Byron's reading, too, according to Medwin, was a sing-song; and the present Laureate of England, the musical effects of whose poetry in suggesting subtlety of feeling, have never been surpassed, is said to read like a school-boy. Edgar Poe is represented to have been a most monotonous, uninteresting reader, and yet he composed one of the most melodious poems in our Literature. I allude to his Ulalume, which is as beautifully, strangely, and significantly modulated as it is possible for language to be.

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But it would be absurd to suppose that these poets did not appreciate their own melodies when they produced them; that they were mere passive Eolian harps, giving forth sounds to which they themselves were deaf. They no doubt had a profounder sense of them as conductors of feeling, than the most perfect reader would be able to express. This being the case, why did their reading so belie their conceptions? The answer is easily given, and it affords the best argument against the sticklers for what is called natural reading, namely, that the fullest appreciation of a poem, and the most searching sense of all its subtlest elements of effect, are totally inadequate to a proper vocal expression of it, where the organs of speech are not in perfect obedience to the will and the feelings. This obedience can only be secured by long and careful culture. The conscious observance of principles and rules, must become unconscious and spontaneous. A poet's organs of speech are as likely to be rigid

and unmanagable as those of a boor, and in such case, no degree of imagination and feeling will render them flexible without special culture.

We often hear the advice given, and it frequently constitutes about all that some professors of the art have to impart on the subject, "Enter into the spirit of what you read, read naturally, and you will read well."

This constitutes the sum and substance of what the learned Bishop Whately teaches on the subject in his "Elements of Rhetoric." In Part IV., Chap. II., § 2, of this work, he says: "Nature, or custom, which is a second nature, suggests spontaneously the different modes of giving expression to different thoughts, feelings, and designs, which are present to the mind of any one who, without study, is speaking in earnest his own sentiments. Then, if this be the case, why not leave nature to do her own work?" This question may perhaps be satisfactorily answered by asking another: If reason is a natural gift of man, and no one will deny that it is, why did the learned Archbishop of Dublin take the trouble to write such a good book as he did on the science and art of reasoning? Why did he not leave nature to do her own work? The gift of reason can hardly be more perverted than the gift of speech, and if earnestness is all that is required to give an unrestrained play to the functions of the latter, why should it not be equally available in respect to those of the former? But every

one's experience will tell him that earnest reasoning is not necessarily sound reasoning-it often shoots very far from the mark.

"Impress but the mind," the Archbishop goes on to say, "fully with the sentiments, &c. to be uttered; withdraw the attention from the sound, and fix it on the sense; and nature, or habit, will spontaneously suggest the proper Delivery."

Such instruction as this is not unlike that which Hamlet gives to Guildenstern for playing upon the flute, and would be about as efficacious: Hamlet. Will you play upon this pipe? Guildenstern. My lord, I cannot.

Hamlet. I pray you.

Guildenstern. Believe me, I cannot.

Hamlet. I do beseech you.

Guildenstern. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Hamlet. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guildenstern. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony: I have not the skill.

Walking, it will be admitted, is as natural a function as talking and reasoning, and much more easily performed. When we study the wonderful mechanism of the human body, the inference is readily drawn that Nature designed that all our movements should be in the highest degree graceful. But so far is this

from being the case, that scarcely one person in a thousand knows how to walk with any degree of grace. In our movements, as in the exercise of our vocal and reasoning powers, we have all gone astray, and it is only by special training, based upon principles deduced from careful observation, that we can realize Nature's purposes. Science and art do not attempt anything different from these purposes, but only aim to fulfil them more effectually.

Milton says of Eve, when fresh from the hands of her Creator,

"Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture, dignity and love."

But her sons and daughters have long lost the primæ val grace and dignity. They exist only in marble and on canvas.

Now every one will be ready to admit that the advice given to one who walks clumsily and awkwardly, to enter into the spirit of the act, to be in earnest, and to walk naturally, would be very inadequate to the case. A more availing and rational advice would be— develop all the functions of the body in a way that they will be exercised harmoniously and without restraint; but not till then can graceful movements and attitudes be expected. Education can create nothing. It can only develop what exists potentially and in germ. All the functions which we exercise, moral, intellectual, and physical, are more or less un

developed and shackled, and education aims, or should aim, to promote their growth, to remove the shackles, and thus to lift man into an atmosphere of freedom and spontaneity. Principles and rules which are at first objective, must become subjective. Growth of every kind proceeds from the passive to the active and the spontaneous. Man is passive to the degree that he is undeveloped. As he develops, he becomes more and more a law to himself. The law that was at first written upon tablets of stone is gradually transferred to his mind and his heart; and he may finally break the tablets and forget their existence.

Of all our faculties, physical, at least,—that of speech is, perhaps, the most imperfectly developed, and is, in consequence, less a law to itself, and the most dependent upon outside principles and rules for its efficient exercise—a fact which the ancient Greeks and Romans recognized and acted upon far more than we do. The great importance which they attached to vocal culture was, indeed, attributable to causes which do not now exist to the same extent. The mystery of printing had not yet been discovered. An ambitious politician could not bawl out a speech in the forum, in violation of all the laws of effective utterance, as our legislators do, with nobody to hear him, and have ten thousand copies printed off and sent to his constituents, and all free of expense to himself, in the bargain. No! he had to face his constituents, and say what he had to say, in the most accomplished manner.