CHAPTER I. READING. ITS CONNEXION WITH SPEAKING. DELIVERY, in the most general sense, is the communication of our thoughts to others, by oral language. The importance of this, in professions where it is the chief instrument by which one mind acts on others, is so obvious as to have given currency to the maxim, that an indifferent composition well delivered, is better received in any popular assembly, than a superior one, delivered badly. In no point is public sentiment more united than in this, that the usefulness of one whose main business is public speaking, depends greatly on an impressive elocution. This taste is not peculiar to the learned or the ignorant; it is the taste of all men. But the importance of the subject, is by no means limited to public speakers. In this country, where literary institutions of every kind are springing up; and where the advantages of education are open to all, no one is qualified to hold a respectable rank in well-bred society, who is unable at least to read, in an interesting manner, the works of others. They who regard this as a polite accomplishment merely, forget to how many purposes of business, of rational entertainment, and of religious duty, the talent may be applied. Of the multitudes who are not called to speak in public, including the whole of one sex, and all but comparatively a few of the other, there is no one to whom the art of reading in a graceful and impressive manner, may not be of great value. Besides, as the prevalent faults of public speakers arise chiefly from early habits contracted in reading, the correction of those faults should begin by learning to read well. Reading then, like style, may be considered as of two sorts, the correct, and the rhetorical. Correct reading respects merely the sense of what is read. When performed audibly, for the benefit of others, it is still only the same sort of process which one performs silently, for his own benefit, when he casts his eye along the page, to ascertain the meaning of its author. The chief purpose of the correct reader is to be intelligible'; and this requires an accurate perception of grammatical relation in the structure of sentences; a due regard to accent and pauses, to strength of voice, and clearness of utterance. This manner is generally adopted in reading plain, unimpassioned style, such as that which we find to a considerable extent in those Psalms of David, and Proverbs of Solomon, where the sentences are short, without emphasis. It often prevails too in the reading of narrative, and of public documents in legislative and judicial transactions. The character and purpose of a composition may be such, that it would be as preposterous to read it with tones of emotion, as it would to announce a pro position in grammar or geometry, in the language of metaphor. But though merely the, correct manner, suits many purposes of reading, it is dry and inanimate, and is the lowest department in the province of delivery. Still the great majority, not to say of respectable men, but of bookish men, go nothing beyond this in their attainments or attempts. Rhetorical reading has a higher object, and calls into action higher powers. It is not applicable to a composition destitute of emotion, for it supposes feeling. It does not barely express the thoughts of an author, but expresses them with the force, variety, and beauty, which feeling demands. And just here it is that the most stubborn difficulty in elocution meets us ;-a difficulty arising from the genius of written language. The value of the graphic art consists in its being a medium for the acquisition of knowledge, and for the communication of it. In the former case, I refer to the use we make of language in silent reading. The facility with which this is done depends on our acquaintance with the characters of which words are formed; the meaning of words, singly; and the principles which govern their combination, in sentences. Our eye may glance over a page in our own tongue, so as to perceive all its meaning, in the same time that would be employed on a short sentence of a language, which we are only beginning to learn. But in silent reading, though the eye perceives at a look the form and meaning of words, it cannot perceive the meaning of sentences, without including also grammatical relation. Hence points or pauses are indispensable in the graphic art, as designed merely for the eye. We may take as an example the celebrated response of the Oracle ; Ibis et redibis nunquam peribis in bello. The eye has no means of judging whether the meaning is, you shall never return, or you shall never perish, unless a pause is inserted before or after nunquam, to determine with which verb it is grammatically connected. So far the principles of written language go; they embrace words and pauses, and here stop. But the moment we come to transform this written language into oral, by reading aloud, a new set of principles come in with their claims, for which the arts of writing and of printing have made no provision. Here the reader becomes a speaker, and is required to mark with his voice the degrees of emphatic stress, and all the varieties of pitch, quantity of sound, and rate of utterance which sentiment demands. But he is trammelled with the narrowness of language as presented to the eye. He has been accustomed to regard words and pauses only, and all the movements of his voice are adjusted accordingly. You may tell him that he has a tone, but he knows not what Tell him to be hatural,-to be in earnest, you mean. and you have given him an excellent direction indeed, but how to apply it to the case in hand, is the difficulty. He is more rapid perhaps, or more loud, for this admonition, but under the dominion of inveterate habit, he goes on with his tone still. To the above defect in the art of printing, let another fact be added, that a great proportion of language, as it appears in books, neither demands nor admits any variety of tones and emphasis; and another still, that, in most |