the studied and artificial kind holds but a small place in the orator's make-up as compared with the skill and ability with which he marshals his thoughts and formulates his language, is seen from the meager accounts we have of the gestures of great orators.

Their epigrams, metaphors, trenchant truths, staggering blows, and elegant declamation, are all treasured in literature and handed down from one generation to another. Not so of their gestures. Who has ever heard whether Cicero raised his arm, stamped his foot, or rolled his eye? Where can we find the movements of Pitt, of Fox, of Grattan, of Burke, of Webster, of Prentiss? No chronicler has deigned to hand them down. We simply know that they were earnest, and their language we have. Cicero, in his beautiful treatises, considers action only in the most general aspect, and although his observations are full of truths and the result of the experience of a master mind, yet they are still broad generalizations and show little of.the minute treatment that characterizes the great author when treating of the beauties of speech, and the forms and manner of expressing noble sentiments. Probably we can make greater head way by considering what the speaker should avoid rather than what he should attempt. He should, then, avoid stiff and stilted postures and gestures. He should shun boyish poses and everything like timidity or lack of self-possession. The term "nat

uralness" embraces most of what can be said in regard to gesture. The feelings and sentiments which the speaker wishes to awaken in others he must first feel himself, and if he be so filled with the paramount importance of the subject and the occasion, it should not be difficult to conform the body, which is the mere tenement of the spirit within, to the appropriate expression of his theme.

The great Roman in his observations about voice and delivery has beautifully expressed about all that can be said upon the subject. There are not wanting those who lay considerable claim to teaching special oratorical delivery, who seem to encourage the idea that there is something in the voice and expression of the orator which calls for peculiar developmental training. We cannot quite subscribe to this view. The chief aim of the speaker should be to deliver his thoughts in a natural way, raise his voice not to make a loud noise, but for the purpose of being heard, be rapid in his utterances, when excited by his subject, slow when discussing sober propositions which appeal to the understanding only, emphatic on those points which require emphasis. As observed by Cicero, he should avoid bawling, and not "o'erstep the modesty of nature.”

One of the most imperative mandates of good speaking is to preserve perfect control of the manner as well as of the matter of delivery. The latter can be accomplished in the closet, in the study, and the former must be aquired by appropriate practice in

private as well as in public. The exercise of obtaining the proper pitch from the tone of the flute is not as chimerical as it may appear to some. A lengthy discussion creates great demands on the voice. Should a speaker begin on a high key, it would not be long before his vocal organs would give out. An easy, low-toned beginning must therefore be commended. This was the character of the commencement of Daniel Webster's reply to Mr. Hayne.

The scene where Mr. Webster began his celebrated reply to Robert Y. Hayne is thus graphically described by one of his biographers, H. C. Lodge :

"In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective had beaten about his head. At last his time had come, and as he rose and stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect quietness, unaffected apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling about him, he said, in a low, even tone [see page 138]. This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained excitement of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease; and when the monotonous reading of the resolu

tion ceased, Mr. Webster was master of the situation, and had his listeners in complete control. With breathless attention they followed him as he proceeded. The strong, masculine sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burning appeals to love of state and country, flowed on unbroken. As his feeling warmed, the fire came into his eyes; there was a glow on his swarthy cheek; his strong right arm seemed to sweep away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his, opponents, and the deep and melodious cadences of his voice sounded like harmonious organ tones, as they filled the chamber with their music."

From this description we do not think the student can perceive any inclination to the artificial effects in voice or gesture. The easy, self-possessed manner, gradually warming with the subject, is all that is here indicated. Lest, however, the reader should infer, from this graphic portrait of Mr. Webster, that great natural graces of person, which that orator undoubtedly possessed, are indispensable to a high name for eloquence, we give a picture of one who won the sobriquet of "the old man eloquent" in the House of Representatives, where a reputation for that talent is secured with the greatest difficulty; this was John Quincy Adams. He is thus described by his biographer, John T. Morse, Jr.:

"Living in the age of oratory, he earned the name of 'the old man eloquent.' Yet he was not an orator in the sense in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were orators. He was not a rhetorician; he had neither grace of manner nor a fine presence, neither an imposing

delivery, nor even pleasing tones.

On the contrary, he

was exceptionally lacking in all these qualities. He was short, rotund and bald; about the time when he entered Congress, complaints became frequent, in his diary, of weak and inflamed eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to such an extent that in time he had to use artificial assistance to steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break, piercing enough to make itself heard but not agreeable. This hardly seems the picture of an orator, nor was it to any charm of elocution that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that what he said was well worth the hearing. Listeners

were always sure to get a bold and an honest utterance, and often pretty keen words, from him, and he never spoke to an inattentive or to a thin house. His power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and merciless in the use of it. winced and cowered before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious with mad fore his fiercer assaults."

Men

rage, be

May it not safely be concluded, therefore, that it is the consciousness of the orator that he has mastered his subject in all its details, that he knows precisely where to lay his hand on a vigorous expression, a bold metaphor, a trenchant fact, that prompts and sustains him in his eloquence? Without this power, studied graces, labored elocution and artificial gestures are vain and impotent, but with it appropriate bodily movements will follow of their own free will.