LECTURE III.

How Elocution can best be studied-Analogy between the Study of Music and that of Elocution-Quotations from the American Physiologist, Dr. Rush-General Description of the Organs of Respiration-The Thorax or Chest-The Vertebræ, Ribs, and the Diaphragm and Muscles concerned in Respiration-The Lungs-Physiology of Respira. tion-Capacity of the Lungs-Results of Experiments made by Dr. HutchinsonThe Trachea or Windpipe-The Bronchial Tubes-Mechanism of Respiration.

HAVE in my two preceding Lectures confined myself chiefly to bringing before you the principal reasons why the art of Elocution was one worthy the earnest attention of all persons of education and refinement. Having, then, thus endeavoured to show you why, I have next to show you how, according to the best of my judgment and experience, this art can most successfully be studied and acquired.

Supposing any one were desirous of acquiring the accomplishment of singing, he would in the first place try to secure the services of some master of eminence in the art. This master the student would diligently attend; he would be well drilled in the very first elementary principles; daily would he have to practise the Solfeggio, and pass through what would seem at first long and weary courses of scales and other exercises of the voice, before the master would permit him to try its power or compass in any regular air or song. This he does, though he has scarce anything to learn but the mechanical execution of what lies in the visible form of notes of various descriptions before his eyes. Or, supposing he were desirous of devoting himself to the study of the organ, what months and years would he labour that he might know its compass, and be master of its stops, and be able to draw out at will all its various combinations of harmonious sound, and all its full range of richness as well as delicacy of expression! Or again, if it were the piano which the student had selected as the instrument for his study and practice, he would, after being well grounded in the first elements of the science of music, as he would of course be in all cases, no matter what instrument he might choose, be then made acquainted with the mechanism of the piano, and be shown the right method of eliciting the various notes, and of increasing and diminishing their power and volume at pleasure, together with the means by which the duration of the tones may be

prolonged or abbreviated. A man knows all this well enough; and yet, strange to say, he will fancy that the grandest, the most varied, the most expressive of all instruments, which the Creator has formed by the union of an intellectual soul to the organs of voice and speech, may be fitly played upon without any study or practice. He comes to it as a novice, as an uninstructed tyro, and imagines that he can, while knowing nothing of the delicate and marvellous instrument which produces human voice and speech, yet be able to manage all its stops and command the whole compass of its wonderful and comprehensive powers. Such a man too often finds out his mistake at a time when the mortification of his failure in public is most distressing to himself and most painful to his audience.

There is a passage from the celebrated work on the voice by the eminent American physiologist, Dr. Rush, which I may well quote here. After lamenting that, as a rule, at most colleges and schools the only attempt at anything like training for public speaking or reading is the annual series of recitations which takes place on what are termed the Speech Days, when boys of fifteen or sixteen are sent on to the platform without any instruction, as a rule, in Elocution, to act certain scenes and recite certain orations, affording in general more amusement to their schoolfellows than pleasure by their proficiency to the assembled friends and auditors. "Now in contrast to this," says Dr. Rush, "visit a Conservatorio of music; see the orderly tasks, the masterly discipline, the unwearied superintendence and the incessant toil to produce the full beauty and all the accomplishments of voice; and afterwards do not be surprised that the Pulpit, the Senate, the Bar, and the Chair of Medical Professorship are filled with such abominable drawlers, mouthers, mumblers, clutterers, squeakers, chanters, and mongers in monotony.

These are strong terms, and in commenting upon them and some other remarks made by Dr. Rush, a reviewer very pertinently says, "We cannot leave our public institutions without taking notice, further, of what seems to us the prodigious waste of study and talent which the present system involves. Here and there a man, from some fortunate direction of his mind, or strong natural propensity, or favourable situation, breaks through the difficulties that keep down other men, and rises to a con'siderable measure of eloquence, and becomes conspicuous in his neighbourhood or in the country at large. But do we not know that there are hundreds of others whose powers and acquisitions are equally good, who think as clearly and feel as deeply, but whose talents are buried in comparative obscurity? who think eloquently, who feel that it is within them to address eloquent thoughts to their fellow-men, but who can never say with Sheridan, 'It shall come out!' It is not for want of study that these men, the majority, fail. What years have they spent, and spent all their substance too; what days of toil and evenings of patient thought have they pursued to the midnight hour! The waning lamp has been no romance to them, the fixed brow and the feverish pulse no poetry; they have toiled reckless of health and comfort; they have kindled and rekindled the fire within them, that has wasted away the strength and prime of their youth; and when they come to the crisis of their fate, when

they stand before the great public and are put to the trial in which they are to rise or fall for this world, they find, alas! that the very office which they have there to discharge is the office for which they are least of all prepared. With all the sciences and arts they have laboured to understand, they have never learnt the grand art of communication, the science of Speech; with all the languages they have mastered, they have never learnt the language of eloquence; and their acquisitions, their reasonings, the collected wisdom of sages, the gathered lore of centuries, sink comparatively to nothing before the pretensions of some flippant declaimer. It is from this cause, no doubt, it is from want of this power of communication, that preachers are so often unreasonably charged with dulness. It is not always that the man is dull; but it is that, being placed in a situation for which he has not been properly trained, he sinks into a mechanical habit from the very inability to give just and natural expression to his emotions. Many and many a sermon has been written (it is not too much to say) with burning tears, and when it came to the delivery has been struck, as if by magic, with the coldness of death, and he whose breast glowed with sacred fervour in the closet, has appeared in the pulpit as cold as a marble statue. May we be permitted, in passing, to suggest to our preachers and public speakers the propriety -nay, the duty-of now paying some attention to this subject?"

To this question of the reviewer surely all must answer in the affirmative. And then next arises another question-How can Elocution, in the widest sense of the term, be best studied, practised, and acquired? I revert then to the analogy which I drew at the beginning of this Lecture between the student of the organ or the piano, and the student who wishes to make the most effective use he can of his powers of voice and speech; and I say, acquire first a knowledge of the various parts of the instrument you are going to use, and then you will have a scientific basis for the art you are about to practise.

On these walls you see before you various large drawings and diagrams, illustrating the anatomy and physiology of those several organs and portions of the human frame which are concerned in the production of voice, and the conversion of that voice into articulate speech; and on the right use of which depend so much the health, ease, and comfort of the public reader, speaker, and preacher. The first of these drawings to which I now direct your attention is that marked Fig. 1.

Here you have a representation of the thorax or chest, which contains and affords protection to the most important organs of respiration and circulation. It consists, you see, of a portion of the backbone or spine, the ribs, and the breastbone. I propose saying a few words in reference to each of these portions of that bony framework which constitutes the chest or box that contains the all-important organs to which I shall have shortly more particularly to call your attention.

The spinal column, which you see here at the back part of the figure, consists of twenty-four irregularly-shaped bones, forming together a long tube which contains and protects the spinal marrow or cord-the most important part of the nervous system. These bones, I should tell you, have a slight rotary motion upon each other, whence they are termed

the vertebra, from the Latin verto (I turn). Each is further connected with the other by certain gristly elastic substances, which are called the intervertebral cartilages. Now of these twenty-four vertebræ of which the spinal column is composed, seven belong to the cervix or neck, and are termed the cervical vertebra; twelve constitute the dorsum or back, and are called the dorsal vertebra; and the remaining five have received the name of the lumbar vertebræ, from lumbus, the loin. You will perceive that the dorsal vertebræ have each four articulating processes, as they are termed, two transverse ones and a spinal The two transverse processes stand out on each side, and serve as places for the attachment of the ribs.

one.

Let us now pass on to the consideration of the ribs. In general, I must tell you, we are furnished by nature with twenty-four, twelve on each side; but occasionally we meet with cases in which this normal number of twelve ribs on each side is either increased or diminished by one or two ribs. You perceive that the ribs are articulated behind with the dorsal vertebra, and in front with the sternum or breastbone.

I suppose I need hardly tell you that the belief which some of the uneducated classes still seem to entertain, that man has one rib less than woman, arising no doubt from the narrative given in the Book of Genesis regarding the formation of Eve, is simply a vulgar and absurd error. The upper seven ribs, to which I am now pointing, are called the true or sternal ribs, because they are immediately connected with the sternum, or breastbone, by means of cartilages. In contradistinction to these upper seven ribs, the lower five are called the false ribs. The last two of these ribs are floating, but otherwise they are supported by the breastbone, and

cartilaginous appendages attach the two floating ribs to each other and to the one above.

The breastbone in early life consists of various pieces, of which two can be distinctly seen even in manhood. You will see that its lower extremity has an appendage bearing some resemblance to the end of a sword. From this it has been termed the ensiform cartilage, from ensis, a sword. It is not till quite an advanced period of life that this finally ossifies. You will also notice that the breastbone has on either side seven depressions. These are for the purpose of giving admission to the cartilaginous extremities of the upper seven or true ribs. They are not articulated with the spine at right angles, but take a slanting direction downwards, an important modification, because upon this chiefly depends what is termed costal respiration.

So much, then, for the osseous or bony portion represented in the diagram. I must now speak of the muscles which carry on the function of respiration. I may say, generally, that most of the muscles connected with the trunk are indirectly concerned in aiding the function of respiration; but the direct muscles which regulate the respiratory actions are the following, viz., the intercostals, the elevators of the ribs, the triangular muscle of the breastbone, and the serrated muscles on the back. All these are directly concerned in elevating the ribs so as to enlarge the capacity of the chest. But I must tell you that the principal agent in carrying on ordinary respiration is this to which I now point, forming, as you see, a partition between the contents of the chest and those of the abdominal regions. It is hence called the diaphragm, and may be said to form the floor of the chest, and the roof of the abdominal cavity. To the former it is convex in shape, and to the latter concave. Though you often hear the diaphragm spoken of as a single muscle, it really consists of two muscles and a central tendon. It is also worthy of notice that the diaphragm takes a slanting direction from the breastbone to the loins. When in a state of relaxation, the lateral borders, which are movable, present convex arches, which reach up sometimes as high as the fourth rib. On the other hand, the arches, when in a state of contraction, present nearly plain surfaces, by which the capacity of the chest is increased to the same extent as it was previously diminished by the diaphragm being relaxed.

It is right, however, that I should mention that a modern German physiologist of considerable reputation, Herr Merkel, has expressed his doubts whether the English physiologists have not attached too much importance to the diaphragm as an organ of respiration. He considers it to be not a direct but an auxiliary muscle in involuntary respiration, though he admits it becomes active in voluntary respiration, and when in consequence of disease the other respiratory muscles cannot easily act. Now, then, let us examine a little in detail what is for our purpose the most important portion of the contents of the chest, or box, as the word literally means. In this large diagram which you see before you, you have a representation of the human lungs. (Fig. 2.)

You perceive that they consist of two bodies somewhat conical in shape. They are situated within the lateral cavities of the chest, and