OF THE PRINCIPLES OF RHETORICAL DELIVERY AS APPLIED IN READING AND SPEAKING. BY EBENEZER PORTER, D.D. President of the Theological Seminary, Andover.-Author of the "Rhetorical FIFTH EDITION. ANDOVER: PUBLISHED BY FLAGG, GOULD AND NEWMAN. NEW YORK: J. LEAVITT, 182, BROADWAY Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1831, by FLAGG AND Gould, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. SOUC ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIFTH EDITION. THE author of this work originally considered it as an experiment on public opinion respecting a department of instruction, in which diversities of tastes have had more scope for exercise than in almost any other. His best hopes therefore have been far exceeded by the speedy demand for a fourth edition, and now again for a fifth, and by other unequivocal marks of favor with which the publication has been generally received. This edition is reprinted, page for page from the fourth, with only the correction of typographical and other small errors, which were occasioned by mistake. The peculiar character of the book is such that breaking up its identity as to order of references, would render it impossible for all the editions to be advantageously used, by the same class. It has for some time been the Author's intention to forego this consideration, for the sake of making some changes on several points, similar to those he has adopted in a later and smaller work, entitled the RHETORICAL READER. But the fourth edition being unexpectedly exhausted, the call for a fifth to be in market immediately, allowed no time for the above changes. Should another edition be called for, the improvements just alluded to will be incorporated, and any others, which may render the work more valuable. 541703 In the foregoing editions of this work, the Author announced his purpose, in compliance with repeated requests from different quarters, to prepare a smaller work on the same general principles, for the use of Academies and High Schools. This purpose he has accomplished, in the recent publication of the RHETORICAL READER, mentioned above. Should this latter work be found to render the same aid to an important department of education in Academies, which respectable Instructors of Colleges profess to have derived from the ANALYSIS, as a Class-Book for their pupils, the Author will consider his labors of this sort as closed; except that, as a proper sequel to both, he may probably compile a separate collection of BIBLICAL EXERCISES, of about 150 pages, with a rhetorical notation. This sequel will have reference, not merely to the instruction of the young, but primarily to parents and preachers of the gospel, who ought so to read the Bible, in families or public assemblies, as to make the manner of reading a commentary on the sense. Theological Seminary, PREFACE. DELIVERY is but a part of rhetoric; and rhetoric, in the common acceptation of the term, is but a part of the business in which I am called to give instruction. The great purpose of my office is, to teach young men, who are preparing for the sacred ministry, how to preach the gospel. In pursuance of this purpose, it became my duty to give a course of lectures on eloquence generally, and more particularly on style; and another course on preaching, includ ing the history of the pulpit, and the structure and chief characteristics of sermons, and the personal qualities requisite in the Christian preacher. Besides the study demanded in traversing a field so important, and so unfrequent, at least in this country; the necessity of combining individual with classical instruction in this department, makes its labors more than sufficient to engross the time of one man. In these circumstances, it may seem strange that I should turn aside from higher duties, to publish a book, more adapted to the earlier stages of education than to that which is directly preparatory to the ministry. The truth is, that I have been gradually and almost unavoidably drawn into this measure. As an instructor of theological students, my attention. was, many years ago, called to some prevalent defects in delivery. These I ascribed chiefly to early habits, contracted in the schools; and to the want of adequate precepts in books on reading and speaking. The worst faults in elocu tion, originate in want of feeling. But when these faults become confirmed, no degree of feeling will fully counteract their influence, without the aid of analysis, and patient effort to understand and correct them. Still, in this process of correction, there is danger of running into formality of manner, by withdrawing the attention from that in which the soul of eloquence consists,-emotion. For the purpose of guarding against this tendency, and at the same time of accomplishing the ends at which Walker aims, in his Ele |