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THE

ELOCUTIONIST,

CONSISTING OF

DECLAMATIONS AND READINGS,

IN PROSE AND POETRY;

FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS.

BY JONATHAN BARBER,

Late Instructor in Elocution in Yale and Harvard Universities.

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NEW-YORK: COLLINS, KEESE & CO., N. & J. WHITE, AND LEAVITT,
LORD, & CO.-BOSTON: GOULD, KENDALL, & LINCOLN.-
PHILADELPHIA: GRIGG & ELLIOT.-ALBANY OLIVER
STEELE.BALTIMORE: CUSHING & SONS.-
CINCINNATI: TRUMAN & SMITH.

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

TRANSFERRED FROM THE
HARVARD DIVINITY LIBRARY

slov. 27, 1926

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836,

BY A. H. MALTBY,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connec

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PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE pieces contained in "THE ELOCUTIONIST" have been selected as exercises in public speaking and reading, with a special view to the improvement of classes in colleges and schools.

The selections are divided into DECLAMATIONS, READINGS, POETRY, AND DIALOGUES.

Extracts for declamation should possess UNITY, FORCE, and BREVITY. Without the first and second of these qualities, they will be deficient in interest; and students are apt to shrink from the task of committing long pieces to memory. But the compiler has not, systematically, curtailed the flow of eloquent argument, merely to propitiate indolence; nor has he meted out every extract by a uniform number of lines, that the book may look sufficiently like other manuals adapted to the use of schools. He has, however, consulted brevity whenever it was compatible with an adequate exhibition of the argumentative power and eloquence of the author, and has never so far lost sight of it as to impose an unreasonable task on the memory of the student.

The declamations, generally, will be found to consist of businesslike, practical oratory, and to present, (unless the compiler's taste has greatly misled him,) some of the finest specimens of English and American eloquence. In the readings, variety has been aimed at, and the exclusion of every thing objectionable in sentiment, and language. They are grouped according to their respective subjects and style, and embrace narrative, descriptive, argumentative, humorous and solemn composition. In the present edition, the attempt has been made to render this compilation more perfectly adapted to its objects, by considerable changes in its contents. These changes, the compiler hopes, will be thought improvements. He has endeavored to make the work as much as possible an unobjectionable compilation. With this view, he has removed all pieces that seemed to him liable to any objection, whether on sectional, political, or religious grounds.

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