PIECES FOR PRACTICE IN READING AND DECLAMATION. EXERCISE I.—LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.-Lyell. [As an exercise in elocution, this piece is designed for practice in the reading of plain narrative. The faults to be avoided, are monotony or formality, on the one hand, and undue familiarity, or affected animation, on the other: the points of style to be aimed at, are simplicity and dignity, as in serious and elevated conversation.] THE scene of this popular fable, was placed in the two centuries which elapsed between the reign of the emperor Decius, and the death of Theodosius the younger. In that interval of time, between the years 249 and 450 of our era, the union of the Roman empire had been dissolved, and some of its fairest provinces overrun by the barbarians of the north. The seat of government had passed from Rome to Constantinople; and the throne, from a pagan persecutor to a succession of Christian and orthodox princes. The genius of the empire had been humbled in the dust; and the altars of Diana and Hercules were on the point of being transferred to Catholic saints and martyrs. The legend relates, that, "when Decius was still persecuting the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern, in the side of an adjacent mountain, where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured by a pile of huge stones. The youths immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones, to supply materials for some rustic edifice: the light of the sun darted into the cavern; and the seven sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they thought, of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger, |