brought home to their hearts as well as senses "the universal and unparalleled opulence of Shakspeare, the sacred harmony of Milton, the gentle fancy of Spenser, the nervous energy of Dryden, the tender flow of Goldsmith, or the moral gravity of Cowper,"* not to mention the great writers, whether in prose or poetry, of more recent times and of the present day, the truth of the remarks I have just made will at once be evident.

While bestowing, then, due attention to the grammatical construction and right pronunciation of other languages, do not neglect to pay equal care on these points to our own. Do not, I beseech you, undervalue our fine, expressive, noble English tongue. I am very far from seeking to depreciate other languages, but I do assert this, that there is no argument, however learned or profound; no poetry, however beautiful and affecting; no drama, however grand, spirit-stirring, and sublime, to which its wondrous comprehensiveness has not been adapted with force, vigour, and propriety almost unrivalled.

I have, however, yet to dwell on one most important result which I have ever found to follow from the practice of reading aloud to others, and to young persons especially, the works of our best authors, and that is the taste for reading which is engendered by the auditors; and this taste, I firmly believe, once awakened, lasts as long as life endures. And when once we are taught really to know what books are to us, can we ever sufficiently estimate their value?

They are the sources of our learning, the elevators of our souls, the cheerers of our solitary hours, the means by which we taste the purest sources of enjoyment. Nay, if our lives be measured by the ideas which arise within our minds, and not by the minutes or hours of the dial, we may almost be said to lengthen our existence even on earth indefinitely, and to live as it were at once in the past, the present, and the future.

Great, however, as are the blessings, and manifold as are the pleasures which attend the perusal of the master-spirits of literature, the blessings and the pleasures are comparatively only selfish, so long as we confine ourselves within the walls of our studies. But when we read aloud effectively and significantly they lose this character, and then they become blessings and pleasures spread abroad and shared by others in common with ourselves; and a higher, purer, and cheaper pleasure I can scarcely imagine.

I do not for one moment attempt to deny that to attain proficiency in this art of reading aloud requires of course the due cultivation, not merely of the voice and ear, but also of the various faculties of the mind; for I hold it to be utterly impossible that an unintelligent, an unrefined person, can ever (no matter what natural advantages he may possess in the way of voice or person) be a really good reader. Unless there be taste, refinement, and discriminating power within, the corresponding intonation, emphasis, and modulation, will either be wholly wanting, or else will be found lamentably misplaced. I do not deny that

* From a lecture by Lord Carlisle.

the art of elocution does require much cultivation, much study, much practice to attain perfection; but let me remind you, so does every art that is worth acquiring at all. The eye, the ear, all our senses, indeed, require to be cultivated to enjoy the full gratification of which they are capable. Do not, then, be discouraged by what I frankly tell you. You will require to give thought and attention, followed by careful practice in reading aloud the best works of the best authors, if you would attain anything like success in the art which I profess to teach. It shall be my endeavour in the more practical lectures which will follow this, to make my rules and illustrations as plain and simple as I possibly can. I have hitherto, as you will have noticed, confined myself to the task of endeavouring to lay before you as strongly as I could the various reasons why all men of liberal education, but more especially those about to enter the Church, or preparing for the Bar, should include elocution among their studies. My succeeding lectures will more especially endeavour to shew you how this art should be studied, and its principles carried into practice.

NOTE. While these Lectures have been going through the press, a letter has been received by me from a well known American clergyman and professor now on a visit to our country, who, speaking of the Social Science Congress now being held at Bristol, and of the various papers which were read there, says "Not one speaker or reader in six could I hear without a painful effort, which destroyed the pleasure of hearing. All nearly seemed to be rivals in the 'unsocial science,' how not to be heard. But this does not apply to any of the practised speakers whom I heard, and Canon Kingsley's address was a most excellent one in every way."

LECTURE III.

How Elocution can best be studied. General description of the various Vocal and Speech organs. The lungs and their functions. Proper Respiration. The bronchial tubes, trachea, and larynx. Their respective functions. The Chorda vocales, or vocal chords. Production of voice. Professor Czermak and his invention of the laryngoscope. The glottis. The change of voice at puberty. Retention of the falsetto, or effeminate voice, in manhood. How cured. The various Articulating or Speech organs-the tongue, lips, teeth, &c., and their several functions. The means of combining audibility with distinctness in Speaking and Reading.

HAVE in my two preceding lectures confined myself chiefly to bringing before you the principal reasons why the art of elocution was one worthy the attention of all persons of education and refinement. Having, then, shown you why, I have in the next place to show you how this art can best be studied and acquired. In learning the science of music, before the fingers are enabled to draw forth melody and harmony from the organ, piano, or any other instrument, the student is well grounded in the first elements of the science, and made acquainted with the mechanism of the instrument he has chosen, and the right method of eliciting its various notes, and of increasing or diminishing its power at pleasure, together with the means by which its tones may be prolonged or abbreviated. Again, in acquiring the art of singing, before the pupil is permitted to try the power, compass, and modulation of his voice in any regular air or song, he has daily to practise the solfeggio and pass through many a weary course of scales and other exercises. So, also, in elocution, before you can with perfect ease to yourselves or satisfaction to your hearers undertake the task of preaching in a large church, or speaking or reading for any length of time in a hall of considerable magnitude, it is most essential that you should be thoroughly grounded theoretically and practically in the first elements of the art.

In asking you, then, to give me your close attention during the whole of the explanation I am about to enter on in reference to the rationale of the formation of voice and speech, I must base such request on the assurance of the indispensable necessity of your so doing if you desire to attain excellence, or even a moderate degree of proficiency, in the accomplishment I desire so earnestly to see taught in every college and school in the kingdom.

The rules that I shall give you are the results of many years' constant study, observation, and personal practice; and if you will but remember and carry them out, I am certain I do not speak too confidently, when I assure you the reward will be self-possession, ease and

pleasure, to you who read or speak, and satisfaction, more or less, to the audiences whom you have to address. I do not so much here speak of what I have experienced in my own person, as I do of what has been experienced by pupils who have carefully remembered and practised the principles and rules which I have given them for their guidance.

And here I must ask you to attend to a very brief description, which I think it best to give you now, of the anatomy and physiology of the several organs which are concerned in the production, modulation, and articulation of the human voice. I shall do this in the simplest language I can find, and with as little recourse to mere technical anatomical details as possible. But I deem it to be so essential that you should have some correct general notion of the beautiful and wonderful mechanism by which sound is produced, modulated, and formed into articulate words, in order that you may know afterwards how to treat that complex mechanism properly, how to rightly use, and not abuse, its several parts and functions; and finally, how best to preserve its wonderful and delicate powers unimpaired by use and uninjured by lapse of time, that I think it is only right to explain all this to you as clearly, and at the same time as concisely, as I can.

It would certainly seem, from the way in which so important a part of the human system is treated, that, out of the medical profession, few persons in general are aware of the great extent of the lungs, of the space they occupy in the body, and of the paramount necessity, as regards health, that they should have full room for exercise, and frequent opportunity for the discharge of the important functions belonging to them. They occupy, indeed, nearly all the space comprised within the ribs, and, to use a very familiar comparison, are as necessary to us in the production of voice as is the bellows to the organ in the production of sound. They constitute the reservoirs of all the air we inspire, and consist of fine, spongy, elastic lobes filled with innumerable cells for the reception of the air breathed in; and of these lobes, three are on the right side of the thorax, and two on the left. It is through the trachea or windpipe that the air is conveyed into the lungs by means of the bronchia or bronchial tubes, and thence it is carried by means of still smaller ramifications into vesicles of the most minute size. The air, so long as we have life, is continually passing into the lungs, oxygenating the blood, and then passing out again with its chemical properties entirely changed by the act of inspiration. The philosophy of respiration may be thus briefly explained: the impure venous blood and the chyle produced by the digestion of food, are mixed together and sent to the lungs and distributed over millions of little air cells in minute capillary vessels, called, indeed, capillaries from their hair-like delicacy. These form a perfect net-work over the inner surface of each cell. Now whenever we take a deep inspiration, the blood and the air breathed in are divided only by a membrane so marvellously fine and delicate in texture that it allows the oxygen of the air and the impure gases of the blood freely, as it were, to filter through it; and this, indeed, is the special vital property of the membrane in question. A portion of the

oxygen is received into the blood, changing its character from venous to arterial, which alteration is marked by changing its colour from a dark purple to a bright red. The remainder of the oxygen then combines with carbonaceous compounds of the blood to form carbonic acid gas, which poisonous product is cast out of the lungs by the act of expiration.*

Now, then, in the act of respiration for the purpose of speaking or reading aloud, the lungs should be inflated to a far greater degree than is necessary for the mere purpose of existence; and this inflation of the lungs depends chiefly on the action of the thorax and diaphragm. The lungs in themselves are passive; they have no muscular power whatever of inhaling or exhaling the air which we breathe. The thorax or sides of the chest enlarge or contract in the act of respiration, and the lungs inflate in proportion to the expansion of the chest. The whole process of respiration, in fact, is carried on by means of the diaphragm, a strong, firm, muscular membrane, which forms, as it were, the floor of the chest, and divides it from the abdomen, and by the agency of the abdominal and intercostal muscles. By the action and reaction of these, the cavity of the chest is alternately enlarged and contracted, so that by these means the atmospheric air is inhaled by the process of inspiration; and when, as I have already shown you, it has discharged its functions in the animal economy, it is again driven out by the act of expiration. Whilst the air is in its egress passing through the larynx and the mouth, it is used for the purpose of speech. Thus during this apparently simple process a very considerable portion of the human body is brought into full and regular action.

I have next to direct your attention to that most delicate, complicated, and important organ, the larynx. This arises from the trachea, and contains the material organs of sound. It consists of five elastic cartilages, of which one is perceptible to the eye, and two of them still more plainly through the integuments to the sense of touch. The thyroid cartilage is the most prominent, especially in men, where it has sometimes received the fanciful appellation of the "pomum Adami," or "Adam's apple." Below this is the cricoid cartilage, of which the shape has been compared to that of a signet ring. On the back of this, and behind the thyroid cartilage, are placed two little cartilages called the arytenoid, so connected with it as to be capable of the most varied and delicately adjusted motions upon it, such as may well excite our wonder and admiration. Now, then, next let me call your special attention to two all-important ligaments which are affixed to the arytenoid cartilages, and fastened inwardly to the front of the thyroid cartilage. They are also loosely united to it laterally, so that the only passage for the air is between them. I have called these two ligaments all-important, and you will say they are indeed so, when I tell you that without them we should have no voice at all, for they form the chorda vocales, or vocal chords, for it is by their position and action that the

* See the works on consumption of Dr. Godwin Timms, Dr. Watts, Mayo, Combe, and others.