EXERCISE VI.

RULE 3. Language of declamation, as public speeches, orations, and the like, should be read with a distinct and forcible utterance, the pitch and movement varying according to the intensity of the emotions. The falling inflection usually prevails.

THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE.-ANON.

Extract from an Oration.

1. Guided by reason, man has traveled through the abstruse regions of the philosophic world. He has originated rules by which he can direct the ship through the pathless ocean, and measure the comet's flight over the fields of unlimited space. He has established society and government. He can aggregate the profusions of every climate, and every season. He can meliorate the severity, and remedy the imperfections of nature herself.

2. By imagination, man seems to verge toward creative power. Aided by this, he can perform all the wonders of sculpture and painting. He can almost make the marble speak. He can almost make the brook murmur down the painted landscape. Often, on the pinions of imagination, he soars aloft where the eye has never traveled; where other stars glitter on the mantle of night, and a more effulgent sun lights up the blushes of morning. Flying from world to world, he gazes on all the glories of creation; or, lighting on the distant margin of the universe, darts the eye of fancy over the mighty void, where power creative never yet has energized; where existence still sleeps in the wide abyss of possibility.

3. By imagination, he can travel back to the source of time; converse with the successive generations of men, and

kindle into emulation while he surveys the monumental trophies of ancient art and glory. He can sail down the stream of time, until he loses "sight of stars and sun, by wandering into those retired parts of eternity, where the heavens and the earth shall be no more."

4. To these unequivocal characteristics of greatness in man, let us adduce the testimony of nature herself. Surrounding creation subserves the wants, and proclaims the dignity of man. For him, day and night visit the world. For him, the seasons walk their splendid round. For him, the earth teems with riches, and the heavens smile with beneficence.

5. All creation is accurately adjusted to his capacity for bliss. He tastes the dainties of festivity, breathes the perfumes of morning, revels on the charms of melody, and regales his eye with all the painted beauties of vision. Whatever can please, whatever can charm, whatever can expand the soul with ecstasy of bliss, allures and solicits his attention. All things beautiful, all things grand, all things sublime, appear in native loveliness, and proffer man the richest pleasures of fruition.

YOU CANNOT CONQUER AMERICA. - PITT.

An Argumentative Appeal.

1. I CANNOT, my lords, I WILL NOT join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of TRUTH. We must, if possible, dispel the darkness and delusion which envelop it, and

* Pitt, (William, or Earl of Chatham,) one of the illustrious statesmen of England, who ruled his native country solely by the superiority of his genius. He was born in 1708, and at the age of twenty-six became a member of the Fnglish Parliament. The name of Chatham is the representative, in our language, of whatever is bold and commanding in eloquence. He died in 1778.

display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors.

2. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them,-measures, my lords, which have reduced this great and flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? "But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world: - now, none so poor to do her reverence."

3. The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, their interest consulted, and their embassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy; and our ministers do not, and dare not interpose with dignity and effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known.

4. No man more highly esteems and honors the English troops than I do. I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve any thing except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you CANNOT conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much.

5. In this alarming crisis, I come with this paper in my hand to offer you the best of my experience and advice; which is, that an humble petition be presented to his majesty, beseeching him, that in order to open the way toward a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, it may graciously please him, that immediate orders be given to General Gage, for removing his majesty's forces from the town of Boston. This, my lords, upon the most mature and deliberate grounds, is the best advice I can give you at this juncture.

• General Gage, the last governor of Massachusetts appointed by the king, and, for a short time, commander-in-chief of the British forces, at the commencement of the Revolution.

6. And I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character.

7. You may swell every expense, and strain every effort; accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts forever will be vain and impotent; doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop remained in my country, I never would lay down my arms, NEVER! NEVER!

NEVER!

EXERCISE VII.

RULE 4. Tender emotion, and mildly pathetic and plaintive language, should be uttered in a soft and subdued tone of voice, with rather a slow movement, and a prevailing rising inflection.

Tender Emotion.

1. Heard ye the whisper of the breeze,
As soft it murmured by,

QUESTIONS.

Amid the shadowy forest trees?
It tells, with meaning sigh,

tive language?

What is the rule for tender emotion, and mildly pathetic and plain

Of the bowers of bliss on that viewless shore,
Where the weary spirit shall sin no more.

2. While sweet and low in crystal streams That glitter in the shade,

The music of an angel's dreams

On bubbling keys are played;

And their echoes breathe, with a mystic tone,
Of that home where the loved and the lost are gone.

3. And when at evening's silent hour,

We stand on Ocean's shore,

And feel the soul subduing power

Of its mysterious roar,

There's a deep voice comes from its pearly caves, Of that land of peace which no ocean laves.

4. And while the shadowy vale of night, Sleeps on the mountain side,

And brilliants of unfathomed light

Begem the concave wide,

There's a spell, a power, of harmonious love,
That is beckoning mute to the realms above.

5. And Earth, in all her temples wild
Of mountain, rock, and dell,
Speaks with maternal accents mild,

Our doubting fears to quell,

Of another shore, and a brighter sphere,
Where we haste on the wings of each flying year.

6. On nature's bright and pictured scroll,

A speaking language see;

A pantomime the seasons roll,

Of glorious imagery,

That reveal a life in this fading clay,

That shall wake again to a brighter day.