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"Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;

And sure he is an honorable man."

In the spring of the year 1836, the author witnessed the following specimen of irony in the United States Senate:

"Really, Mr. President, I am delighted with the honorable gentleman's mode of speaking extempore. I like his speeches a good deal better without his notes, than with them. He has this day, thrown all ancient and modern orators into the shade. I cheerfully acknowledge my own inferiority to the honorable, learned, and surpassingly eloquent gentleman. Had he, in the plenitude of his wisdom, compared me to the Ephraim actually named in the Scriptures, I could have borne it tolerably well; but when he compared me to ether, which, if I understand it rightly, is lighter than thin air, it was really unendurable, and I sink under it."

EMPHATIC PAUSE.

An emphatic pause is made by suspending the voice, either immediately anterior or subsequently to the utterance of an important thought. The voice must be so managed as first to create an expectation with the hearers of something extraordinary, and then to gratify it. When the pause is made before a striking word, or part of a sentence, is uttered, the suspension of voice must be protracted to such an extent, and with such an elevation, as to leave the sense broken and incomplete, until the thought to which the speaker wishes to direct special attention, is expressed. This rhetorical pause belongs only to subjects of great magnitude. It is, in oratory, very effective. Every orator should have control over it. The great and unrivalled histrionic performer, Mr. Garrick, owes much of his celebrity to the power with which he used it.

The following examples may serve as a practical exemplification of emphatic pauses-so far as it can be illustrated, unaided by the voice. It is represented by a dash.

"I know not what course others may take; but as for me,

give me liberty, or give me

death."

"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!-
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then-Put out the light!
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore,

Should I repent me :-but once put out thine,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Pomethian heat,

That can thy light relume. When I have plucked thy rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again,

It must needs wither. I'll smell it on the tree.

O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice herself to break her sword! One more, one more,

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee

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"You are my witnesses,

That this young creature I present to you,
I do pronounce my profitably cherished
And most deservedly beloved child,
My daughter, truly filial, both in word
And act, yct even more in act than word,
And-

-for the man who seeks to win her love-
A virgin."

"That voice

that voice-I know that voice!
It 'minds me of a voice was coupled with it,
And made such music, once to hear it was
Enough to make it ever after be
Remembered !"

"No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet, nor in shroud, we bound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest—
With the martial cloak around him.

"We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But left him alone- -in his glory."

"The time is not far distant when an awful knell shall tell you, that the unburied remains of your revered patriot are passing to that sepulchral home, where your kingsheroes- -your sages and your poets lie."

-your

Specimens in which the emphatic pause should occur, might easily be greatly multiplied; but the foregoing, are deemed sufficient to show its beauty and grandeur. The great mass of readers and speakers entirely neglect it; but it is not rendered the less important or effective, by that consideration.

The reasons for giving a rhetorical pause where it is marked, in these examples, are very obvious. It may, however, be adviseable to dwell for a moment upon one of them.-Othello's soliloquy. Othello had many admirable traits of character. He was frank and generous. The pathetic detail which he gave to Desdemona, of the hardships he had endured, and the dangers he had passed

"In the tented field,"

constrained her, notwithstanding he was of so different a complexion from her own, to love him;

"And he loved her, that she did pity them."

Othello was truly and ardently attached to her: but he was hasty and impetuous in his disposition, and his suspicions were easily awakened. Desdemona's nature was full of gentleness and compassion, and she was true and constant to her husband. But Iago, whose villany has scarcely a parallel, even in the most odious characters which Shakspeare has drawn, by dark inuendoes and artful insinuations, relative to the conduct of

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made under a monarchical government, breathes the noble sentiments of liberty, says: Such is the state of America, that, after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only just end where you began; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to-My voice fails me; my inclination, indeed, carries me no farther; all is confusion beyond it."

Norman Leslie, in the work which bears his name, on parting with his friends, exclaims: "Thank God! it is done: The bond is severed the darkness, the bitterness of death is passed. It is this, dear Albert, that I most feared-not death itself, but these scenes of frightful grief and harrowing affection. But we, too, must part. I must meet my fate alonewithout a friend-without a hope to the bar-to the sentence to the scaf."

The Earl of Chatham said, during the revolutionary war: "If I were an American, I would not lay down my arms; never, NEVER, NEVER!"

The 5th, 6th and 7th verses of the first chapter, in the Second Epistle of St. Peter, furnish a good example of Climax. Several excellent specimens of climax occur in the pieces contained in this Treatise on Elocution, particularly in Lord Byron's description of the Night before the Battle of Waterloo, Othello's apology for his marriage, and Patrick Henry's speech.

GESTURE, OR RHETORICAL ACTION.

Elocution being but another word for delivery, includes gesture, or rhetorical action. The ancient Greeks and Romans attached great importance to gesture; and, if they did not appreciate it too highly, the moderns certainly undervalue it. Quintilian says, that "it is not of so much moment what our compositions are, as how they are pronounced; since it is the manner of the delivery, by which the audience is moved." Cicero, Aristotle, Pericles, Demosthenes, and other renowned writers and orators of ancient times, were of the same opinion. The rhetoricians taught their pupils, as well graceful gestures, as how to manage their voices.

Whether voice, or gesture has the greater influence, is a

question, about which they were divided in opinion. It is recorded in history, that Roscius acquired such wonderful skill, as to be able to express sentences or sentiments, "as many different ways by his gestures, as Cicero could by his voice." It

is not, therefore, a matter of surprise, that the intelligent Greeks and sage Romans should have entertained conflicting opinions upon the relative or comparative influence of voice and gesture. Natural, animated, and graceful gestures are as necessary and effective now, as they were at any former period of the world. The important precept, "be graceful in your gestures," is not limited in its application, to one age or one country. It commends itself to the good sense of all men, especially readers and public speakers.

He whose gestures spontaneously conform to his subject, and who, in other respects, is truly eloquent, can, in the most effectual manner, make himself a master of other men's minds. Such an orator has power

"To stir a fever in the blood of age,
And make an infant's sinews
Strong as steel."

The sight is the most delightful, if not the most perfect, of all our senses. Gesture, therefore, addresses itself with great power to the eye. Reading or speaking, in order to be highly interesting, must be accompanied by proper gestures. Such were the vehemence of action and gracefulness of gesture, with which Demosthenes spoke, that his antagonist, schines, whom he had banished from Athens, on reading over one of the orations of Demosthenes, when at Rhodes, and seeing that all who were present, admired it, could not forbear saying: "If the bare reading of it affects you so much, how much more would you have wondered, had you heard it delivered by Demosthenes himself." It was certainly the judicious action and energetic delivery of the great Athenian orator, which extorted from his rival and adversary, such remarkable and honorable testimony.

We form some opinion of a speaker, either favorable or unfavorable, from our first view of him. There is something in the manner in which a speaker walks into a house, or a pulpit, and takes his seat, and rises to address an assembly, which prejudices us, either in his favor or against him. The moment an accomplished fencer makes a thrust, we perceive

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