And I'll redeem the past—undo the evil HOW TO CRITICISE THE ELOCUTION OF A READER OR SPEAKER. By committing the following questions thoroughly to memory, the reader, if he fully understands the rules and principles which have been discussed in this treatise, will be able to analyze and criticise fully and accurately, so far as relates to elocution, any reading or speaking performance to which he may listen. The plan is simple, yet, as far as it goes, perfectly adapted to the end in view. Each question suggests the proper answer, and the answer gives the information sought upon that particular point. The student ought, in this way, to criticise his own reading and speaking; and when the investigation results in the discovery of some defect in delivery, he should at once correct it. 1. Does he breathe naturally, and at proper intervals, as he proceeds in his discourse? If not, in what respect does he fail to observe the necessary conditions? 2. Is his voice clear, pure, full, resonant, and agreeable? 3. Is his articulation distinct and accurate, without being unnecessarily precise? If not, what are his faults? 4. Does he open his mouth wide enough to give full effect to the words uttered, without going to the extreme of mouthing? 5. Does he modulate his voice correctly as relates to pitch, or does he habitually speak in the same key? 6. Does he speak in too high or in too low a pitch? 7. Does he indulge in unbecoming transitions in pitch, as by changing too suddenly or too frequently from a very low and subdued to a very high and loud tone? 8. Does he employ the different forms of stress with suitable variety and proper effect? 9. Has he a good command of the swell, medium, the intermittent, and of the explosive, radical stress? 10. Does he manage the voice with taste and judgment in modulating it to suit the sentiment? 11. Does he employ too much force or not enough? 12. Does he give proper quantity to the open vowel sounds, the nasals, and liquids, without letting them run into a singing or drawling or an artificial tone? 13. Does he terminate sentences and passages in which the sense is complete with a correct and pleasing cadence? 14. Does he mark his parentheses, paragraphs, and changes of subjects by proper changes in pitch, force, stress, quantity, quality, and movement? 15. Does he speak too fast, or too slow, or has he uniformly about the same rate of utterance? 16. In interrogation, does he look and speak as if he were really asking a question and felt interested in the answer he might receive? 17. In narration, are his looks, tone, and manner, such as you can conceive they would be were he relating some part of his own experience? 18. When he attempts a description does he proceed as though he had himself seen, heard, felt, or in any way known that which he tries to describe? 19. In didactic discourse is his manner colloquial and familiar, as though he were actually engaged in imparting instruction? 20. Does he bring out the meaning of the author from whom he reads, or express his own sentiments in an elegant, forcible, clear, impressive, and appropriate manner? 21. Do his tone and manner indicate that he understands and feels what he says, or is there any thing in his delivery which excites the suspicion that he does not understand his subject, or that he is not sincere? 22. Does he have a style of his own, or does he try to imitate the style of another? 23. In declamation is his manner earnest and natural, or does he try to make too much of his piece by the exhibition of unnecessary passion or excitement? 24. What are the distinguishing peculiarities of his manner? Is he pedantic, pompous, timid, theatrical, ministerial, effeminate, manly, irascible, simpering, impudent, sullen, tame, vehement, conceited, or affected? 25. Is he addicted to mouthing, sniffling, ranting, whining, or any other improper habit in reading or speaking? 26. When he attempts to portray passion are the tones of his voice, his look, gestures and action appropriate to the sentiment expressed? 27. In imitation and personation does he give distinct individuality to the character he personates? 28. Does he appear to have a clear and correct conception of the subject of his personation? If not, in what does his fault consist? 29. Are the expression of the face, the position of the head, the attitude, and the action suited to the subject and the occasion? 30. Do his look, tone, and manner change with the sentiment, or do his features bear the same expression, and his attitude and action continue essentially the same? 31. Does he look his audience in the face, or does he cast his eye upon vacancy, or let it wander in every direction but the right one? 32. In his reading, declamation, and extemporaneous utterance of his own thoughts, does he seem to understand and make a proper application of the rules and principles explained and illustrated in the preceding pages of this treatise? K. N. E.-12. In conclusion, I commend the careful study of "Hamlet's Advice to the Players" to every one who desires to become an accomplished reader or an elegant speaker. It is, in itself, a compendium of Elocutionary instruction. HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But, if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier had spoken my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hands; but use all gently: for, in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must beget a temperance that will give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray you avoid it. Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action-with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end is to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the times their form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it may make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance, outweigh a whole theater of others. Oh! there are players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that, highly-not to speak it profanely-who, having neither the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. EXERCISES, DIDACTIC, MORAL, DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE. I.-ELOCUTION. A GREAT deal has been said and written on the subject of elocution. Authors and teachers have furnished excellent rules for pronunciation and the correct modulation of the voice; they have explained the nature and use of stress, volume, pitch, slides, inflections, and all the other elements which enter into correct reading and speaking. This drill, however, though very useful, and even necessary to a successful cultivation of the art of speaking, will never make an accomplished reader or an eloquent speaker. It may render a man a good mimic or imitator, but that is all. The reader must seize the soul of the author whose thoughts he would express; he must embody that soul in himself, making it, for the time, a part of his own being. If a reader does not fully comprehend the meaning of the author whose thoughts he wishes to express, he can not with precision present the thoughts of that author to his hearers. Hence, the first step toward good reading will consist in mastering the meaning involved in the piece to be rendered. This is accomplished by a careful analysis of the author's language, noting the logical connection of ideas, and in de |