DECLAMATION, a speech made in public, in the tone and manner of an oration, uniting the expression of action to propriety of pronunciation, in order to give the sentiment its full impression upon the mind. According to the manners and customs of the present age, public harangues are made only in the pulpit, in the senate, council, or other public assembly; by public professors; or in the theatre.

1. With regard to the declamation of the pulpit, the dignity and sanctity of the place, and the importaňce of the subject, require that the preacher shall exert the utmost powers of his voice, in order to produce a pronunciation which is perfectly distinct and harmonious, and that he shall observe a deportment and action which are expressive and graceful. No man, therefore, who is destitute of a voice should ascend the pulpit, and there act the part of a pantomime or posture-master before his audience. The preacher should not, however, bellow like a common crier, and rend the ear with a voice of thunder; for such kind of declamation is not only without meaning and without persuasion, but highly incongruous with the meek and benignant genius of the gospel. He should likewise take particular carc to avoid monotony; his voice should rise from the beginning, as it were, by degrees, and its greatest strength should be exerted in the application. Each inflection of the voice should be adapted to the phrase, and to the meaning of the words; and each remarkable expression should have its peculiar inflection. The dogmatic requires a plain, uniform tone of voice only; but the menaces of the gospel demand a greater force than its promises and rewards; the latter should not be pronounced in the soft tone of a flute, nor the former with the loud sound of a trumpet. The voice should still retain its natural tone in all its various inflections. Happy indeed is that preacher to whom nature has given a voice which is at once strong, flexible, and harmonious. An air of complacency and benevolence, as well as devotion, should be constantly visible in the countenance of the preacher. But every appearance of affectation must be carefully avoided; for nothing is so hateful in itself, or disgusting to an audience, as even the semblance of dissimulation. An air of affected devotion infallibly destroys the efficacy of all that the preacher can say, however just and important it may be. On the other hand, he must avoid every appearance of mirth or raillery, or of that cold unfeeling manner which is so apt to freeze the hearts and chill the feelings of his hearers. In a word, declamation is an art that the sacred orator should study with the utmost assiduity. The design of a sermon is to convince, to affect, and to persuade. The voice, the countenance, and the action, which are to produce this triple 4 effect, are therefore the objects to which the preacher should particularly apply himself.

2. The declamation of a minister or statesman in the senate, in council, or in any other public assembly, is of a more unconfined nature. To persuade, to move the passions, and to gain an ascendency in a public assembly, the orator should himself feel the force of what he says, and the declamation should only express that internal sensation. But nothing should ever be carried to excess. A suavity in the tone of voice, a dignity of deportment, a graceful action, and a certain tranquillity of countenance, should constantly accompany the statesman when he speaks in public, even when he is most earnestly engaged in debate, or when he is addressing his sovereign in person. A pleasing tone of voice and a distinct pronunciation prejudice the hearers greatly in the speaker’s favour. A young man may improve these qualifications to a surprising degree. Demosthenes, who had a natural impediment· in his speech, was accustomed to go to the sea-shore, and partly filling his mouth with pebbles, to declaim with a loud voice against the breaking billows. The stones by degrees gave a volubility to his tongue, and the roaring of the waves reconciled him insensibly to the noise of a popular assembly.

3. The principal object of a public professor is the instruction of the studious youth; for which purpose it is his business to convince and persuade. Every tone of voice, every expression of the countenance, or action of the body, which can produce this .effect by enforcing the [7:7:664]words, should therefore be employed by those whose duty it is to teach the science. There is, moreover, one very essential reflection which every professor ought to make, namely, that the chair from which he harangues is surrounded by young students, naturally possessed of great vivacity, not unfrequently alive to a sense of the ludicrous, and for the most part previously instructed in the preparatory sciences. They are therefore constantly inclined to criticise, to jest, and to ridicule; for which reason the professor should endeavour to inspire them with respect and attention, by a grave, commanding, and venerable countenance, carefully avoiding all appearance of grimace in his action, and every kind of affectation in his discourse, that he may not afford the least opportunity for indulging in pleasantry.

4. With regard to theatric declamation, this was very different among the ancients from what it is and ought to be among us, both from the nature of the thing itself, and from the difference of circumstances. Numberless passages in Quintilian, and other ancient historians, critics, grammarians, and commentators, evidently prove that the ancient dramatic declamation was subservient to the rules of the musical rhythmus; and by this, according to Aristides, their action, as well as recitation, was regulated. But to explain this seeming paradox, it will be necessary here to make some preliminary remarks. The ancients gave a much more extensive signification than we do to the word music, which they derived from the muses, or at least from some of them. It is for this reason that Aristides and Quintilian both defined it to be an art which teaches all that relates to the use of the voice, and the manner of performing every motion of the body with grace: Ars decoris in vocibus et motibus. Poetry, declamation, dancing, pantomimes, and many other gestures and exercises, were therefore subservient to this art.

That part of general music which taught the art of declamation and gesture according to the rules of an established method, and which we perform by instinct, or at most by the aid of common sense, was distinguished by the name hypocritic music ; and this musical art was called by the Greeks orchesis, and by the Romans saltatio. It was so far, however, from being an advantage to the ancients to have had this art, which we have not, that it was, on the contrary, a mark of great imperfection. For, in the first place, it was an instance of great absurdity to represent a tragedy or comedy before an audience of twenty thousand people, the far greater part of whom could neither hear nor see what passed to any good purpose, unless they were possessed of organs which we have not. The theatres of London and Paris can conveniently contain at the most only a few thousand persons, and that is found sufficient in the most populous cities, where there are several places of entertainment on the same day, and where the people are reasonable enough to succeed one another in their diversions. As the features of the face could not be distinguished at so great a distance, and still less the expression of the countenance, so, in order to represent the different passions, they were obliged to have recourse to masks, a wretched and childish invention, which destroyed all the strength and variety of expression. Their action became extravagant, and at the same time subservient to a regular mechanism, which prevented all the refinement, and all the pleasure of surprise, in the performance, and must have had an effect horribly disagreeable to those who had the misfortune to be placed near the stage.

The peculiar nature of their language too, which consisted of syllables long and short, the duration of which was determined by a set measure of time, and their manner of tuning these syllables, after the method of the orchesis of the Greeks, was another disadvantage; for by this means they determined, by notes or characters placed after the long and short syllables, not only the nature, but the duration of each action. Now nothing could be more affected, more constrained and disgusting, than such a method of declaiming. In this respect the moderns, who consult nature alone in their theatric declamation, who can make the audience hear each sigh, who can accompany it with a proper attitude, who can incessantly vary their action, who can seize the lucky moment, and make the countenance fully express the sensations of the mind, possess an immense superiority over the ancients. Nature does all here; but art, infinitely inferior to nature, did all among the ancients. Our actors learn their art without art, from nature herself, assisted by reflection; and they arrive at a degree of excellence infinitely greater than that of the ancients, by a method far more simple, and by efforts incomparably more easy.

We do not precisely know what the theatric declamation of the ancients really was, nor what were the musical instruments which accompanied that declamation. The proem to the Eunuch of Terence says, for example, that Flaccus, the freedman of Claudius, composed the music of that piece, in which he employed the two flutes, the right and the left; and these flutes, it is likely, gave the tone to the actor, which must have had a very odd effect on the audience. Most of the ancient pieces have similar notices prefixed to them. They who desire to be particularly informed of the art of declaiming among the Greeks and Romans, may read to advantage the Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting by the Abbé du Bos. The third part of that work consists entirely of learned researches and ingenious reflections on this practice of the ancients. But as the art has happily no place in modern declamation, and can at best serve only to make a parade of erudition, we shall say no more of it in this place.

We think there is good reason to believe, moreover, that the most polished nations of modern Europe do not accompany their discourses in general with so many gesticulations as did the Greeks, the Romans, and other inhabitants of warm climates. They appear to have found the method of animating a discourse, and giving it an expression, by the simple inflections of the voice, and by the features of the countenance; which is far more decent, as well as juster and more rational, than all those contortions which perpetually derange the natural attitude of the body and its members, and give to the speaker the air of a harlequin.

Expression, therefore, forms at once the essence and the end of declamation; and the means of producing it consists in a pronunciation that is sonorous, distinct, and pleasing, supported by an action that is decent and proper to the subject. If the best dramatic poet has need of a good declaimer or actor to make his writings produce their proper effect, the actor has likewise need of a good poet to enable him to please and affect by the action; for it is to little purpose that he endeavours to charm his auditory by uniting with nature all the powers of art, if the poet has not furnished him with sentiments which are rational and affecting.