just as interesting to attempt to watch the motion of the shadow on a sun-dial is to follow the equally impercep tible creeping of their minds. As to cadence, instead of that fine and richly varied melody, which marks the appropriate character of every sentiment and feeling, and shews the speaker to be in full possession of himself, and at the same time, to be all alive to his subject. we are fatigued and distressed by the dissonant raving & screaming of a voice strained above its natural key, and kept up until we are fearful of the breaking of a blood-vessel, or the laceration of the speaker's lungs; or we are deafened with the bellowing of a Bedlamite, equally regardless of his own lungs and of the speaker's ears; or we are lulled to sleep by the chiming reciprocation and alternate monotony of a frog-pond. And as to articulation, nothing can be more u fortunate than that to which we are too often doomed to listen. Where will you hear that full, clear, brilliant enunciation which contains in itself so sweet a charm that it can almost atone for the absence bth of argument and fancy? Some few exam. ples of it may perhaps exist in the United St tes: but in general, even among those who stand high as public speakers, you are confounded by a thick, indistinct muttering and mouthing, in lieu of articulate sounds; or the syllables are dropped out with a regularit: as stiff and formal and methodical as the vibrations of the pendulum of a clock, and every for, or, and and ed, falls upon the ear with as much solemnity and emphasis, as the most important and effective word in the period. And why does this happen? Because it is no part of our system of education to watch the mode of delivery which our chiren acquire in early life. Vicious habits are permitted without correction to fasten themselves upon them; and by the time they arrive at manhood, are so confirmed and inveterate, that all their best exertions are unable to remove them We are guilty of this absurdity that we have only one system fjuvenile educătion which we apply, without variation, and indiscrimi nately to all professions. Whereas it must be obvious, on a monent's reflectin, that those who are destined for pablic speakers, require a peculiar ment, without which it will be impossible

of their art, and which we

any other profession.

the

graceful flexibility of frame on which attitude and ges ture depend, and all that management of the features, which nutes, with such resistiess energy, the convic tions and feelings of the speaker into the minds of his audience. What do you see of all this winning grace, and all this magic of the countenance, at the present day? You see a speaker standing as stiff and motionless as Diggory in the play of "She Stoops to Conquer" or you see him writhing and twisting like the mad priestess of an oracle, tossing his arms like the arms of a wind-mill or the flail of a thresher, beating time to the clangor of a ear crucifying voice, and adding new force to the fiery fury of a blod-shot eye and a frantic face: or if you look for a medium between these extremes, you will see him chopping the pulpit, desk or bar, with short, quick and unintermitting percussions of the lower edge of his open right hand; or slapping, loudly and with ludicrous repetition, the authority or document which he holds in his left hand, with the open palm of his right, as if deter mined to demolish the whole ground of his own argument, and attempt to balance himself in empty space. You may see another stooping at an angle of ninety de grees to inspect the notes which lie on the table before him, his hands "the while" instead of being employed in raising the notes to his eyes, being very gracefully and commodiously clasped together and thrust between his thighs. Another, when he thinks he is successfully engaged in she wing the error of his adversary's argument, and is just reaching the conclusion of his demonstration, carries his right arm across the field of his face and the line of his vision, and pointing with his fore finger to the left, peeps over the arm, with half-closed eyes, obliquely to the right, and looks as cunning as Pe ter Pindar's Magpye peeping sagely into a marrow bone: "Ah! there's the point!" I have seen an eminent man in one quarter of the union, so restless and fidgeting while on his feet, that he appeared to be troubled with St. Vitus' Dance; in another, I have seen one, equally eminent, playing antics, with a chair, in the midst of an excellent speech, propping himself up with it behind, then propping himself up with it before; then resting one foot in the seat, then, the other; then throwing one leg over the back, then the other; tossing the chair with a flourish, first to the right hand and then to the left, and thus combining the manual exercise of hands and heels, with the exercise of his wits, and shewing, throughout, that his progress as well as duration depended on the subject he was handling. In exact contrast

with this, I have seen, in a great place, a speaker stand with German sang froid, for hours together, in the same posture, his eyes and face cast down towards the floor, and moving as slowly and haltingly forward as the baggage of an army drawn by weak cattle through a deep snow. On the same theatre I have seen another who seemed to force every thing out of him by means of Archimedes' screw, and to suffer all the agonies of repeated empalement, while the operation was going onthe abdomen violently retracted-his shoulders drawn up to his ears—his jaws locked-his features violently distorted his hands clenched-his cries of anguish forced through his teeth-and the whole man apparently at the point of a painful death, instead of being at the point of his argument.

But of all the vices of manner which prevail among us, those which proceed from affectation are the least excusable, and therefore the most intolerable and disgusting. They are assumed voluntarily as graces; and shew a depravity of taste which proves that "ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius." Of this character is that nasal chaunting which sometimes disgraces the pulpit-the long-drawn melody of insignificant monosyllables, which makes them sound like the deep, protracted notes of the dead march in Saul, played on the hautboy. Of the same character is the awful and solemn pause, accompanied by a look of high import, not called for by any thing which precedes or follows it. So the arm extended at full length and the fore finger most portentously pointed, at nothing the elevated and majestic attitude, the guttural intonation, and the horror inspiring, soul-shaking expression of face, which turn out to be perfectly harmless and which nothing could support and justify, less than those awful denunciations of woe on the children of men which touched the hallowed lips of the prophets with fire.

There are other affectations among us, of a character rather more light and ludicrous, but equally fatal to the purpose and the dignity of the Speaker-when a joke Conceived, tickles him and produces a swaying and swaggering of his body from side to side, which the ancients called "speaking from a cock-boat," we are, indeed, pretty sure of a laugh; but it is at the speaker, and not at his conceit. The affectation of pretty speaking, the nice, fine, mincing precision of the petit maitre, does not afford us even the consolation of a laugh; the sentiment is one of unmixed disgust.

There is a smile at once arch and good humoured, and a voluntary hesitation and pausing in the delivery, which

announces the coming jest, and which in a man of real wit has a very happy effect:-for it awakens the attention of the hearer, puts him on vainly conjecturing what the hit will be, and when it comes, makes the surprize the more complete and delightful, by reason of the vague notice which he has thus received of it, and the predisposition which is thus excited. The kindness and benevolence, too, which are mingled in the smile and voice of the speaker, have a good effect on the person hit :-they make smooth the fine and keen edge of the wit, and pour a healing balsam into the short-lived wound which it inflicts. Some persons having seen the peculiar felicity of this manner in men of genius and ready wit, seem to imagine that the whole proceeds from the man- / ner; and that if they can but catch this, they will be sure of equal success and equal eclat. Accordingly I have seen a speaker, with no more wit in his brain than a cucumber, rise with the same predicting smile, and falsify it by the most "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable" insipidity and inanity. Nothing can be more unfortunate; for it is a breach of promise which the hearer is sure to resent with his contempt, or, what is equally afflicting, with his pity.

We want a system of education which shall prevent, or prane away all those blemishes of manner in early life; and which shall moreover so chasten our judgments and refine our tastes as to prevent our adoption of them at a more advanced age. When a man comes to speak in public, he should be at liberty to give his whole mind to his subject; instead of having it divided and distracted, by the necessity of watching and avoiding the habitual defects of his manner as he goes along: and, except in those few happy favorites whom nature has made perfect, such previous accomplishment of manner as will leave the mind thus free to devote itself exclusively to the subject, cannot be expected but by a long, rigorous, judicious training in early youth.

The importance of manner to a speaker seems to be generally admitted. But very few, of the many who pretend to public speaking, seem to me to have dwelt seriously enough on this subject to form a correct estimate of the vital importance of manner. The vague admission leaves the lips, without any precise and definite idea in the mind; and hence it happens that of the hundreds and thousands of public speakers whom we hear in the United States, there are not ten, perhaps not five, who have bestowed on the acquirement of a proper manner the attention which it deserves; comprehending in the

rm manner, the just and happy concert of attitude, gesture, countenance, voice, time and enunciation. This happy concert, the Grecians described by a word which we have rendered action-and the story is trite and familiar that Demosthenes, the prince of orators, when asked "what was the first quality of an orator ?" ans swered, action-"what the second" action--" what the third action stil: ie, that action, or as we call it, manner or delivery, was not only of first, but almost of the only importance. This story, if it were all that we knew of Demosthenes, might lose the weight of authority which it deserves, by leading us to suspect that Demosthenes himself was a light and fanciful declaimer :-but when we come to read the orations of this great man, we find them marked with less of levity and fancy than those of any other of the ancient orators whose works have reached us; and are struck only with the vast knowledge, the stern and cogent argument, the manly Sense & solid judgment which they display. Such a sentiment, therefore, as to action, from such a man, deserves not to be superficially considered; and he who considers it, with the attention it deserves, will differ but little from that truly great man,

I cannot present to my readers any instance of a hap py manner, which is so extensively and familiarly known as that of Mr. Cooper the tragedian. Many of us had read the dagger scene in Macbeth, a hundred times, before we saw that inimitable actor, and had supposed that we had perceived all the beauty and felt all the force of the passage. But, as for myself, when I came to see Mr, Cooper in that scene, all that I had perceived and felt before, became, in the comparison, so tame and insipid, that I seemed, nay I did for the first time understand the image which was in Shakespeare's mind. The horror struck attitude & countenance-the deep, low, agitated whisper-" "Is that a dagger that I see before me!"-the desperate convulsive attempt to clutch it-the encreased amazement and frenzied consternation at the failure-his eyes starting wild with horrror from their orbits, and slowly following the motion of the visionary dagger to the door of Duncan's chamber-" thou marshal'st me the way that I was going"-altogether had such an effect on me, that when I got relief by the momentary disap pearance of the dagger, I found that I had been bereaved of my breath-my sinews and muscles had been strained' to a painful extremity-and I felt my hair descending and settling on my head, for it had been raised by sympathetic horror. And, what is still more wonderful,