THE ACADEMIC SPEAKER. INTRODUCTION. READING AND SPEAKING. THE first great requisite of a good reader or speaker, is DISTINCT ARTICULATION. Without this no proficiency can be made. It is best and most easily acquired in youth, while the organs are tender and pliant, and bad habits either not acquired or easily corrected. It consists in giving to each letter its proper sound, and keeping the syllables distinct and separate, without slurring or sliding them confusedly into each other. Excellence in it has been compared by Austin to a "beautiful coin, newly issued from the mint, deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, sharp, in due succession, and of due weight." The teachers of juvenile schools should insist on the paramount importance of this faculty. Next to distinctness of articulation, is MODULATION in the voice. The power of readily adapting it to all the variety of sentiment. "As changes are grateful, of posture and motion-of standing, walking, sitting, and lying; and we cannot for a long time together submit to any one of them: the voice is to be adapted to the subject, and the feelings of the mind, so as not to be at variance with the expressions; this is the great art. We should therefore guard against that uniformity called monotony; which is an unvarying effort of the lungs and of the tones. But we should avoid not only shouting like madmen, but also that low voice which is deficient in emo tion, and that weak murmur which destroys all energy. Even in the same passage, and in the expressions of the same feelings, there must be in the voice certain nice changes, according as the dignity of the language, the nature of the sentiments, the conclusion, the beginning, or the transitions requires. For painters who confine themselves to one colour, nevertheless bring out some parts more strongly, and touch others more faintly; and this they are obliged to do in order to preserve the just forms and lines of their figures." These with the gestures, attitudes, and actions of the body and limbs, are the essentials of oratory; and are attainable by any sane person possessing the natural organs of speech. Besides these there are several natural endowments indispensable to a VERY GOOD reader or speaker, viz., sweetness, flexibility, and compass of voice, both in scale and strength; a commanding figure, an expressive countenance with pliant muscles, and above all, delicacy of feeling a combination rarely to be met with. A person who is totally destitute of all of these can never be an effective reader, because he can never command the sympathy of his hearers; but pre-eminence in any one of them will, in some degree, atone for deficiency in others. The chief of all is delicacy of feeling, which enables a person at once to identify himself with his author if reading, and suit the exact tones to the different feelings and passions. But whatever be the natural excellence of any voice, it requires the assistance of art to render it universally useful. As a rhetorical weapon, it requires practice to polish, to temper, and keep it always ready for dexterous application; the force which a tender passage receives from a judicious modulation of voice, is more powerful than all that it can receive from the strongest expression, or the utmost energy. Discourse and argument make no impression except by means of the understanding; but there is something in an elegant command of the voice, which strikes immediately, and waits not for the heart's receiving any notice from the sense of what * Quintilian. is delivered. By the modulation of the voice, not less than by correct pronunciation, are we able to judge, if we hear a person speak, although we do not see him, if he is above the common rank of mankind. Unquestionably in the real world nature deals with people of birth and fortune no better than with those who lack those accidental pre-eminences. Persons of the highest quality are not more sure of having a good voice than those in the lowest ranks; but immense care is paid to the modulation of it in the early part of their education, and hence the superiority which they manifestly possess in this respect. SWEETNESS OF VOICE. There are some persons whose organs are so formed by nature that they have a secret power of moving our affections, even when we are not able to adapt any determinate idea to the sounds that proceed from them; and we are often, more affected by the complaints of a person, who delivers them in a language wholly unknown to us, than we should have been by any thing he would have been able to say to us, if he had spoken in a language with which we were both acquainted, but with less persuasive tones. Indeed the charms of a sweet voice atone for many disadvantages: we frequently find the testimonies of our ears carrying us beyond those of our other senses: this is especially the case with respect to females, and many a woman who appears indifferent to us, when only seen, charms us almost to adoration, when we hear her speak :-Her tones "Come o'er the ear like the sweet south, FLEXIBILITY OF VOICE, Consists in the power of being able to transfer it with perfect ease-in due quantity and quality-from one key -from one passion or feeling to another. Pre-eminence in this, is chiefly the result of practice and good instruction, combined with good taste. COMPASS. Refers to scale and strength. By scale is meant the power of ascending or descending from the natural key to a very shrill, or to a very grave tone, and is scientifically known by the term octaves. To a singer this is of paramount advantage; but to an orator, strength and sweetness are more important. A man with a weak voice, uttering sublime ideas, clothed in appropriate language, much resembles a person sounding an alarum with a tin whistle. It is absolutely necessary to the complete success of an orator, that he possess a voice capable at once to command the attention-to impress a sort of reverence on his audience, and to excite the greatest emotions in their hearts; that it be such as can give all the strength and vigour to the vehemence of the passions; and where an affecting sentiment is to be delivered that it have all the eloquent energy which is necessary to strike-to seize upon to penetrate the very hearts of an audience. It is not enough on these occasions that it raise our passions; it must transport and ravish us :-it is not enough that it impress, it must subdue and work us entirely to the speaker's purpose:-it is not enough that it touch the heart, it must pierce it to the utmost depth. A speaker may always know how his voice fills the room by the return of it to his own ear. By the degree of exertion he requires to make for being distinctly heard, he may judge of its power. He may form a tolerably accurate idea of the effects he produces oy the attention or listlessness of his audience. It is required in the voice, not only that it be flexible and strong, but also that it be sweet. Nature alone can bestow these in perfection, but experience has proved that much can be done by art. Example and practice are the only methods by which this can be done. We find that our tones instinctively glide into imitation of those that we admire; and by the practice of reading or speaking aloud, there are very few voices which may not acquire sufficient strength for any oratorical purpose. SENSIBILITY. The meaning of this term is very extensive. It includes not only the natural turn of mind, but also that pliantness of disposition, by means of which the different passions are easily made to succeed one another in the soul. The heart that enjoys this in a proper degree, is like soft wax which, under the hands of a judicious artist, is capable of being in the same minute, a Medea or a Sappho; an easy ductility in the wax is not more necessary to fit it for the purposes of the modeller, than is this sensibility in the heart of a good reader, by means of which the delivery receives whatever modification the speaker or reader pleases, and that in an easy and unconstrained succession. The person who does not himself feel the emotions he is to express, will give but a lifeless and insipid representation of them. All the art in the world can never supply the want of this faculty. If a person is wholly destitute of it, all the advantages of nature, all the accomplishments he may have acquired by study, are of little avail; he will never make a firstrate orator he will never make others feel what he does not feel himself, and will be as different from the thing he wishes to represent as a mask from a face. There are many occasions on which a plain manner of speaking has great charms, both in the pulpit and at the bar; but there are many others in which all the pomp and dignity which the speaker is able to bestow on the words are scarcely sufficient. He can sometimes by mere vehemence, sometimes by true dignity, artfully hide defects, and give a seeming meaning to what has in itself scarcely any. The reader who is able to distinguish the different passions, to conceal in his reading what actually is, or seems to be faulty in his author,-to hide real blemishes, and palliate exceptionable passages,-in short, to add a new lustre to the beauties of his author, by well applied energy, or judicious ease and simplicity, has attained the highest excellence that the science of elocution can be |