is owing to their ignorance of the meaning of the writers whose pecies they attempt to recite. Can a school-boy analyze the works of the great and unrivalled delineator of human character? Can he read well the writings of him whose "thoughts, that voluntarily move harmonious numbers," elevate the mind to the "blue serene?" Has his voice fulness, power, and stately elegance enough to exemplify the majesty of Shakspeare and Milton? In vain, may he undertake to read or recite Hamlet's soliloquy on death, Antony's oration over Cæsar's body, or the meeting of Satan, sin and death. Unless his instructor teaches him the meaning of such pieces, and of all pieces which he does not understand, his attempts at declamation will be unsuccessful and unattended with beneficial results. It avails nothing for a teacher to say to his scholars: You read too fast; you don't mind your stops;

"Learn to speak slow-all other graces
Will follow in their proper places."

This is mere poetry, in which there is little or no truth. There are many bad readers whose faults do not consist in quick time.

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Equally unavailing is it, for a teacher to tell his pupils to be natural. The teacher himself must be a good reader, else his scholar cannot become one. If the copy he sets be in bad taste, let him not blame his imitators. read the narrative of the blind man, and St. Paul's description of the resurrection,-to speak of the turning of a top, and of the bright orbs which circle their way in the heavens, to tell a story and attempt to pour forth

"the resistless eloquence of woe,"

in the same intonations, key, and quantity of voice, is as absurd as it would be to sing, were it practicable, all senti. ments in Mear or Old Hundred.

They know little of human nature, who do not know that no faculty in a child is stronger or earlier developed than imitation. We are no less creatures of imitation than of habit. Let the teacher of reading, then, be his les

son.

Let him in his own person, illustrate and justify the poet's representation:

"A proper judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ."

If teachers of youth would always take pains to understand the meaning of an author, and would read to their pupils under the influence of the same feelings which animated their author at the time he wrote, good readers would be as common, as they are now rare, among us. Educators must be educated, teachers themselves must be taught elocution before they are competent to teach the sublime art to oth. ers. No man should assume a station until he is in some measure qualified to perform the duties which it devolves upon him. It is not enough that a minister, lawyer, physician, or teacher, does the best he can. He must know what are the duties of his profession; and knowing, per. form them well.

A distinguished writer observes, that "not to teach, is only the absence of good; to misteach, is positive evil.” It is even so. Pupils unavoidably, and almost necessarily, imbibe the errors their teachers make. As the pupil advances in years, these errors increase in number and force, until it is almost impossible for him to unlearn and abandon them. The earlier, therefore, elocution is taught, the better.

Without farther precursory remarks on reading, attention is invited to a few specimens, designed to show the indis. pensable necessity of perfectly understanding an author, in order to do him justice. The Scriptures are not always read with nice discrimination; in other words, the sense or sentiment is sometimes improperly or imperfectly conveyed. Philip inquired of the nobleman of Ethiopia, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" May we not ask some readers of the Bible, in modern times, the same question? And, moreover, if individuals do understand what they read, is it not often the case, that their intonations of voice are unadapted to the subject? The power of expressing the emotions of the heart, as well as the operations of the mind, is recognized in the Scriptures. King David speaks

of "the voice of joy," and "the voice of supplication ;" by which he doubtless means, that the elocution of joy is very different from that of prayer.

Å striking instance of the importance of inquiring into the meaning of an author, and of adapting the voice to it, is to be found in the latter part of St. John, xix. 6. Pilate

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is there represented to have said to the chief priests and officers who were determined to imbrue their hands and hearts in the blood of Jesus Christ: "Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him." All who are familiar with that portion of the Scriptures which relates to the crucifixion, know that Pilate thus spake, after he had taken Jesus into the judgment hall by himself, and examined him, and had been so well satisfied of his innocence, that he believed him to be, as he says in Matthew, xxvii. 24, a just person.' It is written in St. Mark, xv. 14, that Pilate inquired of the chief priests who called upon him to deliver Christ into their hands; Why, what evil hath he done?" In St. Luke, xxiii. 4, Pilate said, "I find no fault in this man.' 99 It is certain that Pilate saw no evidence that Christ was guilty of the crimes with which he was charged. It is equally certain that he intended "to have no hand in his death." It is, therefore, easy to perceive that if the passage in St. John :: "Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him,” be read at random, as ab. surd an idea may be conveyed, as if a court of Oyer and Terminer should say to the sheriff of a county, in reference to a man charged with the perpetration of a crime, but against whom no evidence had been adduced to implicate him in his guilt: Take this man and execute him, for he is innocent! By giving percussive force of voice enough to make the word " ye," prominent, and the letter " I," still more so, the true meaning will be conveyed. Thus: "Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him; and, inasmuch as I do not, Pilate might have added, I will have nothing to do with his crucifixion. It was foolish as well

as wicked in Pilate, to release a personage into the cruel hands of persecutors and murderers whom he believed to be so innocent, that, as he says in St. John, xviii. 38, he could" find in him no fault at all."

My principal object, however, in directing the reader's

attention to this subject, is to illustrate a highly essential principle in elocution, the importance of correct reading.

An example from Macbeth, in Shakspeare, may serve to illustrate still farther, the necessity of ascertaining the exact meaning of every sentence we read. Duncan, king of Scotland, consented to become the guest of his kinsman, Macbeth. An opportunity for murdering the king, offers itself. Macbeth's ambitious wife conjures him not to let it slip. Macbeth had met three of Shakspeare's imaginary beings, called witches, two of whom hailed him with titles of nobility; the third, with that of future king. This circumstance, combined with the importunity of Lady Macbeth and his own towering ambition, led him to assassinate the king and seize upon the crown. When the dagger hovered before Macbeth's eyes, at the feast, his mind was "ill at ease." He was fearful that justice would cry out" trumpet-tongued against the great damnation" of the sanguinary deed. While revolving over in his mind the consequences which would accrue to him and others, from the commission of the atrocious crime, he said :

"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly; if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease, success; that but this blow,
Might be the be-all and the end-all here-
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come!"

By saying "if it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly,' " Macbeth means if, when the crime is commitsed, no evil consequence will result from it, the sooner it is perpetrated, the better. It is, therefore, necessary to elevate the voice on the word done, as it first occurs. Any other mode of reading it conveys either no idea, or a very absurd one. Repentance immediately fol lows; nay, if it be proper thus to speak, it even precedes the deed. But the crown glittered before his eyes; and, supposing that he could escape detection and punishment, he stretched out the murderous arm and spilt the life-blood of his kinsman whom he had entertained, and charged the flagrant crime upon his guards. The compunctious stings of conscience left him no rest either night or day. True

to the life has the great poet of nature painted the picture. Macbeth exclaims :

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,

Making the green-one red."

"Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstacy [agony]—"

Macbeth means that his hands are so deeply stained with blood, that should he wash them in the vast ocean, it would change its aspect froin green to that of red throughout. If it be read as it is punctuated in some, if not all the editions of Shakspeare, thus: "making the green one red," the absurd idea is conveyed, that there was only blood enough upon his hand to make a green sea red, in contradistinction to one of some other colour. The word "green" implies "the multitudinous seas," "all great Neptune's ocean;" it should, therefore, be punctuated and read thus: “ making the green-one red." The word "green" should be read exactly as if it were sea or ocean.

The above extracts from Shakspeare are in the last scene of the first act, and the second scene of the second act of Macbeth.

It may not be unimportant or unprofitable to the reader, to give an example from Coriolanus. In the fifth act and third scene of Coriolanus, in answer to the question of his mother, Volumnia : "Do you know this lady?" he says:

"The noble sister of Publicola

The moon of Rome-chaste as the icicle,

That's curded by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple-Dear Valeria!"

How are we to understand Coriolanus? According to the mythology of the Romans, Diana was the goddess of chastity. The word "moon" implies the goddess Diana, upon whose temple the icicle is represented to have hung. The sentiment intended to be conveyed by the "swan of Avon,' is, that the matron Valeria, was chaste as the goddess DiaThis specimen does not require a very rhetorical reading; it is given to show the importance of what is called intellectual elocution.

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