rence happened at the University of Oxford, surely the prize of £40 might be divided between the two competitors. I can only hope that in a short time Oxford may be induced to reconsider her decision, and follow the course taken by her sister University of Cambridge.

But time warns me that I must draw these introductory remarks to a close. I have viewed the subject of Elocution under various aspects, and I have endeavoured to show why it is well worthy of being studied for the sake of its good results on others, and also for your own sakes personally. And I trust I have said enough to prove that the hours you will spend here, in the study and practice of the art of public reading and speaking, will be hours neither wasted nor misapplied.

NOTE.

Since the foregoing Lecture was delivered, the subjoined leading article appeared in one of our principal daily papers, which I append, as it refers so closely to the subjects discussed in the preceding pages.

"An incident which occurred last Sunday in North Wales is well calculated to suggest many pregnant thoughts to the three hundred young candidates who are about to be admitted to holy orders in the Church of England. We learn from a provincial contemporary that some hitch having occurred in the arrangements for providing that there should be a clergyman ready to perform service in Wynnstay chapel, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, after waiting for some time, rose from his seat and took his stand at the reading-desk, where he proceeded to read the service through from beginning to end. It is added that, in conclusion, the worthy Baronet expressed his regret that the suddenness of the call upon him had left him unprepared with a sermon. Be this as it may, it cannot be denied that Sir Watkin had a rare opportunity of affording a chance to the congregation which listened to him of comparing his delivery and enunciation with those of the clergyman whose place he filled. We have no data for pronouncing whether the honourable Member for Denbighshire was more impressive in the reading-desk than his ordinary clerical predecessor, or whether the peculiarities of utterance which are hereditary in his family disqualified him for making the most of the excellent opportunity afforded him. But nothing is more certain than that many Members of either House of Parliament are much finer readers of the Church Service and Lessons, when they have prayers daily in their own families, than the average rector or curate who occupies the pulpit or reading-desk upon each successive Sunday. Nor can it ever be unnecessary to remind English clergymen, especially those who habitually perform the service among urban congregations, that they rarely fail to number among their listeners one or more laymen who have the gift of lending a deeper significance and tenderness to the beautiful Litany of the Church of England, or to the inspired words of Holy Writ, than these are frequently invested with. There are too many in whose case familiarity has blunted the acuteness of impression with which the finest passages of Scripture are heard by those who have but few and intermittent opportunities for attending church. Thus, it is impossible for a clergyman ever to know whether he may not

have among his audience a judge or a lawyer whose delivery has long been famous for its excellence in the Law Courts that he frequents, or an actor who has made it his study for years to get the most out of every word and tone that he pronounces upon the stage. There is a wellknown story which relates that David Garrick offered, when staying as a guest at an English country-house, to read the Litany of the Church of England to his host and fellow-guests, and that he proclaimed his power of investing it with a pathos and meaning which would be surprising to those who had never heard it read out of church. True to his promise, the celebrated actor so pronounced the sentence beginning, In all time of our tribulation,' that there was not a dry eye among his hearers as its concluding words fell upon their ears. 'To hear him,’ said one of his profoundly-moved audience, 'was to find a new sense.' Mr. Lecky tells us that Burke once declared, 'in an assembly in no degree inferior to any of Greece or of Rome'—that is to say, in the British House of Commons-that there was probably no orator among those he addressed who did not owe something of his skill to the acting of Garrick.

"Such men-whether regarded as players, declaimers, or readers—as David Garrick are, however, of very rare occurrence. But every reader of his Life,' as portrayed by Murphy or Davies, cannot fail to remember the extraordinary power and meaning which 'the little play-actor from Lichfield'-as Dr. Johnson somewhat contemptuously dubbed him-infused into the parts of Abel Drugger and King Lear. If, in the opinion of Edmund Burke, such orators as Fox and Sheridan owed some portion of their success and excellence on the hustings and in Parliament to an imitation of David Garrick, we shall be doing no injustice to the clergymen of all denominations who were his contemporaries if we believe that they might, with advantage, have studied reading and delivery in the pulpit by listening to and watching him on the stage. It is the oldest of saws that every great orator, whether secular or ecclesiastical, has in him many of the attributes of a play-actor; and no one can have listened to the most successful of American preachers-Mr. Henry Ward Beecher-whose name has been so long before the public in connection with a painful and humiliating investigation-without seeing how closely his performances on the platform of Plymouth Church draw their inspiration from the stage. For those reasons we would have every young clergyman remember that 'delivery' is as essential to him, if he would become a power in the pulpit and reading-desk, as the thricerepeated 'action' which Demosthenes pronounced to be the orator's first attribute. 'You have such an irresistible way of putting it!' said an Irish Roman Catholic clergyman to Sydney Smith, when the witty canon urged upon him the advisability of accepting a State endowment for his church. The same 'irresistible way of putting it' made Sydney Smith the most convincing and persuasive of preachers; and it is recorded that when, some forty years ago, he delivered a charity sermon in York, which is still repeated on the same subject year after year, he caused his hearers to open their purse-strings wider than any of his successors, in a much wealthier age, have hitherto been able to do.

'Delivery,' said Dr. Johnson to a young clergyman in whom he took an interest, 'is more potential than eloquent matter;' and few of us can fail to have listened to striking sermons of which the effect was wholly marred by the bad articulation and slovenly reading of their authors. It is the highest and noblest of the stimulants which incite a great tragic actor to put forth his choicest powers that among his audience there may be orators of world-wide reputation, and clergymen who aspire to the influence and prestige of a Savonarola or a Robertson. There was once a time-not so very long ago-when the Roman Catholic Church refused its sacraments to play-actors, and doomed them, if they died in their profession, to eternal perdition. Thus the body of the beautiful and accomplished Le Couvreur, who had been one of the brightest ornaments of the French stage, was refused access to consecrated ground, and buried in a cattle-field on the edge of the Seine. But it was permitted to Voltaire, by an ode of fiery indignation, to avenge her memory from outrage, and to obtain larger charity for her successors. There is nothing now in public opinion to forbid clergymen from attending the theatre, and from trying to borrow hints as to delivery and articulation from any tragic actor or actress who is cunning and skilful enough to impart them.

"But the accidental circumstance that Sir Watkin Wynn should have performed the service last Sunday in a little Welsh chapel will carry the minds of many to other scenes where, in the absence of clergymen, the prayers and lessons for the day are not unfrequently read by laymen. It is one of the fundamental rules of that noble fleet of vessels which, under the name of the 'Cunard Line,' has maintained the communication between the Old and New Worlds for nearly forty years without ever sacrificing the life of a single passenger, that the service of the Church of England should be read in the saloon upon every Sunday morning that is passed at sea. Among the passengers one or more clergymen are often included, and it is by no means uncommon for the service to be performed, upon the invitation of the captain, by some reverend gentleman invested with the holy orders of one among the many Christian churches. With the exception of the Roman Catholic priesthood, to whom the liturgy of the English ritual is an abomination, there are not wanting many Presbyterian or Baptist-or as we should say in England, 'Nonconformist'-ministers among our Transatlantic brethren who are always ready and willing to read the Church of England service to their fellow-passengers. But, failing such a cleric, the prayers and lessons are habitually read either by the captain, the purser, or the surgeon; and few passengers can have crossed the Atlantic frequently without wishing that it was their lot oftener to hear such readers as some among the captains of the Cunard Line. It would be invidious to mention the names of several who are still in command of one or other of these magnificent vessels. But no jealousies will be aroused when we say that Captain Judkins, who, having long been Commodore of the Line, has now retired from active duty, was in the habit of reading the service upon the Sundays that he passed at sea with a dignity. and impressiveness to which not many clergymen can lay claim. With

the 'Union Jack' folded across the desk which held the Bible and PrayerBook, and himself the impersonation of a stout British sailor, Captain Judkins has unconsciously touched many a heart when, in the midst of an Atlantic gale, he has given utterance to one or more of the prayers prescribed by the Church of England 'to be read at sea.' It is in scenes such as this that a reflective mind is led to meditate upon the opportunities for effective delivery which are within the reach of every clergyman whether by sea or land, and of which, too often, but little use is made. There can be no more effectual stimulant for those who are permitted to perform holy service upon each recurrent Sunday in every quarter of the globe than to remember that it is impossible for them to know whom they may have among their audience, and that the manner and style of their accent and delivery will often touch hearts too dead to be reached by careless utterances and half-hearted monotony."

LECTURE II.

The Study of the English Language, viewed relatively in regard to other tongues-Importance of the Art of Delivery in Ancient Times-Causes suggested for its subsequent comparative neglect-The Subject viewed in reference to Public and Private Life Quotation from the Rev. Canon Kingsley-The Rev. James Pycroft's "Twenty Years in the Church "-Popular Readings as an intellectual Recreation-Good results that might be attained by these means-General summary of the subjects discussed in these Lectures.

N the Introductory Public Lecture, which I gave on our opening night of the session, the remarks I addressed to you were directed principally to one object, viz., the endeavour to show how, in a free country like ours, with an unfettered Senate, with professions such as the Church and the Bar, and with public meetings on all kinds of subjects, religious, political, and social, held all over the country almost every day in the year, the art of public speaking and reading is continually being brought into requisition, and what necessity there existed for the proper study, practice, and cultivation of that art.

I venture now to solicit your attention to some further remarks, which also term introductory, but to which the time I was limited on Tuesday last prevented me from adverting.

I may

No one, I think, will deny that words, however appropriately selected, if spoken or read without due feeling and expression, are mere lifeless sounds that will scarcely affect the understanding of the hearer in general, and most assuredly will never awaken a single passion or emotion in the soul. Indeed, I may well ask this question-Even when we bend over the silent pages of an eloquent book, are not our minds excited and rendered alive to the full beauty and significance of the thoughts and language, only so far as we imagine the sentences rendered with an appropriate delivery? And when we come to consider language spoken or read aloud, I think we may properly ask, if it is not essentially imperfect unless accompanied by purity of intonation, distinct articulation, appropriate inflection' and modulation of the voice, due observance of prosody and the great physiological law of poise, the right discrimination of degrees of emphasis, and, when suitable to the occasion, proper expression of countenance and gesture, so as to be able to communicate thoroughly to the mind of the hearer the full import of the words which form the sentences that are uttered?