ON

ELOCUTION

AND

PUBLIC SPEAKING

CONTAINING

VALUABLE SUGGESTIONS TO CHAIRMEN, PUBLIC
SPEAKERS, AND OTHERS,

FOR GOOD AND EFFECTIVE DELIVERY.

BY

CHARLES WILLIAM SMITH,

PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION,

Author of "Common Blunders Corrected," &c., &c.

New and Revised Edition.

"A proof of the importance of delivery may be drawn from the
additional force which the actors give to what is written by the best
poets, so that what we hear pronounced by them gives infinitely more
pleasure than when we only read it. I think I may affirm, that a
very indifferent speech, well set off by the speaker, will have a greater
effect than the best, if destitute of that advantage."-QUINTILIAN.

LONDON:

WARD AND LOCK, 158, FLEET STREET.

1858.

260.9.222.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

"A good selection of observations on the subject, from the best authorities; made, with a view to practical results, by a teacher of the art."-Athenæum, Sept. 11, 1847.

"This is a little work, by a respectable author, on a subject of great practical importance to the Christian ministry. We recommend it to those of our readers who are engaged, more or less, in public speaking, and who have not been favoured with previous instructions."-Nonconformist, April 12, 1848.

"Useful this work certainly is, though it professes to give no more than general hints. Its value consists in the selection from many elaborate treatises, which few have patience to read, just those general principles which may easily be remembered and applied. Read in a quarter of an hour this little tractate will furnish materials for years of reflection on the subject."-Leader, Oct. 5, 1850.

BODL

?TIV;

THE IMPORTANCE OF ELOCUTION.

"A proof of the importance of delivery may be drawn from the additional force which the actors give to what is written by the best poets; so that what we hear pronounced by them gives infinitely more pleasure than when we only read it. I think I may affirm, that a very indifferent speech, well set off by the speaker, will have a greater effect than the best, if destitute of that advantage."-QUINTILIAN.

"When Demosthenes was asked what was the first point of eloquence, the second, and the third, he answered, 'Delivery, delivery, delivery.'"-CICERO.

"Address in speaking is highly ornamental, as well as useful, even in private life.”—IBID.

"Whether half the learning of these kingdoms be not lost, for want of having a proper delivery taught in our schools and colleges ?"-BISHOP BERKELEY'S Queries.

"There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in the choice of words."-LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"The management of the voice and gesture in public speaking is intimately connected with what is, or ought to be, the end of all public speakingpersuasion."-REV. DR. BLAIR.

"You will make it your business, your study, and your pleasure, to speak well, if you think right."CHESTERFIELD.

"If the Preacher from the throne sought to find out acceptable words, why may not his more humble successors seek to find out acceptable ways of expressing them ?"-REV. JAMES FORDYCE.

"A shoemaker or a tailor is under a master seven years, at least, before he sets up for himself. But the preacher goes into the pulpit at once, without ever having had one lesson, or article of instruction in that part of his art which is the chief and most weighty, and without which all his other accomplishments are worth nothing, toward gaining the end of speaking. It may, perhaps, be objected here, that sacred truth needs no ornament to set it off, no art to enforce it; that the Apostles were artless and illiterate men; and yet they gained the great end of their mission, the conviction of multitudes, and establishment of their religion; that, therefore, there is no necessity for this attention to delivery, in order to qualify the preacher for his sacred office, or to render his labours successful. To all this the answer is ready, viz.First, the Apostles were not all artless and illiterate. St. Paul, the greatest and most general propagator of Christianity, is an eminent exception. He could be no mean orator who confounded the Jews at Damascus (Acts ix. 22); made a prince, before whom he stood to be judged, confess that he had almost persuaded him to become a convert to a religion everywhere

spoken against (Acts xxvi. 28; xxviii. 22); threw another into a fit of trembling as he sat upon his judgment-seat (Acts xxiv. 25); made a defence before the learned court of Areopagus, which gained him for a convert a member of the court itself (Acts xvii. 34) ; struck a whole people with such admiration that they took him for the god of eloquence (Acts xiv. 12); and gained him a place in Longinus's list of famous orators."-BURGH.

"It was with no small pleasure I lately met with a fragment of Longinus, which is preserved as a testimony of that critic's judgment, at the beginning of a manuscript of the New Testament, in the Vatican library. After that author has numbered up the most celebrated orators among the Grecians, he says, Add to these, Paul of Tarsus, the patron of an opinion not yet fully proved.”—SPECTATOR, No. 633.

"How many a jury has thought a speaker's argument without force, because his manner was so ; and have found a verdict against law and against evidence, because they had been charmed into delusion by the potent fascination of some gifted orator!" PENNSYLVANIA LAW JOURNAL.

"I wish that all who conduct the education of young ladies would insist on, at least, an audible utterance, and not consider their own office to be faithfully filled, unless a correct and graceful elocution is attained."-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

66 "We had rather have a child return to us from school a first-rate reader than a first-rate performer