334

The Beggar, Irving. 337

Washington, Sparks. 339

Lines written in a Churchyard, Knowles. 342

Prince Arthur, Shakspeare. 344

Blessings of Domestic Life, J. S. Buckminster. 348

Demosthenes N. A. Review. 350

The Murdered Traveller, Bryant. 353

Roderick Dhu and Malcolm, , Scott. 355

Address to Rev. E. Carey, jR. Hall. 357

PAGE.

Right of Public Discussion, R. Hall. 360

Uses of the Atmosphere, British Quarterly Review. 366

French Army as it appeared before and after the Battle of Buzaco,

Recollections of the Peninsula. 369

Character of Howard, J. Foster. 372

Obstacles to the Introduction of Christianity, N. A. Review. 374

Christian Martyrs Saurin. 377

Cure of Melancholy, Wilcox. 378

Sunset in September, Wilcox. 380

Misery of an Ignorant Old Age, Felltham. 382

Consequences of abolishing the Sabbath, J. S. Stone. 383

Thanksgiving, . # J. Hamilton. 385

Ministerial Example, G. Spring. 387

Hymn to Death, W. Herbert. 391

Heaven Mrs. Miles. 394

The United States, Bancroft. 394

ANALYSIS

PRINCIPLES OF RHETORICAL DELIVERY.

Chapter I. Reading. — Its Connection With Speaking

1. Delivery, in the most general sense, is the communication of our thoughts to others by oral language.

2. The importance of this, in professions where it is the chief instrument by which one mind acts on others, is so obvious as to have given currency to the maxim, that an indifferent composition, well delivered, is better received in any popular assembly, than a superior one, delivered badly.

3. In no point is public sentiment more united than in this — that the usefulness of one whose main business is public speaking, depends greatly on an impressive elocution. This taste is not peculiar to the learned or the ignorant ; it is the taste of all men.

4. But the importance of the subject is by no means limited to public speakers. In this country, where literary institutions of every kind are springing up, and where the advantages of education are open to all, no one is qualified to hold a respectable rank in well-bred society, who is unable at least to read, in an interesting manner, the works of others.

5. They who regard this as a polite accomplishment merely, forget to how many purposes of business, of rational entertainment, and of religious duty, the talent may be applied. Of the

2*

READING.

multitudes who are not called to speak in public, including the whole of one sex, and all but comparatively a few of the other, there is no one to whom the art of reading in a graceful and impressive manner may not be of great value.

6. Besides, as the prevalent faults of public speakers arise chiefly from early habits contracted in reading, the correction of those faults should begin by learning to read well.

7. Reading, then, like style, may be considered as of two sorts — the correct and the rhetorical,

8. Correct reading respects merely the sense of what is read.

9. When performed audibly, for the benefit of others, it is still only the same sort of process which one performs silently, for his own benefit, when he casts his eye along the page, to ascertain the meaning of its author.

10. The chief purpose of the correct reader is to be intelligible ; and this requires an accurate perception of grammatical relation in the structure of sentences ; a due regard to accent and pauses, to strength of voice, and clearness of utterance.

11. This manner is generally adopted in reading plain, unimpassioned style, such as that which we find to a considerable extent in those Psalms of David, and Proverbs of Solomon, where the sentences are short, without emphasis. It often prevails, too, in the reading of narrative, and of public documents in legislative and judicial transactions.

12. The character and purpose of a composition may be such, that it would be as preposterous to read it with tones of emotion, as it would be, to announce a proposition in grammar or geometry in the language of metaphor. But, though merely the correct manner suits many purposes of reading, it is dry and inanimate, and is the lowest department in the province of delivery. Still the great majority, not to say of respectable men, but of bookish men, go nothing beyond this in their attainments or attempts.

13. Rhetorical reading has a higher object, and calls into action higher powers. It is not applicable to a com-

READING. 19

position destitute of emotion, for it supposes feeling. It does not barely express the thoughts of an author, but expresses them with the force, variety, and beauty, which feeling demands.

14. The value of the graphic art consists in its being a medium for the acquisition of knowledge, and for the communication of it. In the former case, I refer to the use we make of language in silent reading. The facility with which this is done depends on our acquaintance with the characters of which words are formed ; the meaning of words, singly ; and the principles which govern their combination in sentences.

15. Our eye may glance over a page in our own tongue, so as to perceive all its meaning, in the same time that would be employed on a short sentence of a language which we are only beginning to learn. But in silent reading, though the eye perceives at a look the form and meaning of words, it cannot perceive the meaning of sentences, without including also grammatical relation.

16. Hence points or pauses are indispensable in the graphic art, as designed merely for the eye. We may take as an example the celebrated response of the oracle — *

The eye has no means of judging whether the meaning is, you shall never return, or, you shall never perish, unless a pause is inserted before or after nunquam, to determine with which verb it is grammatically connected.

17. So far the principles of written language go ; they embrace words and pauses, and here stop. But the moment we come to transform this written language into oral, by reading aloud, a new set of principles come in with their claims, for which the arts of writing and of printing have made no provision.

18. Here the reader becomes a speaker, and is required to mark with his voice the degrees of emphatic stress, and all the

20 READING.

varieties of pitch, quantity of sound, and rate of utterance, which sentiment demands. But he is trammelled with the narrowness of language as presented to the eye. He has been accustomed to regard words and pauses only, and all the movements of his voice are adjusted accordingly. You may tell him that he has a tone, but he knows not what you mean. Tell him to be natural, to be in earnest, and you have given him an excellent direction indeed ; but how to apply it to the case in hand, is the difficulty. He is more rapid perhaps, or more loud, for this admonition, but, under the dominion of inveterate habit, he goes on with his tone still.

19. To the above defect in the art of printing let another fact be added, — that a great proportion of language, as it appears in books, neither demands nor admits any variety of tones and emphasis; and another still, that, in most men, habits of voice, once established, cannot be changed without great and persevering efforts ; and it will not seem strange that the number of good readers is so small, even among educated and professional men.

20. British writers have constantly complained of the dull, formal manner in which the Liturgy and the Sacred Scriptures are read in their churches. And often, in the pulpits of this country, the reading of the Bible is apparently so destitute, not of feeling and devotion merely, but of all just discrimination, as to remind one of the question put by Philip to the nobleman of Ethiopia — " Understandest thou what thou readest ? "

21. When we consider the extent to which these faults prevail in rhetorical reading, and the correspondent faults which of course prevail in public speaking, it is time that this greatly neglected subject should receive its due share of attention, amid the general advances in other departments of literature and taste.

22. Now, if there could at once spring up in our country a supply of teachers, competent, as living models, to regulate the tones of boys, in the forming age, nothing more would be needed. But, to a great extent, these teachers are to be themselves formed. And to produce the transformation which the

READING. 21

case demands, some attempt seems necessary to go to the root of the evil, by incorporating the principles of spoken language with the written.

23. Not that such a change should be attempted in respect to books generally ; but in books of elocution, designed for this single purpose, visible marks may be employed, sufficient to designate the chief points of established correspondence between sentiment and voice. These principles, being well settled in the mind of the pupil, may be spontaneously applied, where no such marks are used.

But as this subject is to be resumed under the head of inflections, I drop it here, with a remark or two in passing.

Rem. 1. Be it remembered, then, that all directions, as to management of the voice, must be regarded as subsidiary to expression of feeling, or they are worse than useless. " Emotion is the thing. One flash of passion on the cheek, one beam of feeling from the eye, one thrilling note of sensibility from the tongue, has a thousand times more value than any exemplification of mere rules, where feeling is absent." * The benefit of analysis and precept is, to aid the teacher in making the pupil conscious of his own faults, as a prerequisite to their correction. The object is, to unfetter the soul, and to set it free to act. In doing this, a notation for the eye, designed to regulate the voice in a few obvious particulars, may be of much advantage ; otherwise why shall we not dismiss punctuation, too, from books, and depend wholly on the teacher for pauses, as well as tones ? *

Rem. 2. The reasonable prejudice which some intelligent men have felt against any system of notation, arises from the preposterous extent to which it has been carried by a few popular teachers, and especially by their humble imitators. A judicious medium is what we want. Five characters in music, and six vowels in writing, enter into an infinitude of combinations in melody and language. So the elementary modifications of voice in speaking are few, and easily understood ; and to mark them, so far as distinction is useful, does not require a tenth part of the rules which some have thought necessary.

Rem. 3. The intellectual and moral qualities indispensable to form an orator, are brought into view, in the following pages, no further than they modify delivery. The parts of external oratory, as voice, look, and gesture, are only instruments by which the soul acts ; when the inspiration of soul is absent, these instruments cannot produce eloquence. A treatise on delivery, then, must presuppose the existence of genius, mental discipline, and elevation of moral sentiment ; though a distinct consideration of these belongs to rhetoric, as a branch of intellectual and Christian philosophy.

* Knowles.

DIVISIONS OF THE WORK.

24. The parts of delivery to be considered in their order are,

I. Articulation.

II. Inflection.

III. Accent and Emphasis.

IV. Modulation.

Y. Action.

Rem. I premise here, once for all, that I employ terms according to ths best modern use, with as little as possible of technical abstractness. Elocution, which anciently embraced style, and the whole art of rhetoric, now signifies manner of delivery, whether of our own thoughts or those of others. Pronunciation, which anciently signified the whole of delivery, is now equivalent to orthoepy, or the proper utterance of single words. It were easy, by a critical disquisition, to trace out the etymological affinities of all these terms, and to teach the pupil a distinction between an orator and an eloquent man, between articulation and distinct enunciation of words, etc. ; but instead of the scientific air adopted in some works on elocution, it seems to me that the better, because the simpler, course is, to use words as they will be most readily understood by men of reading and taste.

In this view I have chosen to make the head of Modulation so generic, as to include pitch, quantity, rate, rhetorical pause, transition, expression, and representation.

Chapter II. Articulation

IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD ARTICULATION.

25. On whatever subject, and for whatever purpose, a man speaks to his fellow-men, they will never listen to him with interest, unless they can hear what he says ; and that without effort. If his utterance is rapid and indistinct, no weight of his sentiments, no strength or smoothness of voice, no excellence of modulation, emphasis, or cadence, will enable him to speak so as to be heard with pleasure.

26. For his own sake, too, the public speaker should feel the importance of a clear articulation. Without this, the necessary apprehension that his voice may not reach distant hearers, will lead to elevation of pitch, and increase of quantity ; till he gradually forms a habit of vociferation, at the expense of all interesting variety, if not (as in too many cases it has turned out) with the sacrifice of lungs and life.

27. Every one who is accustomed to converse with partially deaf persons, knows how much more easily they hear a moderate voice with clear articulation, than one that is loud, but rapid and indistinct. In addressing a public assembly, the same advantage attends a voice of inferior strength, which marks the proper distinction of letters and syllables.*

28. It has been well said, that a good articulation is to the ear what a fair handwriting, or a fair type, is to the eye. Who has not felt the perplexity of supplying a word, torn away by the seal of a letter ; or a dozen syllables of a book, in as many lines, cut off by the carelessness of a binder ?

29. The same inconvenience is felt from a similar omission in

* For these reasons, the ancients regarded articulation as the first requisite in delivery ; without which, indeed, all other acquisitions are vain. On this account, Cicero says y the Catuli were esteemed the best speakers of the Latin language ; their tones being sweet, and their syllables uttered without effort in a voice neither feeble nor clamorous. So fastidious was the Roman ear, even among the uneducated, that the same orator says, " In repetition of a verse, the whole theatre was in an uproar, if there happened to be one syllable too many or too few. Not that the crowd had any notion of numbers ; nor could they tell what it was which gave the offence, nor in what respect it was a fault." It was not because the fire of genius was wanting in the youthful orator of Athens, that his audience repeatedly met his first efforts in speaking with hisses ; but it was on account of his feeble, hurried, stammering utterance. To correct these faults it was that he betook himself to speaking amid the sound of dashing waves, the effort of walking up hill, and the inconvenience of holding pebbles in his mouth, that he might acquire a body to his voice, and a habit of distinct and deliberate utterance.

t De Offlciis, lib. 1.

spoken languages ; with this additional disadvantage, that we are not at liberty to stop and spell out the meaning by construction. I have heard a preacher with a good voice, in addressing his hearers with the exhortation, " Repent, and return to the Lord," utter distinctly but three syllables, namely, pent, — turn, — Lord.

30. -Who would excuse the printer that should mutilate this sentence in the same manner ? When a man reads Latin or Greek, we expect him to utter nouns, pronouns, and even particles, so that their several syllables, especially those denoting grammatical inflections, may be heard distinctly. Let one noun in a sentence be spoken so that the ear cannot perceive whether it is in the nominative, or accusative, or vocative, or ablative, — or one verb, so as to leave it uncertain to what mood or tense it belongs, — and the sense of the whole sentence is ruined.

31. But in the English language, abounding as it does with particles, harsh syllables, and compound words, both the necessity and the difficulty of a perfect utterance are greater still. Our thousands of prefix and suffix syllables, auxiliaries, and little words which mark grammatical connection, render bad articulation a fatal defect in delivery.