speaker on the subject. This, it will be confessed, is a great desideratum; and an attempt to this, is the principal object of the present publication.

The difficulty of describing action by words, will be allowed by every one; and if we were never to give any instructions, but such as should completely answer our wishes, this difficulty would be a good reason for not attempting to give any description of it. But there are many degrees between conveying a precise idea of a thing, and no idea at all. Besides, in this part of delivery, instruction may be conveyed by the eye; and this organ is a much more rapid vehicle of knowledge than the ear. This vehicle is addressed on the present occasion; and plates, representing the attitudes which are described, are annexed to the several descriptions, which it is not doubted will greatly facilitate the reader's conception.

Plate I. represents the attitude in which a boy should always place himself, when he begins to speak. He should rest the whole weight of his body on the right leg; the other just touching the ground, at the distance at which it would naturally fall, if lifted up to show that the body does not bear upon it. The knees should be straight, and braced, and the body, though perfectly straight, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out, with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go; and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm, perhaps, will be best described, by supposing an oblong hollow square formed by the measure of four arms, as in Plate I. where the arm, in its true position, forms the diagonal of such an imaginary figure. So that, if lines were drawn at right angles from the shoulder, extending downwards, forwards, and sideways, the arm will form an angle of forty five degrees every way..

When the pupil has pronounced one sentence in the position thus described, the hand, as if lifeless, must drop down to the side, the very moment the last accented word is pro nounced; and the body, without altering the place of the feet, poise itself on the left leg, while the left hand raises itself into exactly the same position as the right was before, and continues in this position till the end of the next sentence, when it drops down on the side as if dead; and the

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