as literally to require these gradations of effect in manner. But every well-written composition, and every well-spoken address, are always progressive in character, and leave on the mind the impression of a climax of sentiment and style.

The appropriate postures of devotion, are a subject on which too little attention is commonly bestowed by the occupants of the pulpit. The clasped hands, and the shut eyes, and the bent body, are obviously not alike applicable to all points of a devotional exercise. They have nothing in common with the feelings which ought to pervade the bosom of the worshipper in the sublime and inspiring acts of adoration and praise: they do not belong to intercession: they are appropriate only in confession and supplication. Every strain of devotion has its appropriate tone, from the swelling notes of adoration and praise, to the breathings of a broken and contrite spirit: each of these, if it issues from the heart rather than from habit, has its natural expression in posture and action: the former prompts the erect attitude and the upraised vertical hands of awe, reverence, and blessing; the latter, the bent frame, the drooping head, and the folded hands of self-abasement. Supplication and entreaty raise the head and clasp the hands in earnestness; petition and intercession extend the arms in the mood and attitude of reception; thanksgiving proffers the gratitude of the heart, as a tribute at the throne of Mercy, with open hands, and downward inclination of the arms, in front of the body. A very common error in the form of action adopted in the benediction, at the close of public religious services, makes the minister apparently solicit a favor of the congregation, instead of presenting himself as, imploring a blessing on them. The false effect arises from the hands being held supine instead of prone, in the act.

The reading of the Scriptures and of hymns, is, in the practice of some clergymen, accompanied by expressive gesture. This habit seems to be founded on a mistake.

The process of elocution is, in both these cases, one of strict reading, not of speaking. It is one which calls, therefore, for audible, not visible expression. Such, at least, is the association connected with the custom in Anglo-Saxon communities, in most parts of the world. The Oriental and the European continental style of reading, with the full effect of gesture, is, perhaps, the truer method, if we settle the question affirmatively that vivid reading comes as near as possible to vivid speaking; (and we admit the principle so far as the management of the voice is concerned;) but the prevalence of general custom, with us, associates a subdued and repressed style with the reverence due to the Bible and to the offices of worship; and nothing but a singular ardor of temperament, and a recognized peculiarity of personal habit, can render an opposite practice generally tolerable. In this, however, as in other questions of expression, the natural eloquence of strong feeling, is sometimes successful in breaking through the usual restrains of custom.

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The common distinctions of gesture, implied in the terms "didactic," "declamatory," and "poetic," may suggest useful hints to the student, in connection with the different modes of action appropriate in the delivery of a discourse. 'Didactic" gestures include the slight uses of the open hand and the discriminative finger, in moderate emphasis; "declamatory" action implies the wide. sweep and bold descent of energetic emphasis; and "poetic" gesture includes the characteristic loftiness of epic description, the empassioned vividness and fervor of lyric emotion, and the graphic and abrupt effects of dramatic style. A high-toned prose composition may demand, in delivery, the use of all these forms of action; as its matter and its style may partake of all the corresponding characteristics of effect.

The genuine cloquence of inspired feeling, acknowledges no arbitrary limitations. But the subduing and

chastening influences of judgment and taste, ought to mould every tone, look, and action, of sacred eloquence.

The Rudiments of Gesture, embodied in the American Elocutionist, will furnish to students more extensive instruction in the elementary details of this branch of the subject; and Austin's Chironomia, (copies of which are accessible at the libraries of some of our public institutions,) will be found to contain a fund of information upon it, enriched by every aid of learned research and graphic illustration.

MISCELLANEOUS EXERCISES

IN

READING AND SPEAKING.

ENGLISH ORATORY.- Addison.

[This and a few of the following pieces may be read as examples of didactic style. But they are introduced thus early on account, chiefly, of their suggestive character, as regards the formation of style in reading and speaking.]

MOST foreign writers, who have given any character of the English nation, whatever vices they ascribe to it, allow, in general, that the people are naturally modest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national virtue, that our orators are observed to make use of less gesture or action than those of other countries. Our preachers stand stock still in the pulpit, and will not so much as move a finger to set off the best sermons in the world. We meet with the same speaking statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. Our words flow from us in smooth, continued stream, without those strainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the hand, which are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome, We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a discourse which turns upon everything that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb about us.

I have heard it observed more than once, by those who have seen Italy, that an untravelled Englishman cannot

relish all the beauties of Italian pictures, because the postures which are expressed in them are often such as are peculiar to that country. One who has not seen an Italian in the pulpit, will not know what to make of that noble gesture in Raphael's picture of St. Paul preaching at Athens, where the apostle is represented as lifting up both his arms, and pouring out the thunder of his rhetoric amidst an audience of pagan philosophers.

It is certain, that proper gestures, and powerful exertions of the voice, cannot be too much studied by a public orator. They are a kind of comment to what he utters, and enforce everything he says, with weak hearers, better than the strongest argument he can make use of. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to what is delivered to them; at the same time that they show the speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so passionately recommends to others.

We are told that the great Latin orator very much impaired his health by the vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was like

wise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and seeing his friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence?

How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar! The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the gestures of an English speaker; you see some of them running their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others, looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written on it; you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into several different