GRAMMAR OF ELOCUTION. RECITATION FIRST. ARTICULATION. A PERFECTLY accurate and distinct ARTICULATION, must form the basis of a good delivery. Speaking and reading cannot be impressive if the utterance is indistinct. Students of Elocution should therefore always attend to articulation, as the primary object; and in the first instance, it should be prosecuted alone, as a distinct branch of the art, and prosecuted until perfection in it is attained. Fail Indeed the secret of success in learning the art of delivery, consists in attending to one thing at once. ures will always be frequent, as they ever have been, ⚫ whilst it is attempted in the gross; by the usual method of going at once to reading and declamation, and endeavoring to enforce articulation, emphasis, inflection, and many other things, altogether. The object of this first recitation is to lay down the elements of a distinct ARTICULATION: to present this branch of the art to the view of the learner and teacher by itself; and, in such a simple form, that the one may have a scheme of teaching, and the other a definite mode of acquiring, this preparatory and indispensable requisite of all good reading and speaking. A slight attention to public speaking, or to reading, will show that a good articulation is very uncommon. The attentive listener has to complain, that letters, words, and sometimes, considerable portions of sentences, are pronounced with so little force and precision, that the mind is constantly confused in its attempts to apprehend the meaning. Conversation partakes of the defect in question. But faults of articulation, which do not strike the ear in conversation, become not only apparent in public speaking, and reading aloud, but, sometimes, confound the sense to such a degree, that it is difficult to collect the general meaning, much more the precise ideas, contained in what is read or spoken. If a person would have a more impressive conviction of the truth of these remarks than mere assertion can produce, let him direct his attention to the single circumstance of the articulation, in a series of recitations at any school examination-in the declamations of students at a college commencement-in public readings and recitations, even by professed readers and reciters-in ordinary discourses delivered from the pulpit, at the bar, in halls of assembly, at public meetings, or on the floor of Congress. Indeed, a faulty articulation is so extensively and generally prevalent, that I have scarcely ever attended an exhibition of public speaking, by young persons, without hearing the language literally murdered. The defects carried from schools and colleges are but very partially remedied in the world. Now, a speaker may be sure that an audience will never give him their attention long, if his articulation is such as to disappoint the ear and thus to confuse the mind. Thus the very purpose for which he rises from his seat is frustrated. Distinctness of articulation is not only necessary, in order to be heard and understood, it is a positive beauty of delivery. The elementary sounds of speech, when properly uttered, are in themselves agreeable. But to render them so, the following directions of a modern writer must be observed. "In just articulation, the words are not to be hurried over, nor precipitated syllable over syllable; nor, as it were, melted together into a mass of confusion. They should neither be abridged nor prolonged, nor swallowed, nor forced; they should not be trailed nor drawled, nor let to slip out carelessly. They are to be delivered out from the lips as beautiful coins, newly issued from the mint; deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, in due succession and of due weight."* A good articulation is an affair altogether mechanical. It requires nothing more than attention and continued elementary practice. It depends upon a few certain definite positions of the organs of speech, and the power of varying those positions with rapidity, precision and energy. Now though every body admits this, scarcely any one attends to it. Experience shows, that in order to insure a good articulation to persons in general, some methods must be adopted not at present in use. What should those methods be? I answer, the only sure means are a SERIES OF PRACTICAL ELEMENTARY EXERCISES, which shall constitute a sort of gymnastics of the voice. These must be practiced-and persevered in. If the training, the methods of which will be pointed out *Austin's Choronomia.. in this recitation, is steadily enforced, our experience enables us to say, it will be successful in ensuring to young persons a distinct, forcible, and an impressive articulation: if it be not adopted and steadily pursued, as a preparatory exercise, and for such a length of time as the deficiencies of individuals may require, the usual defects will continue. Reading books on elocution, and receiving directions in lectures, have been already tried long enough, and tried in vain. PRACTICE, practice upon a series of elementary tables of the primitive sounds of speech and of their varied combinations is the only remedy. We therefore advise that no pupil be ever permitted to proceed to reading or declamation, until distinctness of utterance is insured by repeated exercises upon the sounds contained in the following tables. Before we proceed to exhibit them, a few preparatory observations are necessary, in order to render the nature of the analysis, upon which we propose to found our instruction, better understood. A good articulation consists in the precise, forcible and sufficiently prolonged utterance of syllables, according to an approved standard of pronunciation. Now a syllable is sometimes a single indivisible sound: but sometimes it consists of several simple distinguishable sounds, intowhich it can be divided by the voice. If I pronounce the word MAN, it appears to a hearer unaccustomed to a scientific consideration of speech, to be one sound, not capable of division. It is evident to such person that an effort of the organs of utterance has been made, and that such effort is intentional, that it is in its nature, like that which I make with my arm, when I intentionally |