10. I am amazed, yes, my lords, I am amazed at his grace's speech.

11. Romans, countrymen, and lovers: hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.

12. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels.

13. A gentleman, Mr. President, speaking of Cæsar's benevolent disposition, and the reluctance with which he engaged in the civil war, observes, "How long did he pause on the brink of the Rubicon ?"

INTERROGATION.

When men are moved by passion, or are intensely in earnest in argument, they naturally express what they would affirm or deny by earnest interrogation. Many of our finest examples of senatorial and argumentative eloquence abound with interrogation.

Carefully study the examples given until clearly understood, then bring yourself under the influence of the proper spirit, and give the passage in an appropriate tone and manner, with directness, force, and earnestness. Pause at the end of every question, as if you waited an answer. Keep the voice full and clear, and in a pitch in which you can readily control its modulations.

EXAMPLES.

1. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

2. They tell us, sir, that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary; but when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely upon our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until

our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

3. Do you remember all the sunny places

Where, in bright days long past, we played together?
Do you remember all the old home faces

That gathered round the hearth in wintry weather?

4. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak! for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak! for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak! for

him have I offended. None! then none have I offended.

5. And shall we think of ratifying the acts of Charles, yet abolish his laws? Those laws which he in our sight repeated, pronounced, enacted? Laws which he valued himself on passing? Laws in which he thought the system of our government was comprehended? Laws which govern our provinces and our trials? Are we, I say, to repeal such laws, yet ratify his acts?

6. Came I not forth, upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss? Be still, and gaze thou on, false king, and tell me

What is this?

7. To purchase heaven, has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour?

In life can love be bought with gold?

Are friendship's treasures to be sold?

8. If seasons of indolence be dangerous, how much more so are chronic habits of idleness?

9. Who would be a traitor knave?
Who would fill a coward's grave?
Who so base as be a slave?
Traitor! Coward! turn and flee!

ANTITHESIS.

Antithesis is founded upon contrast, expressed or implied. It occurs in a sentence in which two or more words are opposed to each other in meaning. Words that express opposite ideas must be marked by different modulations,

་ ༡

and expressed with greater emphasis, than the words that immediately precede or those which follow them. In nearly all cases there should be a marked pause directly after the antithetic words, and on the remaining words in the passage the voice should take its ordinary, unimpassioned tone.

EXAMPLES.

1. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy-rich, not gaudy.

2. Many hope to atone for the evil they have done by the good they intend to do, and are only virtuous in the perspective.

3. I do not tremble when I meet

The stoutest of my foes;

But heaven defend me from the friend

Who comes and never goes.

4. Go show your slaves how choleric

You are, and bid your bondmen tremble.

Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humor?

5. The cottage was a thatched one,

The outside old and mean,

But all within that little cot

Was wondrous neat and clean.

6. Though dark and despairing my sight I may seal, Yet man can not cover what God would reveal.

7. The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game.

8. I care not how high his station, how low his character, whether a privy councillor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow.

9. A liar begins by making a falsehood appear like truth, and ends by making a truth appear like falsehood.

10. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

AMPLIFICATION AND SUSPENDED SENSE.

Examples of suspended sense admit of various modes of delivery, according to the nature of the subject and other circumstances. Study the following examples carefully, and use your own discretion as to the style and manner of giving them. In sentences containing if, when, as, as when, so, etc., the sense is suspended until the close.

EXAMPLES.

1. If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending ; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight-I repeat it, we must fight!

2. If I see an uncommon endowment of heaven; if I perceive extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the south; and if, moved by local prejudice or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate a tithe of hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

3. The old man may sit and sing, I would I were a boy again, but he grows older while he sings. He may read of the elixir of youth, but he can not find it. He may sigh for the secrets of that alchemy which is able to make him young again, but sighing brings it not. He may gaze backward with an eye of longing upon the rosy schemes of earlier years, but as one who gazes upon his home from the deck of a departing ship, every moment carries him further and further away. Poor old man, he has little more to do than to

die!

4. If the overthrow of our government is inevitable, let it be so! If civil war, which appears to so much threaten, must come, I can only say, let it be so! If blood be necessary to extinguish any fire I have enkindled, I shall not hesitate to contribute my own! And if I am doomed to fall, I shall at least have the painful consolation to fall as a fragment of the ruins of my country.

5. If virtue starves while vice is fed,

What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?

TRANSITION.

Transition, in elocution, signifies a sudden change in the pitch, force, quality, quantity, or movement of the voice, as from a high to a low pitch, from a subdued to a very loud tone, from a slow to a very rapid rate of utterance, and the reverse of these. It refers, also, to the changes in style, as from the didactic to the declamatory; also to the expression of passion or emotion.

Transition, when required by the subject or sentiment, if properly delivered, adds much to the pleasing variety and to the impressiveness of discourse; but when indulged in too much, is as unpleasant as monotony.

A transition should be in every respect appropriate to the sentiment and the occasion. It should be given as if involuntarily, and not in accordance with any pre-arranged plan of delivery. Careful practice of the following examples, if persevered in, will soon enable the student to execute difficult transitions with skill and ease.

First.-Repeat one, two, three, four, with gradually increasing force, and elevate the voice, as in the climax, up to the last number, which pronounce with great force, then pause for a moment and pronounce five, six, seven, eight, very slowly, in the lowest and deepest tone you can command. Increase the number of particulars as you acquire the power of sustaining the voice in a lower or a higher pitch.

Second. Give the short and the open vowels, mingled in any order that you please, or a number of words or names, with increasing force and rapidity to the last one, then pause, and let the voice fall as before advised, and give other sounds, words, or names very slowly with long quantity and in the lowest pitch of voice that you can reach. Third. Select for yourself suitable examples for practice. Also write out examples of transition of your own and exercise on them.