ture (?) that is specially written for recitation. Truly that unwritten code of good taste should be carefully conned by the student who wishes to become a reciter.

THE AMATEUR RECITER.

Perhaps no form of entertainment, or expression of dramatic art, has been so well abused and so mercilessly caricatured as has Recitation during the last few years. Nor is the reason far to seek. For myself, I have hailed the abuse, and enjoyed the caricature, as sharp and necessary remedies for a growing danger to an art I love, and which has been sorely injured by a fatal popularity. A few years ago, when I first began my work, Mr. Brandram was, broadly speaking, alone in the field. Amateur reciting was almost unknown (oh happy days!), and, even amongst actors and actresses, it was a form of art but little used or esteemed. Now all that is altered. The times are changed. The field is crowded in every direction; public reciters are many-the stage has owned its por relation, and the amateur world has seized on the art with unconscionable rapacity. To me it is surprising that, in face of the very immature and strange exhibitions that have been labelled "reciting," both in public and private, the art has survived. It argues the possession of an admirable vigour and vitality. But that it should be by many shunned and looked askance at is not astonishing. For who has not suffered from its evil and desolating claims for silence and a hearing at

"At Homes" and social gatherings? Has not recitation added a new terror to Society, and a new danger to domestic furniture? When will the day come when people will realise and believe that recitation is not an easy but a very difficult art?

RECITATION-AN ART.

That it is truly an art is, I think, clear and provable. Lecky, in his History of the Rise of Rationalism, speaking of the theatre, says "This amusement, which has ever proved one of the chief delights, and one of the most powerful incentives to genius, had at the same time the rare privilege of acting with equal power upon the opposite extremes of intellect, and is even now almost the only work connecting thousands with intellectual pursuits." There seems no reason why Recitation should not share these honours with the stage. For it is eminently capable of "acting with equal power on the opposite extremes of intellect." Longfellow has recorded in a sonnet his delight in the "precious evenings all too swiftly fled" when he listened to Mrs. Fanny Kemble's readings of Shakespeare's plays. Many are the spoken and written confessions of interest and pleasure in recitation that I could quote. Whilst remembering with lively pleasure the tears and laughter, the awakened sympathy and imagination of audiences into whose lives, I fear, little of imagination or sympathy entered, I cannot doubt but that Recitation can also equally touch with a refreshing and refining hand that

class which has little time or power to receive the lessons of the greater parent-arts. Recitation needs a special gift and a special training in the artist. It touches the material it uses, not only with the bare truth of an interpreting voice, but also with a force and a delicacy that are its own. It is a perfect medium whereby the world may be

wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

It

It is singularly complete and self-contained. encloses the old primitive way of telling stories in verse by rhythmic repetition, and also the more modern and civilised presentation of drama by the actor. It has been steadily growing in artistic development and in public favour for many years. If true to itself, and if its position be not undermined by the incapacity of well-meaning but imperfect aspirants, it may well look forward to association and brotherhood with those older executive arts by which Literature and Music are brought home to the ears and to the hearts of a world that is ready and willing to listen if only the right voice will speak.

V.

RECITATION WITH MUSIC

BY

FREDERICK CORDER, R.A.M.,

Crapster of "Nordisa," " The Bridal of Triermain,” “The Sword of Argan ́yr," etc., etc.