excellent opportunities for the practice of this kind of speech, and will gradually pave the way to the more ambitious regular set speech or oration. As I have said already, the occasions that arise for a speech of this kind are not so frequent in either House as might be imagined, but when they do arise, formal notice and time for preparation being given, it is expected, and it is well, that the speaker should be thoroughly prepared for the occasion. To make an opening speech on the night of a great debate upon an important question before the Legislature is, perhaps, the most severe ordeal to which any speaker can possibly be exposed. Here the highest mental and physical requisites that are concerned in the art of public speaking may well be brought into action. Facts clearly and powerfully stated, arguments elaborated with logical force and precision, the deductions that legitimately follow shown in their most vivid colours, and in the strongest light-these are the weapons which the orator has to wield upon such occasions: nor these alone-the most powerful appeals, especially in the peroration, to the reason, passions, feelings, and sympathies are all, not merely permissible, but right and proper on great questions of national importance or vital interest to society. The thoughts of the speech cannot be too well matured, nor its plan and mode of treatment too carefully sketched out beforehand, and every aid that the Art of Elocution can lend in the way of delivery may here be well availed of to enforce the general effect of the orator's address. The distinguished statesman and scholar who at present fills the office of Premier, and who, however much men may differ in opinion as regards his political views, none can deny, holds the highest position as an orator in the House of Commons-I mean, of course, the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone-was applied to not long since, as one well qualified to do so, to give his opinion as to what was the best system of mental training to make a good speaker. To this application he very courteously responded in a letter, from which I make the following extract, feeling assured of its interest and value:-" Speaking from my own experience, I think that the public men of England are beyond all others engrossed by the multitude of cares and subjects of thought belonging to a highly diversified empire, and therefore are probably less than others qualified either to impart to others the best methods of preparing public discourses, or to consider and adopt them for themselves. Supposing, however, I were to make the attempt, I should certainly found myself on double basis, compounded as follows: -first of a wide and general education, which, I think, gives a suppleness and readiness, as well as firmness of tissue to the mind not easily obtained without this form of discipline; and secondly, of the habit of constant and searching reflection on the subject of any proposed discourse. Such reflection will naturally clothe itself in words, and of the phrases it supplies, many will spontaneously rise to the lips." If to make a good opening speech on bringing forward a motion on a subject of high importance to the country, or asking for leave to bring in a bill affecting deeply national or social interests, be confessedly one of the most difficult tasks a man can undertake, perhaps still more diffi cult is it to make a good reply, and it is certainly one of the severest tests of the genius, skill, discretion, and readiness of a parliamentary orator. By the exercise of thought, reading, research, and other forms of preparation, aided by fluent language and an effective delivery, a man of fair capacity may succeed in making a very excellent opening speech that will elicit the cheers and admiration of the House. But all this labour and preparation beforehand will avail but little in a reply. This really must be, in the strictest sense of the word, an extempore speech. As the general of an army would watch all the enemy's movements, and as the battle proceeds carefully note what are the weak positions occupied by him, and the chances he offers for a successful assault being made on any part of his lines; so should the speaker who has undertaken the all-important task of a reply, carefully follow and make notes of what he deems to be the weak points in the arguments of the different speakers who are opposed to him. In a reply, I think it would be best to take these in their logical order of succession, and so endeavour to show weakness, fallacy, or irrelevancy to the real questions at issue. Save for such notes as he may have made, the man who undertakes a reply must really do so wholly impromptu, and his success must depend on his natural and acquired powers of observation, skill to act on the emergency of the moment, and readiness to seize on every opportunity and repel his adversaries' attacks. As he has the great advantage of knowing that his will be the very last words in the debate, he should especially reserve himself for a powerful peroration, so that when he concludes and resumes his seat, he may have the great advantage, if possible, of having made the last and the most powerful impression upon his audience. So confessedly difficult is it to make a good and effective reply, that I think I may safely say, where you will meet with a hundred members who are continually making speeches in the House, you will scarcely meet with ten who will undertake the difficult and responsible task of a reply. There are only a very few more branches of public speaking on which I wish to say a few words, and the first of these is open-air speeches and sermons. Candidates, proposers, and seconders, and other persons, not unfrequently have to address large and often noisy and tumultuous assemblies around the hustings and other places; and of late years many excellent clergymen of various denominations have adopted the practice of occasionally preaching in the open air. Of all speaking none is so exhausting to the system, especially in the case of the untrained speaker, who is wholly unacquainted with the resources which a study and practice of the art of elocution in its largest sense would lend him, as speaking in the open air. I have myself had pupils who have told me that, before they received instruction in the art, the efforts they made, and the straining their throats suffered in the endeavour-a vain one they found after all-to make themselves well heard by a large audience in the open air, left them often for days afterwards in a state of utter exhaustion and of hoarseness and laryngeal or bronchial irritation. Indeed I have known cases where an untrained speaker has, for a day or two after a long effort in addressing an assembly in the open air, so completely lost his voice that it was reduced to a mere whisper. Now, for open-air speaking there is no need for any undue muscular effort or straining. All this is worse than useless-it is absolutely injurious to the speaker, and destructive of the result he desires to produce. The great requisites for success in open-air speaking, that is to be both audible and distinct to a large assembly, are, first, a general acquaintance with, and some practice in, the principles of the art of elocution, so far as they bear more especially on public speaking; and then the head, chest, and whole body generally, being placed in the most favourable position, to remember and fully carry out the following golden rules, viz, that the lungs before beginning to speak should be thoroughly filled by a good deep inspiration, taken in the way I have already fully explained in one of my earlier Lectures, so that the air enters the lungs only by the air-passages which conduct from the nostrils; that the speaker begins at once then, and suffers no air to escape uselessly by the open mouth, and so be wasted; that he avails himself of every proper pause in his address to thoroughly replenish the lungs by a full inspira tion, and so supply them with a fresh amount of air to replace what has been expended in speaking; that the mouth be somewhat more open than would be requisite in a moderately-sized hall; that the vowels be more fully sustained or dwelt on, especially in all syllables or words that are long in point of quantity; that all the articulating organs that divide the vowel sounds, and so form speech, be used with special energy and due precision of action; and that the proper action and reaction of the larynx be adequately and regularly maintained, in order to ensure that all-important poise, on which so much of the success of all public speaking and reading depends. If these suggestions are fully carried out, I think I may safely promise the speaker, even if of moderate physique, that he will succeed in making himself well heard in an openair meeting, where a man of much more powerful frame and constitution, but wholly unversed in the principles of the art, will only succeed in making a noise, not a speech, distinct and at the same time perfectly audible at a considerable distance. That the human voice may be trained and developed by a sound knowledge of the principles of public speaking, and a gradual and judicious exercise of its various powers, so as to acquire a wonderful increase in its strength, volume, and compass, is a proposition that no one who has had any experience can possibly dispute. Clearness of voice, fulness of sound, and distinct articulation, are the chief points to which the attention of the open-air speaker must be directed in order to insure his being well heard at a considerable distance; and I should advise, at all events, until the attention has been well secured, that he should speak somewhat more slowly and deliberately than he would probably do in a hall or any other covered building. It is impossible, of course, when speaking in the open air, to make use of those varieties of tone and more delicate inflections and modulations of the voice which are so effective in a hall or room; and therefore a bolder and broader style altogether must be adopted. The lan guage too, on such occasions cannot be too clear, simple, and vigorous. Elaborate arguments, however sound and good, will either be comparatively unheeded, or utterly thrown away. Statements powerfully enlarged on, facts forcibly put, results and conclusions vigorously driven home, a liberal use of energetic and impressive action, and unfailing self-possession and good temper under all emergenciesthese are the chief requisites to make a man a popular favourite at all public meetings, and ensure success in open-air speaking. LECTURE XXIV. The Vocation of Lecturing-Various Classifications-Educational Lectures generally— Suggestions in N this, the concluding one of our introductory course of Lectures, I propose dwelling a little on two subjects, viz., the art of lecturing and what I may term social speechmaking. As regards lectures, I may observe in the first place, they are becoming every year more and more general in almost every department of life, and are now made the medium for instruction throughout the country far more generally, than they were thirty or forty years ago. At our great universities, at leading colleges and schools, at our Inns of Court, at our various hospitals, at our learned societies, in the metropolis, at our literary and scientific institutions in town and country lectures meet us everywhere, and consequently numbers are every year being added to the ranks of lecturers in every department of professional and public life. However, even yet, from what I have been informed, I am inclined to think, in proportion to the population, we are still, as regards lectures and lecturers, behind the Americans, in point of numbers, at all events. Lectures may, perhaps, be divided into the following principal classes: -Educational, whether general or technical, professional, such as legal, medical lectures, &c. ; literary, scientific, and artistic lectures. A few general remarks applicable to all these classes are all that I can pretend to offer. Whatever subject he takes up, the lecturer should endeavour thoroughly to master and comprehend it all in its details, so that in his attempt to unfold and explain it to his audience, he may place it before them in all its bearings in the fullest and clearest light. With most lectures, but more especially professional, scientific, technical and artistic lectures, much illustration is needed, for in all probability the great majority come for the purpose of acquiring information, and the |