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PHILADELPHIA:

ELDREDGE & BROTHER.

NEW YORK: J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO. BOSTON: J. L. HAMMETT.
CINCINNATI: GEO. E. STEVENS & CO. CHICAGO: W. B. KEEN & COOKE.

1871.

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Eitered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by

ELDREDGE & BROTHER,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

J. FAGAN & SON,
STEREOTYPE FOUNDERS,

PHILADELPHIA.

PRINTED BY SHERMAN & CO.

MAOKK

PREFACE.

LCNG experience of the need which it is the design of the following pages to supply, must explain the reasons for the preparation of this volume. If that design be accomplished, the book will be its own best interpreter; if not, a lengthened preface would but make the failure more apparent. The whole theory of elocution, including an analysis of gesture, has been herein discussed, though all merely incidental opinions have been carefully avoided. Where just views have been found expressed by those who have made this a life-study, their language has frequently been quoted, in the hope that due importance may be ascribed to the ideas thus presented. Special acknowledgments are due to Dr. James Rush, to whose profound and accurate analysis of the "Philosophy of the Human Voice," all writers upon the subject have so long been indebted; and to Professor Wm. Russell, in whose able expositions of the theory of Dr. Rush may be found a niore minute elucidation of the principles of this branch of education, so much neglected and misunderstood. Elocution being less a science than an art, much will ever remain to be effected by the living teacher, though experience has proved the great advantages to be derived from the general system of instruction here proposed.

The examples for practice have been classified with the view of separately illustrating each division of the work; in many instances, it may be best not to attempt

the reading of any long selection, until, by thorough study and diligent practice upon the shorter illustra tions, each principle is clearly understood. The reading of a single poem might serve to develop the whole theory of elocution; the examples under each successive division may therefore be used, not only to secure a clear apprehension of the special point under consideration, but also to review the lessons previously explained and illustrated.

Great care has been taken to consult the authorized editions of the various writers here represented, that the extracts from their works may be relied upon as accurate; though, in some instances, preference has been given to an early edition, when, in later issues, the alterations have not been deemed improvements. Many poems have been introduced which have never before found their way into any book of selections, some few being now for the first time published in this country.

The compiler cannot conceal the hope that this glimpse of our general literature may tempt to individual research among its treasures, so varied and inexhaustible; that this text-book for the school-room may become not only teacher, but friend, to those in whose hands it is placed, and while aiding, through systematic development and training of the elocutionary powers of the pupil, to overcome many of the practical difficulties of instruction, may accomplish a higher work in the cultivation and refinement of character.

PHILADELPHIA, June 4, 1867.

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