The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

680 rather long and very uncouth legend has its merits. The vice of a thoroughly affected and at the same time clumsy style does indeed so pervade every page that the reader can scarcely ever derive from the perusal a moment's pleasure altogether unmixed with disgust. Ile will often observe, however, that the author has eloquence, has fresh feeling, has unborrowed and genuine convictions. We have not space, and if we had we should, perhaps, want inclination, to give our readers an account of the ot. It is verymarti ficial ; it has a middle, per h aps, even a beg inning, but it certainly has no end. We must not indeed regard the poem as a finished one, and therefore it would the less repay an elaborate analysis. We shall content ourselves in concluding this critique with extracting the best passage we have been able to find : Can ye tell us, learned sages, What can make but years of ages ? Knows nor time, nor spaoe, nor bound? Wings the dull slow day and morrow, Gives new hope, and sweetens sorrow, Making earth to fairy ground ? Angels call it, " Bliss of Heaven;" Souls embodied, " Sin forgiven ;" Here on earth men name it " Love ;" Fiends e'er hating," Hell's worst paining;" 'Tis the Might o'er all things reigning,— God below and God above ! • • Wherefore, while her ♦ows so bless me, — While those little hands caress me, — Say, ye wises.. of the wise, How con i, nor learned, nor gifted, With her smile be thus uplifted Far above your paradise? Love can whisper, learned sages, Truths ye'd find in musty pages ; Tell a child what ye'd be told. But full oft ye like nought better Thin your cheerless deadening letter; Like your gilding more than gold. On the 16th of September, 1853, Mr. Hol lingsworth sailed from Liverpool in the Ameri can emigrant ship, Isaac Wright. On the 28th the ship struck on a rock, N.N.W. of Cape Clear, and was obliged to put back into port. Before the vessel reached the Mersey the cholera had broken out on board, and carried off forty seven persons. Inquiries were instituted among the survivors by Holling,sworth's friend, Mr. Melladew, but to no purpose ; and it was only " when the unclaimed portmanteau and carpet " bag turned up" that he knew that of the corpses hastily committed to the deep in the hour of confusion and terror the wilful and unfortu nate but strong-minded poet and Anglo-Saxon scholar was one. The Art of Extempore Speaking : Hints for the Pulpit, the Senate, and the Bar. By M. 13autain, Vicar-General and Professor at the Sorbonne. Translated from the French. London : Bosworth and Ilarrison. Ttix literary merits of this volume justify the translator's experiment in giving an English ver sion of it ; and yet the contents of the work are not quite equal to its title. Public speaking in general, and pulpit eloquence more particularly, are treated of by the author; but we have been disappointed in those portions of his treatise in which "extempore" speaking is dealt with. M. Bautain is thoroughly acquainted with what the ancient critics have written on the art of oratory ; and his chair at the Sorbonne, as well as his ex perience in the pulpit, have given him practical knowledge of the vocation of a public speaker. We have read better practical treatises on the art of public speaking than this essay, but its special merit lies in the exact and vivid description of the trials to which a public speaker is exposed, besides a correct appreciation of the difficulties which he has to surmount. The volume does not teach a novice how he can learn to speak fluently on the spur of the occasion (and it would be only charlatanism to Imam to do so), but it certainly gives many valuable hints to those who are studying the practice of public speaking. In England, public speakers arc made more by experience than by theoretical rules. Our soc i e ty has a distrust of declaimers, and our audiences, high and low, arc in many instances governed more by "who says it " than by " what has been said." Lord Castlereagh was a successful Par liamentary leader, though he was no orator ; and Lord Althorp (Earl Spencer) had great nfluence over his followers at the time of the THE PRESS, JULY 17, 1858. Reform Bill, although he was a stammering and ineffective speaker. To cite a more illustrious instance, the Duke of Wellington always spoke with much difficulty. We have ourselves seen him shew pain from exerting himself in the House of Lords ; his articulation was indistinct, and his respiration seemed much affected by the labour of speaking. His great services, and his match less public virtues, always invested him with a sway over his audience which the finest oratory of Pitt or Fox could not attain. These, how ever, are exceptional instances ; and it cannot be denied that politicians of moderate social station, and of even dubious character, exercise often, by means of skilful speaking, an influence most dis proportionate to their personal importance or political pretensions. On the whole, there is a decided decline in the estimate of an orator's vocation. In the old republics a great public speaker exercised some of the influences peculiar to a minister, a tribune, and a modern newspaper. In Greece and Rome a brilliant public speaker discharged an amount of direct and representative influence which can scarcely (except at a crisis) be enjoyed by an orator in our period of civilization. Intelligence is now diffused amongst numerous classes, and tens of thousands of readers exist for one before the printing-press was discovered. As a general rule, therefore, mere orators cannot exercise at all as much influence as in the old republics. Hence the art of speaking is not of so much importance as formerly, and the taste of our edu cated and fastidious community recoils from his trionic artifices. Yet it is certain that the art of speaking, and the rules which conduce to effective delivery, are too much neglected by many public characters who trespass upon the patience of as semblies. An English gentleman need not, like a professional orator, study the arts of composi tion, but it is expected that he should be ac quainted with English grammar ; and in the same way, though he need not aim at being a complete orator, at least he should be familiar with the grammar of elocution. To attain proficiency in eloquence there is no royal road, and Cicero and Qtuntilian have left little for any succeeding writer on public speaking. Blair, in his " Rhetoric," has almost entirely fol lowed the rules of Cicero; but Blair had not much knowledge of the eloquence peculiar to the bar, or to purely popular assemblies. His most valuable observations are those directed to aca demical and didactic eloquence. In Lord Brougham's sketches of statesmen, and in his miscellaneous essays on public orators, there are some most valuable hints—such as could have come only from an experienced speaker; and we must observe that, Timon's (Carmenia) " Livre des Orateurs" abounds in practical re marks well meriting the attention of aspirants to oratory. We are surprised that M. Bautain makes no allusion to that curious and valuable work. We agree with this author in thinking that enough of stress is not placed upon the manage ment of the voice. Audiences often grow tired, though he who is addressing them may be using admirable language and employing sound argu ments. In many cases the fatigue of the audience arises from the monotony of the voice addressing their ears. There must be variety of tone, key, and emphasis. Is the speaker vehement and energetic ? In that case he should remember that it is a fixed rule in declamation " that no " monotony is so wearisome as the monotony of " energy." On the other hand, has the speaker a weak and tremulous voice, without vibration ? In that case he should take particular care to be distinct in his articulation, deliberate in his manner, and to use the resources of gesture. M. Haut in well observes : The voice, inc;nding all the organs which serve to produce or modify it, is the speaker's chief instrument; and its quality essentially depends, in the first instance, upon the formation of the chest, the thrust, mud mouth. Art can do little to ameliorate this formation. but it can do much to facilitate and strengthen the organic move ments in all that regards breathing, the emission of sound, and pronunciation. These matters ought to the object of a special study. It is very important, in speaking as in singing, to know how to Rend forth and how to husband the breath, so as to spin lengthened sounds and deliver a complete period, without being blown, and without breaking a sentence already begun, or a rush of declamation by a gasp,—ueed fill, indeed, for lungs that have failed, but araki, a sort of disagreeable gap or stoppage. Care should also be taken not to speak too fast, too loud, or with too much animation at the outset; for if you force your voice in t he beginning you are presently out of breath, or paur voice is cracked or hoarse, and then lon can no longer proceed without repeated efforts w h ich fatigue the hearers and exhaust the speaker. All then., precautions, which appear trivial, but which are really o f high importance, are learned by labour, practice, an d personal experience. Still it is a very good thi ng to be warned and guided by the experience of others, arid t hi s may be insured advantageously by frequent recitations aloud under the direction of some muter of elocution. Enough stress is not laid on these things, if, indeei, they are attended to at all, in the schools of rhetoric, in literary estatlishments, and in seminaries,—wher e i o orators, nevertheless, are expected to be formed. Scarce any but actors now-a-days trouble themselves about them, and that is the reason we have so few men in the liberal professtons who know how to speak, or even to read or recite a discourse, rightly. The voice, unlike other organs, can be formed. It is said that there is no instance of a truly great actor or actress of the highest class who had not power of eye, but there are many instances of defects of voice being triumphed over. Sheri dan's voice was husky, but he managed it artfully ; and his posture before an audience, as well as his _gestures, were highly impressive. L or d John Russell's voice is weak and mincing, but in moments of real excitement, we have seen him rouse the House of Commons by the genuine animation of his manner. The late Mr. Sheil was a most brilliant and successful orator of the artificial school, yet his voice was extremely disagreeable. He carefully paused, and took much pains to be impressive in his manner. We once asked a gentleman who had risen to great distinction as a Parlia mentary speaker, whether he ever felt a tremor in rising to speak in the House of Commons. " I was always tormented by one thing—by the " consciousness of my stentorian voice; and what " troubled me most was, the fear lest I should " stun the House." The following remarks on the voice are just:— The modulation of the voice proceeds principally from the larynx, which produces and modifies it almost without limit, by expansion and contraction. First, then, we have the I ormation of the larynx, with its muscles, cartilages, membranes, and tracery, which are to the emission of vocal sound what the involutions of the brain probably are, instrumentally, in the operations of thought. But, in the one case as in the other, the connection of the organs with the effects produced entirely escapes us ; and although we are continually availing ourselves of the inhtrittnent, we do not perceive in any manner the how of its ministra tions. It is only by use, and experiments often repeated, that we learn to employ them with greater ease and power, and our skill in this respect is wholly empirical. The researches of the subtlest anatomy have given ns no discovery in the matter. All that we have ascertsined is, that every voice has its natural bell-tone, which makes it a bass voice, a tenor, or a soprano, each with intermediate gradations. The middle voice, or tenor, is the most favourable for speaking; it is that which maintains it-elf the best, and which reaches the farthest when well articu lated. It is also the most pleasing, the moat endeanng, and has the largest resources for inflection, because, being in the middle of the scale, it rises or sinks with greater ease, and leans itself better to either hand. It therefore commands a greater variety of intonations, which hinders monotony of elocution, and reawakens the attention of the hearer, so prone to doze. The upper voice, exceedingly clear at first, is continually tending towards a scream. It harshens as it proceeds, and at last becomes falsetto and nasal. It requires great talent, great liveliness of thonght, language, and elocution to compensate or redeem this blemish. One of the most distinguished orators of our time is so example in point. He used to succeed in obtaining a hearing f‘ir several hours together, in spite of his lank and creaking voice, — a real victory of mind over matter. A bass vofce is with difficulty pitched high, and con tinually tends back. Grave and majestic at the outset, it soon grows heavy and monotonous ; it has magnificent chords, but, if long listened to, produces frequently the effect of a drone, and soon tires and lulls to sleep by the medley of commingling sounds. What, then, if it be coarse, violent, uttered with bursts ? Why it crushes the ear, if it thunders in too confined an apartment ; and it it breaks forth amidst some vast nave, where echoes almost always exist, the billows of sound reverberating from every side, blend together, should the orator be speaking fast, and the result is a deafening confusion, and a sort of acoustic chaos. The author, evidently, is master of his subject. He then proceeds to dwell on the advantage of a middle voice, and he happily observes : In all cases, whatever be the tone of the voice, bass, tenor, or soprano, —what most wins upon the hearers, what best seizes and must easily retains their attention, is what may be called a sympathetic voice. It is difficult enough to say in what it consists ; but what very clearly charac terizes it, is the gift of cansiug itself to be attended to. It is a certain power of attraction which draws so it the hearer's mind, and on its accents hangs his attention. It is a secret virtue which is in speech, and which penetrates at once, or little by little, through the ear to the mind or into the heart of tho'e who listen, charms them, and holds them beneath the charm, to inch a degree that they are disposed, not only to listen, b u t even t o a d m i t w h at i s sa id, an d to receive it with confidence. It is a voice which inspires au