[A few sentences in the following lecture have been before published in an article in one of the Quarterly Journals. It was impossible, without affectation, to avoid a slight repetition, when the subject of the article and the lecture came in contact.] ON ELOCUTION. THE different orders of beings in our world are distinguished from each other as strongly in their respective powers of communication, as in the extent of their understanding, or the variety, delicacy, and dignity of their feelings. The great Author of existence has beneficently instituted a general correspondence in degree between the capacity of thought and emotion, which he has bestowed upon living creatures and their accompanying capacity of expression. Accordingly, as man stands preeminent above all other inhabitants of the earth in point of intellect and susceptibility, so he greatly excels them all in the diversity of mode, the ease, and the precision with which he can impart the operations of his nature. Most of the brutes utter inarticulate sounds, expressive of pain, pleasure, alarm, &c., which are intelligible to others of the same species; many communicate by signs properly falling under the general term gesture; and we are sometimes influenced by certain appearances to believe that they are able to exchange ideas in a manner beyond our knowledge. But how much more exalted is the capacity of expressing conceptions and feelings which is possessed by the human race. Man is radiant with expression. Every feature, every limb, nay, a muscle, a vein, may tell something of the energy within. The brow, smooth or contracted, the eye, placid, dilated, tearful, flashing, the lip, calm, quivering, smiling, curled, the whole countenance, serene, distorted, pale, flushed, the hand, with its thousand motions, the chest, still or heaving, the attitude, relaxed or firm, cowering or lofty, in short, the visible characteristics of the vole out ward man, are nature's handwriting; and the tones of the voice, soft, low, quiet, agitated, broken, shrill, boisterous, are her oral language. Consider, moreover, the means of communication with which we have been furnished by art, the wonderful systems of articulate speech, and the method of representing them by writing, and you may then form some conception of that rich magazine of expression which we all possess a magazine, the abundance of whose precious stores was but poorly tested by the most consummate orator the world ever saw. The chief means by which man communicates his thoughts and emotions are the voice, gesture, and writing. Under the second of these heads, gesture, the expression of the countenance is comprehended, as well as the motions of the limbs and the general attitude.* Printing is only mechanical writing. The science of ELOCUTION, in my opinion, may most properly be considered as relating to the first two of these three methods of expression, viz. voice and gesture; although some writers restrict it to speech alone, making gesture a separate topic. In the works of Cicero and Quinctilian, elocution re lates to the choice and arrangement of words,† and is therefore synonymous with what we term style. In the sense which I have affixed to the word it is synonymous with delivery. Delivery was usually denominated by the ancients pronunciation or action. When Demosthenes, on being asked successively what was the first, the second, and the third requisite in an orator, made to each question the same sententious reply in the word action, he meant thereby all that is signified by the word delivery in our language. It is my purpose, first to relate with extreme brevity the fortunes of this science in different countries and times, so far as we can trace its existence, and then to consider its importance, its true aim, and finally, the proper means of attaining that aim, including under the latter topic observations on errors pertaining to the prevalent method of instruction in the science. Greece is the first nation of antiquity in which eloquence "Dicerem etiam de gestu, cum quo junctus est vultus." Cicero, Orator, c. 17.-[I would speak also of gesture, under which the countenance is comprised.] + Quinctilian's Instit. L. VIII.-Cicero, passim. ‡ Quinctilian, L. XI. c. 3.-Cicero, Brutus, c. 17, 18. is known to have been much cultivated. Although in Egypt the arts generally had reached a high point of improvement while Greece was yet in a state of barbarism, as is testified by history, and especially by the impressive and august remains of Egyptian civilization still visible on the site of Thebes and elsewhere, (remains with which, even now, after they have braved for thousands of years the force of the elements, and moreover, have been during an immense period subject to human defacement and pillage, modern art, with all its pride, cannot compete in majesty or delicacy,) yet we have no evidence from history or from these monuments that eloquence flourished in any of its forms amid the wonderful might and beauty which that country must once have displayed. The reason is, no doubt, that it could find no nutriment in such a civil constitution as that of Egypt. Eloquence is the power of persuasion, and where force, not deliberation, reigns, there is small room for eloquence. For the same reason it was little, if at all, cultivated in most of the states of ancient times. Greece was the country where civil liberty was first enjoyed to an extent worthy of much notice. With it came eloquence. Athens was the chief of all the Grecian states; and Athenian eloquence has never been surpassed. The youth of Athens, in its best days, were as carefully instructed in oratory as in arms; for the power of persuasion was as effectual in securing public favor and influence as military talents. Teachers were numerous. The sophists, so called, made instruction in rhetoric a special object of attention. Even the common people were severe critics as to those who addressed them. They possessed a delicacy of perception and taste, at which we cannot but be astonished. If an orator chanced to give a false quantity to a syllable, or to make an unsuitable gesture, the whole audience, we are told, would cry out against him. The consequence attached to delivery among the Greeks is apparent from Plutarch's account concerning Demosthenes. The people were clamorous against him in his first attempts to address them, because of his glaring defects in point of manSuch was the mortifying reception which Athens gave to him who afterwards became the chief of ner. "Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence |