keeping the diaphragm consciously contracted. In other words, the diaphragm is not only called upon unconsciously to fulfil its proper function during inspiration but is also called upon during expiration consciously to control the exit of the breath-a double function which is contrary to nature, contrary to art, and contrary to science.

There are several other points on which I should like to have touched, but I am afraid I have already tres

passed too much upon your space. I will therefore briefly sum up what I have endeavored to prove.

I. Where Messrs. Hallock and Muckey agree with the old school, we find that their conclusions are in accordance with science. 2. Where they disagree, we find-not that the old school was wrong—but that their conclusions, like those of Messrs. Browne and Behnke, not in accordance with

are science.

S far as my experience and ob

A servation are concerned, the

desire for the study of elocution is on the increase. But this desire is more largely directed to private culture than to professional purposes. Lawyers seem to neglect it entirely. In fact, they seem not to care any more how they present their views, so long as they present the points in law; besides, eloquence without facts and law has no effect with the judge. In the days of Garrick, Kemble, Siddons, Cook, and Edmund Kean, such orators as Chatham, Burke, Walpole, Curran, and Grattan would attend the theatre to study the effects of voice, articulations, and gestures of the above named dramatic artists. Napoleon I. took lessons in elocution and gestures from the great Talma.

Many clergymen of the present day, lacking a knowledge of elocution and a proper training of the vocal cords, are constantly suffering from throatdiseases and other sickness. With very few exceptions, actors and orators of former times, that is, previous to forty years ago, made elocution one of their principal studies. We will admit that in those days, the

plays of Shakespeare and all the grand old tragedy and comedy writers were the popular thing, and these plays, written in blank verse and elegant prose, required the laws of elocution. to express them with equal ability. A Shakespearian actor, as he was formerly styled, had to speak metre as well as the author write it.

Excepting Tennyson's "Foresters," there has not been written a successful blank-verse play, or an elegantly written comedy since the days of Bulwer, Knowles and Boucicault-now forty years since. However, this should not keep the profession from the study of elocution. Many actors are found pompously strutting the stage, thinking erroneously that movement and gesture are the finest work, without the knowledge of elocution, which develops the eloquence of talent, nay, even of genius. What is the mere movement of an army compared to the sounds. of the battle-field? What is the flight of the swallow to the song of the nightingale? And yet, these actors grandly bestriding the stage, exposing their ignorance of their vernacular language, and incurring personal in

jury and disease, insist that elocution is not a necessary study for the actor! They make the poor excuse that it has a tendency to make them stiff and formal in their delivery. This is not so. It is the only way to make them graceful. The true study of elocution teaches how properly to apply and to use the laws of nature so as to make them gracefully natural both in speech and in gesture. No man can speak his words gracefully without begetting graceful action of the body and movement of the limbs. The first begets the latter. It is a law in harmony with itself. Knowl

edge leads to grace, for the reason that knowledge gives confidence of being right in what we do, and a man can not be a fine actor without the knowledge of elocution, any more than he can be a fine musician without the knowledge of the science of music. Elocution is to the actor and public speaker what grammar is to the writer. It forces him to be correct in the expression of his meaning.

Assuming that Malibran or Patti had ignored the study of solfeggios, which instructed the vocal membranes, mouth, tongue, and lips how to do their work in the most natural manner, could they ever have become such wonderful singers and met with their wonderful triumphs, which have astonished the world and leave their names imperishable in the history of music? Hundreds of actors and of clergymen, who are gifted with a naturally fine voice, allow the organ to go to ruin from the neglect of elocution and miss its exquisite effects that flow from a correct delivery of the English language.

We have always found professional men without the knowledge of elocution striving to produce a deep voice by attempting to articulate in the throat, which is impossible to do without impairing the voice and throat. To articulate (articulus, joint) is to touch and, as the vocal

cords can not touch, you can not make them articulate. The vocal cords produce only the vowel-sounds, but which sounds the mouth, the tongue and the lips form articulation. Any animal makes vowel-sounds; man, through his civilization, the articulations. We should endeavor to talk as much as possible in the middle tones of the voice for the sake of refinement of tones and utterance. The higher notes will exhaust more than the lower, for the reason that the nerve-tension of the brain has to be greater to act on a greater tension of the vocal ligaments, and just so pure as we make the vocal or vowel sounds, so eloquent will be the voice and perfect the articulations. I have never been able to understand why the great majority of clergymen assume a deep, guttural tone of voice, while the middle and higher tones are more easily sounded and far more agreeable to the ear. Charles II. said to Betterton that he "could not understand why every actor that represented the character of a villain should assume a deep voice, plaster himself with black hair and frowning brows, while the greatest villain in all England was sweet-voiced, gentlebrowed and a perfect blonde."

Most of the celebrated actors were students of elocution. We can mention Thomas Betterton, Barton Booth, Spranger Barry, Charles Young, John and Charles Kemble, Edmund Kean, Edwin Forrest, James E. Murdoch, Ann Oldfield, Mrs. Pritchard, Sarah Siddons, Fanny Kemble, Miss O'Neil, Mrs. Duff, Ellen Tree, Charlotte Cushman, Matilda Heron, and many others, who, by their cultured voices and perfect utterance of the English language, charmed and captivated their audiences, melting them to tears or amusing them to laughter. Colley Cibber, who was an excellent actor and dramatist, saw the great Thomas Betterton act, and in his autobiography remarks: "Betterton

was an actor as Shakespeare was an author, both without competitors, formed for the mutual assistance of each other's genius. How Shakespeare wrote all men who have a taste for nature may read, but could they conceive how Betterton played him, then their rapture would exceed all bounds. Pity it is that the momentary beauties flowing from a harmonious elocution can not, like the poet's lines, be their own record. Could how Betterton spoke be as easily known as what he spoke, then you might see the muse of Shakespeare in his trimuph, with all her beauties in their best array rising into real life and charming her beholders."

Could those gentlemen of the professions where speaking is required, and who have not made a study of elocution, see and know the wonderful power and charm that lies in the proper delivery of the English language, they would not attempt to speak in public till they had made the study. Independent of the voiceculture and the charm that lies in proper articulation, it compels a deeper insight into the author's meaning and a keener appreciation of prose and verse. There can not be a stronger proof of the power of harmonious elocution than that it lifts an audience into enthusiasm, even when listening to the fustian of an author. For instance, there are some passages in Lee's tragedy of "Alexander the Great" that are almost without sense. Yet when spoken by such elocutionists as Betterton, Kemble and Forrest, the audiences have become excited to thunders of applause. This proves the power of a well-modulated voice and perfect articulation.

The voice of the singer is not more dependent upon the time and form of the melody through the means of properly formed inflections than the sense and movement of verse is de

pendent upon proper elocution. The touches of accentuations and emphasis arising from a fine elocution are like the touch of the violinist who is perfectly true to the laws of harmony, which result in the forms of melody satisfying the mind and arousing the soul to delightful sensations.

Cibber speaks of "a young actor by the name of Monfort, who, though not handsome, was so graceful and perfect in his elocution that he at once became irresistibly charming. Every tone of his voice suited the thought he uttered, and as Dryden said,

"His love-words,

Like flakes of feathered snow,

They melted as they fell.""

Ann Oldfield, one of the most beautiful women that ever walked the stage, was celebrated for her elocution, and all her utterances were distinct and judicious. Her voice was strong and melodious, and, although she was really not a great actress, yet through her fine elocution she was always enthusiastically welcomed by her audiences either in tragedy or in comedy. Davies says that "Mrs. Cibber's elocution was so perfect, perhaps the finest that ever fell from the lips of a woman, that in her most agitated scenes her voice was musical and her enunciation perfect, and by this she became a mistress of dramatic eloquence." Siddons surpassed them all in variety of tones and application of proper inflections in expressing the full meaning of the author.

Mrs.

Thomas Campbell remarked that "elocution has the power to put poetry into action when there is little or none in the poet's composition."

Matilda Heron's elocution and accurate sense of French inflections made her the greatest Camille in the English language.

The voice is the only endowment that has the power to impress the unmistakable condition and quality

of the soul in pathos or the sincerity of the passions. However nice the utterance without the proper tones, the soul is not in it. In such a character as Bianca in the Rev. H. H. Nieman's tragedy of "Fazio," that comprehends all the subtle conditions of the human heart and soul, the voice must have the highest conditions of culture to express the mother, the wife and the perilous situations that drive her to madness, or else the author is not fully interpreted. Juliet, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, and other great dramatic concepts can be expressed only through the power of the soul's elocution. Edmund Kean's "farewell to the tranquil mind" in "Othello" was said by all celebrated actors who heard him to have been the most perfect piece of eloquence ever listened to. Men and women yielded to its power through the expression of tears. "A good voice," says Emerson, has greater charm in speech than in song. The voice, like the face, betrays the nature and disposition and soon indicates what is the range of the speaker's mind."

He might have said more: It determines the culture and the education of the speaker. A true lady or gentleman is as refined in voice as in bodily actions and gestures. I can never forget Fanny Kemble's voice and the impassioned manner in which she rendered the following words of Bianca:

"Not all the night, not all the long, long night,

Not come to me! Not come to me! Not think of me!

Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost,
I wander up and down these long arcades.
Oh, I am here so wearily miserable,

That I would welcome my apostate Fazio, Though he were fresh from Aldabella's arms."

Or the celebrated Mrs. Duff's sad and melodious tones in the character of Lady Randolph in the Rev. John Horne's tragedy of "Douglas," when she alludes to her dead lord:

Still hears, and answers to Matilda's moan."

Both of the above named actresses I knew personally and they told me that they had made the most delicate study of elocution in London under the best professors. A recent writer on the charms of the voice remarks: "It is noted how carefully Plutarch was, in his enumeration of the ten Greek orators, to speak of the excellence of their voices. Biographers of the elder Pitt are as careful to tell how happy were the combinations in his voice of the sweetness and strength; it having all the silver clearness which delighted a later generation in Sir William Folletts, and even when it sank to a whisper it was distinctly heard." Mrs. Opie told Haydon of Byron's voice: "It was such a voice as the devil tempted Eve with; you feared its fascination the moment you heard it." Messinger's "Virgin Martyrs" tell Angelo "That voice sends forth such music that I

never

Was ravished with a more celestial sound."

Apostrophizing the wonders of the human voice, Longfellow, in "Hyperion," recognizes it as the organ of the soul which reveals itself only in the voice. The soul of man is audible, not visible. When Cleopatra impetuously asks the messenger as to the attractions of Octavia, her rival with Antony, she said, "Didst hear her voice? Is she thrilltongued or low-voiced?" "Madam, I heard her speak, she is low-voiced.' "Ah! that's not good. I've lost my Antony!" was Cleopatra's answer. Frederick the Great, Carlyle says, "had a fine-toned voice, that it was even musical in swearing.

"Charles Fox, Mary Mitford remarks, "had a voice that was lis tened to with transport." To Eckermann the sound of Goethe's voice was beyond compare. It was alternately thunder with all the round tones and the organ's minor key.

To Edwin Forrest nature had been most bountiful in her gift of voice, and he was, moreover, blessed with the good sense to feel and take advantage of the gift by adding much. industry in cultivating it to its highest condition. He could bend it into all forms of inflections and sudden contrasts of sounds from the deep and thunder like bass of the organ to the tender flute note, as the skilful violinist moves from one keynote or pitch into another. The laws of elocution did as much for Mr. Forrest in speech as the solfeggios did for Malibran and Patti in song.

Perhaps no better scholar ever walked the stage than Charles Kean. He was an honored graduate of Oxford.

William Macready, too, had high claims to scholarship-but it was strange to the writer, who frequently saw them act, that these two men who were so observart of gestures and all the details of the stagebusiness should so wholly neglect the culture of the voice and the great charms that lie in the articulations of the flexible English language. Their manner of speaking their words with hesitation frequently interrupted the flow of the sense of the author; thus, "T-to be er n-not to b-be, that is erthe question." This fault was stronger in Macready than in Kean. Twing has a touch of the same quality. It was so characteristic with these men that you never could separate their Hamlet from their Lear. And yet, with proper elocutionary training, all of these men with naturally good voices could have improved their acting transcendently above what it reached.

ment, every mouth and tongue to facility of utterance. When the mind understands the power and the exquisite tones that lie in the syllabicals, the intense meaning of inflections, together with the proper sustentations of commas, semicolons and colons with the decided period, then the author's meaning is no longer latent, but becomes manifested in every particular. With the knowledge of elocution, the speaker, the actor or orator is fully armed to attack the writings in prose and poetry of the most eminent authors.

Another irresistible argument in favor of the study of elocution is its wonderful health-improving power. It strengthens the lungs, instructs them how to breathe, expands the chest, adds health and vigor to the throat, power to the diaphragm, sprightliness to brain-action, expression to the eyes, while eloquent speaking vibrates through the whole human system causing more effectual blood circulation and new life. Music is a charming and useful study, and the parent who gives his child a chance for the culture makes a gift that is charming and lasting. But speaking and reading aloud is constantly called for, and is as necessary a branch of education as is grammar or arithmetic. As a parlor accomplishment it is as high as music, and far more valuable than dancing. It should be one of the principle studies in all our public and private schools, as by the proper culture of the voice and lungs, pulmonary disease would soon hide its diminished head. As to the legitimate drama, it is too useful and too noble an institution not to require the highest conditions of education and culture. And not until there is established a dramatic academy for a thorough study of all that pertains to the voice, we shall not be able to reach the acme of its noble capa