An essay upon the action of an orator, as to his pronunciation & gesture useful both for divines and lawyers, and necessary for all young gentlemen, that study how to speak well in publick / done out of French.

AN ESSAY UPON THE Action of an Orator : OR , HIS Pronunciation and Gesture .

CHAP. I. The INTRODUCTION ; Setting forth the Necessity of Action , in general , by several Examples .

There 's no manner of doubt but Judicious Thoughts and Sound Reasoning do the Work of an Orator , and certainly convince the Understanding more than any Thing in the World ; It must likewise be granted that the digesting of the one and the other into Order , does at once give us a distinct knowledge of Things , and a Facility of retaining them ; and none can deny at last how much a curious Choice of fine Words , and the Art of placing them in a Discourse , do set-off Reason and Thought with Grace , Lustre and Power to Admiration : So that the Great Masters of Rhetorick have set up Invention , Disposition , and Elocution for the three first parts of Oratory . But finding afterwards that the Sensitive Appetite and its Affections had a wonderful Ascendant over the Understanding as well as the Will ; and our Passions again being most wrought upon by present Objects and what strikes in at our Senses , they found themselves under a necessity of adding a Fourth Part : That is , ACTION ; which consists of Speaking and Gesture . Action , which was look'd upon by the Antient Orators , to be so important a Qualification , that Demosthenes has made no difficulty of reckoning upon 't for the First , Second and Third Faculty of Eloquence , all in one : and Tully was of the same opinion too , when he said that it had the Sole Power and Sovereign Command in a Speech .

't is true , if a Man's Business were only to make a fine Sermon , or to draw an Elegant Plea , the three first parts of Oratory would accomplish him with all necessary Perfections for the work : But when he should come then to the Point of Speaking , and of moving the minds of his Hearers to the Life , they would all seem dispassionate and Dead to the Discourse , without Action to quicken-up their attention , and to make the matter infinitely taking . For it has often been the Fortune of an Orator excellently well qualifi'd with the most Essential Parts of Eloquence , to be heard on a Publick Occasion , with Impatience and Contempt , upon the very account of a Bad Pronunciation and Awkward Gestures : When not half so Great a Master of Language , that had the Genteelness of Action with it , has come-off both with the Delight and the Applause of his Audience . So Powerfull an Influence has this Faculty over the Senses ; That the impression and Farewell it leaves upon us , is the Orator's Fate . As for instance , Philostratus tells us of one Philiscus among the Eloquent Barristers , whose Lives he has Written , that he spake Greek to Purity and Perfection ; that he made it better than it came off the Lip , and that he had an incomparable Voyce too : but so ungainly a way of Pronunciation and Gesture into the bargain , that the Emperor Antoninus ( whose very nature it was to countenance Men of the Long Robe ) bad him hold his Tongue once , and would not grant him the Point he Pleaded for , which several others had gained upon his Majesty before . Quintilian , on the other hand , reports it ; that Trachallus was none of the best Orators of his Time , and yet out did all the Men of that Profession in his Pleading : He made so plausible an appearance , what with the stateliness of his Person and Port , the sparkling of his Eyes , the Majesty of his Looks , and the Beauty of his Mien ; besides a Voyce , that did not only come-up to a Tragaedian's for Gravity and Compos'dness , but went far beyond any Actor's too that ever yet spake upon the Stage . So for the purpose , I have heard an Harangue made some time since to a Nobleman of France ; that , to my thinking , was an excellent Discourse , as well for the depth of Argument as for the fineness and strength of Eloquence ; and it had certainly got that Credit too upon any unprejudiced person's reading of it : But for all this , it was so indifferently deliver'd by a Gentleman that had a natural Impediment in his Speech , and one too that had no more Gesture than a Post ; or if he had any , 't was so untoward and ungenteel , that not a Man of the Company but disrelished the Eentertainment , and thought his Time lost in giving it the Hearing . I have known likewise , on the contrary , many an indifferent Orator , both in the Pulpit and at the Barr , that have set themselves off with extraordinary Acclamation , and have been cry'd up for Good Preachers and Great Lawyers , upon the bare credit of their fine way of Speaking and Motion . In short , these External Graces of Speech work such Idea's and Biasses upon the Auditors , according to the performance of them , better or worse ; that they are become now the very measures of their valuing or undervaluing the Speaker .

To say this by the By then . They that are furnished with the other Faculties of Oratory to a Felicity , and write up to the Perfection of 'em , may do well enough in Printing their Speeches ; which of themselves will not fail of giving the Reader an entire satisfaction , though at the same time they want all the pleasing advantages of the Tongue and the Body : But they again , that entertain their Hearers with little or nothing of Excellent and Considerable in an Harangue , more than the Grace of Action , should hardly publish their's to the World ; lest what was heard with Honour to the Speaker , be read yet with dishonour to him in Print . Men of Discretion and Foresight will take example at Pericles , or Hortensius , in this matter . Pericles , for all the Poets said that the Goddess of Persuasion sat upon his Lipps ; that he thunder'd and lighten'd in an Assembly , and made all Greece tremble again when he Spake ; never made any of his Orations Publick : For why , says one , their Excellency lay in the Action , which was the most moving part of his Rhetorick ; and there 's nothing at all of His extant but some Decrees and Publick Acts , as Plutarch reports . For , as to those Speeches which we read in Thucidides for His , they were made by the Historian himself , and the Orator had no hand in them . Hortensius , on the other hand , seeing himself mightily admir'd for his Pleading , ascrib'd all the honour of it to the potency of his Arguments , the Elegancy of his Reason , the Delicacy of his Stile , and other such like Graces ; which after all , and in Truth , was only owing to his Pathetical Action : And so he put forth his Orations upon that mistake , but was not half so fortunate with his Pen as he had been with his Tongue ; and Hortensius was now reputed a better Lawyer than an Author . For , as Quintilian says , his written Speeches were much inferior to his mighty Character at the Barr ; and it was as clear as the Sun , that he had spoken a great many entertaining things off in Court with Grace and good Action , which were never to be met with again upon the Reading of them . This puts me in mind , for the purpose , o● having heard a publick Harangue once from a person , that over and above the advantages of good Natural Parts , had many acquir'd Graces to shew his Wit upon 't ; and , in short , by his neat Flourish and Delivery , he was wonderfully commended for 't : But some time after this success , my Gentleman was over-perswaded to publish the very same Speech ; and then it had quite another Fate in the World . For when his Hearers came now to Read it , and had neither the Harmony of his delicate Voyce in their Ears , nor the Beauties of his fine Mien and handsome Gesture before their Eyes , but were left barely to judge of the Speech by the merits of the Speech it self ; they found not a Turn in 't worth the admiring , and could hardly believe at last that it was the same thing they had heard .

This is that Faculty of Oratory , which Tully calls the Eloquence of the Body : and it is a matter of so great Moment for the prevalent Influences and effects it has upon the Mind , that 't were to be wished the Antients had treated of Action with as much exactness of method , and in as ample a manner as they have established the other three parts of Rhetorick . But neither has Aristotle been pleased to lay down any Praecepts of it , upon an opinion that it was a Gift of Nature , and could not well be reduced into Art or Rule : nor has Cicero himself , in his Books of the Orator , undertaken the work , so as to praescribe any peculiar Laws for it ; but only presses it over and over to us for an Important Qualification and a necessary Accomplishment . Cornificius indeed has handled it somewhat more at large ; but , to be frank with him , what he advances upon it comes far short of it 's Perfection , and little or nothing of his Action is now in Use . There 's none , in short , has yet spoken of it like Quintilian , for Nicety of Method and Pregnancy of Wit ; but then His instructions also are only for the Barr , and Rules of Action are still wanting as well for the Pulpit . Besides that , among a thousand fine things he says upon this Subject , which ought to be in Fashion and Practice now a days as well as they were then , he teaches up several Fondnesses and Foppish Actions ; as of beating his Brow , his Head , his Breast , his Thigh ; of Stamping and such like : Which in his time , were decent enough perhaps ; but they are very unbecoming , disagreeable and antick motions in ours , and quite out of Countenance and Vogue now with the Age we live in .

Wherefore many ingenious Men have wish'd a long time that some Body would write such a Treatise as this ; seeing that most of our Publick Orators , both in the Pulpit and at the Barr , do often blunder very grosly against the Art of Good Speaking , for want of it : And no person appearing all the while that would take it in hand , several of my Friends and Acquaintance complemented me with the Honour and the necessity of the Subject , and gave me a thousand importunities to set about the work ; which I all along declined yet , for reasons best known to my self and my own Incapacity . But two worthy Gentlemen at last , whose Judgments and Sense I submitted to far more more than my own inclination over-came me with the most pressing Instances of Favour and Friendship , and engaged me to write this little Tract of Action : For I could not but make this Return to their Obligations in discharge of my Duty ; how much soever it might be to the disadvantage of my Faculty and Understanding ; and such as it is , I have here addressed it to them for their character on 't to the Eloquent World , if they think it may be of any service to 't for want of a Better .

CHAP. II . That Action becomes both a Divine and a Lawyer .

I know there are several People will condemn the design of this Essay at first sight , and tell you that this care of Speaking and Gesture is neither the business of Religion nor Law ; and that it neither becomes a Person preaching Divinity in the Pulpit , nor a Man pleading for Justice at the Barr. Some will do this out of a phantastical Humour , like Cotta ; who , as Tully says , not only affected old Obsolete Words , but a Clownish way of speaking too , out of a vanity to be thought an admirer of Antiquity . Others will do 't , upon a Principle of Laziness ; for they 'll not take so much pains for a laudable habit of speaking , not they : It will cost 'em more labour than the thing is worth to make themselves Masters of Action , and they had rather displease all the World than be at the trouble of acquiring it . Such as they in the Primitive Times , condemn'd the use of Eloquence in Preaching ; till St. Chrysostom confuted them , and vindicated it against Aspersion and Calumny , in his Books of the Priest-hood . There are some precise people again , will decry it out of a Phanatical Superstition and Melancholy ; because it is neither for their Palate nor Purity , forsooth ; and they like nothing that pleases Sense , be it never so useful and profitable to the Soul : So that whatever strikes the Humour of the Age , must needs disgust Them .

Now , if I had only to do with those whimsical people , I should not be much concern'd for the Zeal or Spleen of their Opinions , nor trouble my self with their Affectation , Idleness or ill Temper : But finding others yet , and those also Persons of good Sense , though perhaps a little too Rigid and Severe , that make it a Case of Conscience and think themselves in the right too ; it is but reasonable , I should enquire into the meaning of so nice a Point and endeavour to satisfie their Tenderness ; so that I will make it my business here to undeceive them as far as I can , both as to the Religion of the Scruple and the truth of the matter .

They say in the first place , with a regard to Preachers ; that Action is unworthy of their Ministry , and that it is a scandalous thing for those God hath honoured with so serious and sublime a Function , to be studying in the very Exercise of it , how to frame their Voyce and move their Body , when they should think of nothing but his Glory ; nothing but the Majesty of his Mysteries , the Holiness of his Praecepts , the Edifying of his Church and the Salvation of his Elect . For to pretend ( say they ) to make people believe the Truth , and to win Souls to Faith , Piety and all Christian Virtues , not only by the Eloquence of their Stile , but also by the Grace of Speaking and Power of Gesture , is to sink Religion into Sense , and to make that which is Spiritual depend upon Carnal Worship , Humane Invention and External Flourish . At this rate , they urge , Religion would be a cunning Trade indeed ; and a Handy-Craft fitter to be driven-on by the mercenary Actors of Comedy and Tragedy in Play-Houses , who have the best knack of pleasing the people with all the little Fopperies of Motion and Speech ; than to be profess'd by the Ministers of the Word of God . They add , in the next place , that the Apostles never studyed nor practis'd this Art of Action , and that it was not by this means they made so many Converts , brought over so many people to the Church and gain'd so many Souls to Jesus Christ .

This is the Objection I am to encounter here , and my Answer will be this : First , that it is not my Design to teach Old Men the Art of Speaking , who have exercis'd it for several years in publick Employments and Business ; for they have already taken up the Way they lik'd best , whether it be Good or Bad : If Good , they have no need of Rules for 't ; and if Bad , it would be too hard a matter for 'em at their age ever to acquire a Better . However , some of them perhaps , upon the reading of this Book , will easily find out their own faylings by 't , among the many vices of Speaking that are so disagreeable to the Hearer , as well as prejudicial to the Speaker , and may correct them with little or no difficulty . But I propose only to instruct Youth and assist those that are bred up to Divinity or the Law ; for young Gentlemen , who have not yet got an ill habit of Speaking , are most capable of learning a Good one . And I do ingenuously cite St. Augustin's Declaration here , which he makes in his Fourth Book of Christian Doctrine for the use of Oratory in the Pulpit , on the behalf of my Discourse upon the Rules of Action : I do not think so well of these things ( says he ) as to advise Men grown up to maturity , or Men in years ever to trouble their Heads about them . It is enough for young people to make this Study their Care : And it is not fit for all those neither , that we would have well train'd up in Sacred Learning for the Service of the Church ; but only for such of them as labour under no Infirmities of Old Age , to apply themselves to so necessary an Art.

But , Secondly , as to the Case of Conscience they alledge , and their Arguments upon 't : I confess it would be a reasonable Scruple , if Christian Preachres made this Grace of Action their whole Study , and minded nothing else in the Application : If they spent more time in studying these external things of Ornament than in making of Sermons upon matters of such eternal moment as the Glory of GOD and the Salvation of Men ; if they took more Pains to set themselves off , then to edifie others , with their fine Graces ; if they ascrib'd the Conviction of Truth and the Conversion of Souls to them only ; and if they had no other end in composing their Voyce and their Body , but their own praise and the people's pleasure . For , if this were all their Pretension and Practice , it is certain they would most notoriously offend God ; most unworthily prophane the Holiness of their Ministry ; most sacrilegiously attribute that Honour to themselves , which is only due to the Grace of God and the Power of his Holy Spirit ; and turn the Pulpit of Jesus Christ into a Theatre of their own Pomp and Vanity . But God forbid I should think of teaching up any such Foppery to those that aspire to this Sacred Function , and ought to know better things ! My design is only to shew them how to Speak with such a Grace ; that , instead of giving their Hearers an aversion by a bad Pronunciation and a Disagreeable Gesture , they may edifie them , not only with their discourse and Style , but in some measure also by the decency of their Speaking and the Fineness of their Action . And I shall give 'em Rules here for ordering both the one and the other so Handsomely , and with such a regard to Good Manners , that nothing may appear in it against Religion ; nothing that does not become the Dignity of Preaching , the Majesty of the Subject they are to handle , and the Holiness of the place where they speak ; nothing that does not breath of Piety , of Devotion and of Zeal ; nothing that is not fit to move in people all kinds of Godly Thoughts and Religious Inclinations , and to carry them on to Repentance , Charity and Good Works . And where 's the harm of all this now ? Why , say they , he that studies in his Sermon how to render his Pronunciation and Gesture agreeable to the Congregation , must needs take more pains to please than to profit , and amuse himself how to tickle their Ears instead of thinking seriously how to instruct their Minds and edifie their Consciences . 't is true indeed , this is to please their Senses : But then that pleasure , as it tends to the Glory of God and the Conversion of their Souls ; as it delights their attention to the good things they are told and helps their memories to retain what they hear ; it is without doubt very innocent , and very Holy and Reverent as well as profitable and pleasing . So that if Action be suspended from Publick Devotion for pleasing the Senses , they may as well forbid the use of Musick in the Church , because it strikes the Passions of the Soul and sets them at work upon Heaven : And yet the Old Testament makes a laudable practice of it , for singing the sweet songs of Israel , and the admirable soft airs of Sion ; which their very enemies , the Aegyptians , would have been glad to have heard from the mouths of the Israelites under the affliction of their Captivity : For they that led them away Captive , required of them then a Song and Melody in their heaviness . Sing us one of the Songs of Sion . But then , the New Testament also sanctifies the use of Harmony and Musick in the Church , and makes it a most Sacred and necessary Duty , to celebrate the Honour and keep up the Praises of GOD in the Assemblies of the Faithfull .

They Object further yet . The Apostles ( say they ) never observ'd any of these niceties . But who told them , I pray , how those Holy Men spake , or what kind of Gesture they made use of in Preaching ? It is certain that Jesus Christ called St. James and St. John BOANERGES ; That is to say , the Sons of Thunder : And it is as easie to infer from the Title ; that , when they came to preach the Gospel ; to exhort People to Piety ; to declame against Error , Heresie and Superstition ; against Idolatry , and against Vice ; they were not to do 't with a Faint and a Low Voyce , but with all the Vehemence , Terror and Warmth answerable to the Quality of the Commission and the Greatness of the Controversy . And when St. Paul wept his Exhortations with so many Tears , as we find in the Book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles , it is not to be imagin'd that he spake them Coldly , with a faint Gesture , or a languishing Voyce . I grant indeed that the Holy Apostles never made this Art of Action their study ; but then , they as little studied either Grammar , or Logick , or any other of the Parts of Rhetorick : And must we therefore prohibit the use of those Arts that are necessary Keyes to all other Learning , because they did not pore upon them ? They kept to no certain method in their Sermons , neither were they ty'd up to the Rules the Doctors had laid down ; and must we therefore fallout with the way of Preaching that is practic'd at this day both with good order and decency ? They were never brought-up in the Academies , nor under the Discipline of the Schools and of Tutors ; and must we condemn the Education of Universities , and the Learning of Doctors , at present , because they had no occasion for 't ? They neither wrote nor study'd their Sermons , but spake as the Holy Ghost inspir'd them , without Book ; and must we find fault with Divines now-a days for premeditating , for writing or for Reading THEIRS ? They minded none of these things and made use of no such helps , because they had no need of 'em at all . They had no need of Arts , nor Method , nor Academies , nor Doctors , nor Study ; for the Holy Spirit they receiv'd in their Baptism , and the immediate Inspiration of Heaven did abundantly bless them ex tempore , as often as they preached , with all kinds of Virtues far above the Pitch of Humane Invention ; far above the Powers of Art , the graces of method , the Faculties of the Academy , the subtilties of the Doctor and the reach of Study . And then they had the guift of Miracles too , which they no sooner wrought at any time , but the truth of their preaching was demonstrated , and people lay under the strongest convictions of Sense and Reason : It was but working a Miracle , and their Mission was as plain as the Sun. But it is not so with us now , that can neither pretend to those infus'd Virtues , nor to those miraculous blessings that were given them from above : So that , in short , my adversaries can draw no argument from the Supernatural Qualifications of these Extraordinary Preachers against the humane helps of Education and Study ; the acquired Arts and Ornaments of persuasion , and the natural means of preaching which Men use now a days in an ordinary capacity .

However , they that have a Phanatical Qualm against the Art of Action and make a scruple on 't , urge yet , that we ought to leave this knack to Stage-Players ; who propose no other end to themselves of acting Comedy and Tragedy but to please people and indulge a fond inclination . But I think , on the contrary , that it ought not to be left so , nor to be given up to Play-Houses ; where the Actors make a very ill use on 't , in prostituting it to their own ends of interest and appetite . For if those Ministers of sensual delights and publick vanities , do lewdly abuse the Graces of Good Speaking and Gesture upon the Stage , to excite the wit of youth to Wantonness , Prophaneness and Immorality ; to stir up their blood for Intemperance and Debauche , and to set their Passions a Fire upon false pleasures and imaginary satisfactions : the Ministers of Jesus Christ know their Duty better , and ought to make a holier use of Action . They are to sanctifie it to the service of the Church , the Edification or the Faithful , and the Salvation of Men's Souls . All the Action they use is only to touch people's hearts with a more feeling sense of sound Doctrines and everlasting Truths , and to raise their affections above the pitch of Transitory Enjoyment . And they need no more make it a scruple to set-forth their Sermons with all the Graces of Speech , for so good an end , than boggle at the ornamenting of the Tabernacle , and the beautifying of the House of GOD with the Gold of Aegypt . Indeed , if any Man prophane the graces and blessings of GOD , we must immediately condemn the abuse ; but then the right use of them ought not to suffer for it . This is the Case , and 't is no contemptible one neither . For I would fain know of these scrupulous Gentlemen , if a Man had a good delivery and an admirable Gesture , either by the guift of Nature or Miracle , whether they would not look upon 't as a particular favour of God and the blessing of his bounty : And would not they be the more willing to hear him then ? Certainly they would . Why then do they blame a Man that neither has these Graces Naturally nor Supernaturally , which he may acquire yet by Art , Industry and Exercise ; for attempting to make himself Master of Action to the utmost of his Power and Capacity ? And what sin is it , I pray , to learn to speak well ?

So much for the Point against Preachers , and the business of Divines . As to the Lawyers in the next place , this is the reason of their Scruple : That God hath not appointed Men to the Publick Ministry of Justice for this purpose ; that they are not called to the Barr to charm the Judges with sounds , and dazzle them with appearances . They are not to endeavour to deceive them with fine words , nor to corrupt their Judgments with fair Speeches ; but to tell them the naked truth of things , to shew 'em the bare matter of Fact they are to Try , in the plainest Character and Stile , and to plead the Justice of a Cause opened in Court from solid Reasons and clear Lights , from the Laws Established , and from Reports , Precedents , or Opinions given before in such like Cases ? And what need now has the honest Advocate , say they , for the Harmony of Voyce and the Grace of Gesture to do this . So far the Objection is Good : And in truth , as Aristotle observes , if Justice were distributed as it ought to be , Causes might be determined by their own Merit alone , without the help of these Faculties ; and all external Actions and Arts would be unnecessary . If Lawyers also were always to plead before such Judges as sat in the Hall at Athens : That is to say , before Judges of perfect Probity and down-right Dealing ; Judges , that over and above their Integrity , were Learned in th● Law and well qualified for the Bench in every respect ; that heard Causes impartially , with all imaginable Attention and Regard to the Council on both sides ; and that minded nothing but the Justice of the Issue , and directed it always in favour of Right without Passion or Prejudice to either Party : If so , I say , they needed not trouble their heads much about the Graces of Pronunciation and Gesture , nor seek for Exordiums ; Perorations , Passions or any other Ornaments of Rhetorick . It it would be sufficient then for the Pleader , on the Defendents side , only to set forth the plain truth of things for them to give Judgment upon 't ; to make out his Client's Right and Title by Reason and Law , Practice and Precedent ; and to give a solid Answer to all the Arguments that can be brought against it by the Plaintiffs Council . But , as it often happens that Lawyers have to do before Judges , who are not accomplished with all those good qualities ; and , it may be , never the worse Men neither for want of Understanding and Capacity , nor the less honest for falling short of the Attention of the Areopagus ; and as these Judges again are sometimes so falsely prepossessed by the plausible motions and cunning insinuations of the Council for the Plaintiff , that they lay under the biass of inclination to determine the Cause against Truth and Justice ; it is absolutely necessary towards the better informing of their Judgments and th● undeceiving of them upon the Tryal , to use some means or other to quicken them up for a fair hearing on behalf of the Defendent . Now there is nothing like a fine way of Speaking and Gesture to make them take notice of a Plea , to recollect themselves , and attend impartially to the Merits of the Cause : For , when a Case is truly stated to their very Eyes , as it were , with the Grace , Passion and Force of Action , as it ought to be adjudged ; they must needs be moved with it in spite of all Prejudice and Prepossession , and asham'd to cast a Man in the face of the Court , that they see has manifest Evidence , Reason and Right on his side . The best Cause in the world may soon be lost for want of Action . This was the very Case of Rutilius , which Cicero reports in his first Dialogue of the Orator . The Council for the Prisoner were Ru ilius himself , Cotta his Nephew , and Mucius : but they pleaded it so simply , says Tully , without any Ornament or Spirit at all ; as if it had been upon a Tryal in Plato's imaginary Commonwealth . Not a Sigh nor an Exclamation among them ; no Moan made , no Complaint , no Lamentation ; no imploring of Authority , nor Address to the People : and not one of them so much as ever stamping his Foot upon the ground all the while , or shewing any great concern for the matter : So that , in short , it was so indifferently managed that Rutilius was cast upon 't : Whereas , if Crassus had but pleaded his Cause with the ordinary Air and Gallantry of his Action , he had certainly carri'd his Point , and acquitted him with Honour . And though 't is granted Rutilius shew'd a great constancy of mind and a wonderfull Confidence in his own Innocency by this way of proceeding , nevertheless he could not be much commended for 't , nor promise himself any great praise for his Pleading in such a cold irresolute manner . His behaviour was fatal . He play'd the Stoick too much upon this occasion , and would neither use the means he might lawfully do for his Liberty , nor make his Defence with that Heat and Vigour which his Cause deserved : So that he was Condemn'd and Banish'd ; and at once depriv'd the Commo●wealth of his Presence , of his good Example , of his Wife Councils and of his Great Services . But , after all , perhaps he did this on purpose ; chusing a retirement rather into a Country where he was beloved and esteemed , than to live any longer at Rome , either at the discretion or under the discountenance of Sylla , and engage himself in the Broyles and Disturbances of Government .

Besides this , Fine Action and Good Speaking do not only conduce very much to make the Judges more attentive and cautious , but to convince them also that the Orator is in Good Earnest , Syncere and Ingenuous : For , as Cornificius says , they are the greatest signs of his Veracity , and that he speaks from the Bottom of his Heart ; while they that want either one or t'other , seem not to believe themselves what they would have the Judges believe ; because they shew no manner of concern nor impatience for 't . This made Cicero say to an Orator of his Time that had manag'd his Client's Cause but very coldly . If what you said there was not false , would you have pleaded on that fashion ? Where was your Grief and your Grievance , your Fury and your Fire ? You shew'd us no Passion of the Mind , no Action of the Body . And you were so far from enflaming our Spirits or awakening our Judgements , that we had much a do to hold from sleeping in Court . When therefore a Lawyer makes it his business to speak to his Judges with an agreeable Air and Tone , it is not to coax or corrupt them ; it is not to court or cajole them with his fine Mien , nor to inveigle them with his fair Tongue : But , on the contrary , his plausible Pronunciation and Gesture is only to oblige them to do him Justice , and to discharge their own duty : 't is to keep up their Senses from falling a slumber , and their Minds from wand'ring ; 't is to induce them to take the whole matter into their serious consideration , with the utmost attention of their Ears to the Truth and Right of what is so fairly made out to their Eyes ; 't is to prepare them for judging according to Law and Equity . It is , in fine , if there were no other reason for 't , to speak things as Nature and Reason would have them spoken ; and every body knows that a natural way of speaking is best .

Besides , I must urge one Argument more for it , which seems to be very Considerable in it self , and as well worth my while to take notice of : And that is this , if honest Men should deny themselves these Arts of persuasion in a Good Case , others yet would make use of them in a Bad One : whereas there 's all the reason in the world they should be equally match'd , and dispute it out upon fair terms . The good at least ought to be as well arm'd as the bad . I may say as much of Action also for Divines , and apply that in particular to it which St. Austin says in general concerning all Eloquence , in his Fourth Book of Christian Doctrine . Seeing that it is the business of Rhetorick to persuade things true and false indifferently , who is it dares say that Truth ought not to be guarded against Falsehood , or that a person defending it ought not to be in arms against a Fiction or a Lye ? As if they that endeavour to persuade an untruth should know how to obtain the good will and attention of their hearers by a fine preamble , or a fair Exordium , and other people should know nothing at all of the Art on 't : As if some might set forth a Falsehood with queintness and colour to a probability ; and others should assert a Truth with so little ceremony , that the very dull recital of it , at length , would make it difficult to be understood , and hard to be believed , if not incredible : As if those , on the one hand , might encounter Truth with polish and specious pretensions , and establish their Falsity into the bargain with plausible arguments ; and these , on the other , might neither defend what is true nor confute what is false with the Graces of Language : As if those again , should have such an influence over the minds of their Hearers whom they go about to seduce with fair speeches , as to make them conceive things with Apprehension or Astonishment , with Sadness or with Joy , to raise the Passions and to turn them to what point of Doctrine they please ; and these , that engage for Truth , should make use neither of Artifice nor Ornament , but stand like Stocks , dull , unconcern'd and impotent , without all manner of Action and Vigor . Who can be such a Blockhead as to entertain so extravagant a thought ? Since Eloquence therefore has a mighty power to persuade things False as well as True , and is left to the discretion of those that have a mind to make use on 't ; why should not Good Men study it to maintain the Cause of Truth , when Ill Men put it in practice to defend . Injustice , to support Error , and to compass their own Wicked Ends ?

In fine , there are others yet that despise this Art , and reckon upon 't for superfluous : For , say they , Nature has taught a Man to do well enough both as to his Pronunciation and Gesture ; both how to express and how to behave himself . But they might e'en as good say , that since God has given the Earth power to produce Bread for the food of Man , and Wine to make his Heart Glad ; therefore it will do 't well enough of it self , and the art of Tilling is Useless : That Man being of a reasonable nature , therefore it signifies nothing to teach him the Art of Logick and Right Reasoning : That his Creator having made him a sociable Creature and endu'd him with all necessary qualities for Conversation and Business , therefore he need not trouble his Brain about Morality , or Oeconomicks , or Politicks : That God having blessed him with the use of Speech and the Faculty of Reason , therefore 't is needless for him to study how to express himself with Purity and Politeness , or the Art of Speaking in the most plausible manner of persuasion . And certainly they would be much in the right on 't , if the Earth were as Fertile in one place as it is in another , or if Ly-ground and Land that lays untill'd would bring forth as good fruit , and as much on 't too , as Arable , or that which is cultivated with Art and Industry : If nature were equally reasonable and regular in all Men ; if they had the same capacities , and were all alike free from imperfection and Non-sense ; if one Man could reason as well as another , without knowing any thing of the Rules of Argument ; if this Man's conduct and temper were as discreet as his neighbour's either in sacred , Civil or Secular Societies , and that Man's example were as good as this Man's Praecept : If they all spake alike , or had the faculty of talking with the same Purity and Power of Persuasion , without the help of any Art. But there 's a great deal of Invention wanting to bring things to this Perfection . For as to the Earth , it is not all alike fruitful over the face of the World . Some ground is barren and produces nothing at all ; and some next to nothing , brings forth only Wild Briers and Brambles , Thiftles and Thorns ; and the Best that is , stands in need of being till'd with labour and improv'd according to the rules of Good Husbandry . As to Men indeed , they all reason well upon things in some measure ; but not so well as they might do , one would think , being endued both with Reason and Understanding : So that it is necessary to assist Nature by Art , both to teach those people the true way of reasoning that know nothing on 't , and to emprove those to a felicity of argumentation that do know it and yet lay things but very oddly together . They all live well in Publick Societies generally speaking , as they are sociable Creatures ; but in private ones ; particular Neighbourhoods , Callings and Capacities , they many times behave themselves very untowardly , one against another . And therefore the Praecepts of Moral Philosophy are both very useful and necessary to reform them , and to teach them Better Manners . They all have the right use of speaking too ; but most Men do not speak so well as might be wished for , upon extraordinary occasions , to persuade people and to convince all that hear them , in matter of Truth and Justice : So that they stand in need of being furnish'd with the Rules of Grammar and Rhetorick to speak fine ▪ and agreeably , to express themselves to Perfection , and to come off at last with success and applause . Now , Action lays under as great disadvantages as Nature . Every one has his particular phancy , as his own Genius or other Men's Examples lead him to 't . But some have a way of speaking and moving far more proper to please the Eye , charm the Ear , and move the Passions , than others have . Hence came the Antients to take notice of those excellent Orators that were famous for this faculty : And finding that , by this means , they were much better heard , and convinced people far more powerfully than others did , they have carefully observed whatever was most Genteel , Delicate and Charming in their Voyce and their Air . They have likewise , upon considering the Reason and Force of their Action , lay'd down some Praecepts of it , and left them addressed both to the Students of their own Time , and to all Posterity : such Rules of Action and Rhetorick I propose here to give Gentlemen that have occasion to speak in Publick Places , to qualifie them either for Preaching or the Practice of the Law . I design to shew them how to finish what Nature has but just begun ; and to teach them how to do that by Rule and good Conduct , which otherwise they would do only by Chance or Hap-hazzard ; to do that with Decency , which otherwise they would be apt to do either too slovenly or too finically ; to do that with variety and distinction , which otherwise they would huddle-up in confusion of circumstance and order ; and , in a word , to do that à propòs , which they would often do impertinently and at a venture , if they were not accomplished with this Art. 't was by this study , and the practice of such rules as these , that Demosthenes and Cicero attain'd to so wonderful a faculty of persuasion , which got them the reputation and character of being the greatest Orators that ever were heard of among the Graecians or the Romans . For the first and second time Demosthenes pleaded at Athens in his natural way of speaking , without observing any rule of the Voyce , he was hissed for his bad Delivery , and the remarkable vices of his Pronunciation ; but after he had been trained up to it a while under Masters of the Art , he was heard with universal applause and Humm'd to admiration : And 't is as clear as day , that it was Action did his business ; for Aeschines having once recited to the Rhodians a Speech which this Great Orator had made against him , and seeing them admire it one and all . Well , said he ; And how would you have admired it then , if you had heard it from his own mouth . Cicero again , when he first put himself upon Pleading at Rome , was mightily commended and cryed up for a very fine Wit ; but his Delivery was Naught , and his way of speaking did not take at all ; because he kept neither to Rule nor Measure with his Voyce , and his sounds were very harsh and unpleasant . But when he had polished off this Roughness ; and by the help of his Tutors , had refined his Pronunciation to the utmost degree of Perfection , he was preferred on all hands , before the most Eminent Lawyers of his Standing . He over-ruled every thing afterwards in the Courts of Judicature , and for the most part gained what Point soever he pleased there , upon the Honour and the Excellency of his Pleading .

After all this now , can any Man have the face to say that these Praecepts of Action are either unprofitable or unnecessary ? and will not the whole world grant me that it is worth while to know and observe them ? For , can a Man take too much pains to be Eloquent ?

CHAP. III . Directions for Action , to young Men that have a mind to study how to speak well in Publick .

I Writ this little Tract of Action chiefly for young Gentlemen that devote themselves either to the Pulpit or to the Barr , and I come now to shew them how necessary an Art it is ; but I think my self oblig'd by the way to give them two Directions , that may be very serviceable to their study , and make them good proficients , with a little pains and exercise .

My first advice then is this ; that they begin to study it betimes , and betake themselves to the practice of it as often as they can conveniently , for fear of falling into the imperfections and vices of speaking that are here exploded . It is an easie matter for them at first to prevent an odd way of expression and an ill fashioned Gesture , before they have taken any biass or nature stands a-bend upon 't ; but when they have once got an ungenteel habit , and confirmed it by Custom , and Time too , it is very difficult at least , not to say impossible , either for them ever to unlearn it again , or for me to unteach it : So that they must make it the business of their youth up to years of descretion and employment . That 's the Time when Nature is fittest to be wrought upon by Art ; when it is most docible and apt to recieve the Impressions of Education . They are not to put it off to any other Age , when Nature will be hardened and grown more inflexible . 't is true when they come to Maturity and Manhood , they will best know their own Failings , and the Imperfections they labour under ; but then perhaps let 'em repent never so much on 't , the misfortune will be past Cure , or else it will be too late for Men to think of refining at Thirty or Forty . There 's no discipline can correct an over-grown Error , no recovery of Time that is Lost , and no Remedy against the Register . For the purpose : It will not be impertinent to tell you that I have found many Worthy Persons who came too late to the knowledge of the Rules of this Art , lay it extremely to heart that they had not the good fortune to fall upon 't sooner , in an Age , when they might have made some progress in it : And one I knew among the rest , that had extraordinary good natural Parts , and was excellently qualifi'd to speak in a Publick Character ; but he had never kept up to any Rule or Measure , either in his Speaking or Gesture : So that although he found out his own Faults and Infirmities at last by the help of a Friend that taught him this Art , he durst not yet venture upon mending the matter at that Age of Habit , for fear of losing his labour ; and so he despair'd ever to do any good on 't . But certainly he had all the reason in the world for his resolution ; for he would never have had any success in it , through the natural violence , liberty and confidence of his temper ; and the rules he should have been ty'd-up to , would not only have cramped him intolerably , but also spoyled his chief Talent and Excellency , which was the Boldness and the Freedom of his speaking .

My next Caution is for young People , that are naturally bent upon Imitation , and especially the Imitation of those Persons that brought them up , as their Fathers and Tutors , who are most in their thoughts and best in their Opinions ; to take care lest they imitate them in things contrary to Art and Reason . For they ought to examine the practice of their Parents and Masters , as well as other Men , by the Rules of this Art of Speaking and Gesture ; as they are bound to enquire into their Morals and to distinguish their honest actions from dishonest ones by the Word of God and the Principles of Morality ; with a design to fly the Bad and follow the Good . Young Gentlemen , I say , ought to take great care in this matter , because Children often imitate their Fathers in the one as well as the other , without distinguishing upon the quality of their Manners . Witness Young Alcibiades that follow'd his Father's steps to a Fault . He imitated him in speaking fast and thick , one word crippling another . He toss'd up his Head , and turn'd his Neck a-skew like him too ; and walk'd the streets a-trip , as softly as he did , with the sweeping train of a Gown at his Heels , out of Pride , Foppery and Affectation : as Archippus , a Poet in those days , hit him once in the Teeth on 't . Scholars indeed have commonly so great an Esteem and Veneration for their Masters , that they are too apt to admire and to practice their Vices as well as their Virtues . So we read that Plato's Scholars imitated his Clownish way of shrugging up his Shoulders ; and Aristotle's affected his Stammering . Thus likewise Alexander the Great imitated Leonidas his Governour's Example , in making too swift marches , and in fatiguing his Army to death almost upon Exploit and Victory ; and he could never break himself on 't . And if there 's any Tutor in a University happens to have an Impediment in his Speech ; wheezes , as if he had got a Burr in his Throat , snuffles through the Nose , or pronounces several words and letters very unhandsomely ; not to say worse ; you shall find his Pupills for the most part take at him , and contract the same vices by imitation : And why ? because he is the pattern of all their Actions , Good or Bad , without distinction . The same objection lays against the imitation of other Great Men too ; who are not without their faillings , let 'em be never so well qualified and accomplished . Every Man of us has his weak side . As for instance . M. Brisson the President , says Monsicur du Vair , was a Man of excellent Learning and Parts , and had the best Faculties in the World for Eloquence ; but his Action was naught : He stood always in the same Posture ; was starch'd and stiff-neck'd ; lift up his Eyes , and fix'd 'em upon Heaven as if he had been going to Prayers ; which some People say he did for fear of being diverted from his Business , and disturbed in his Memory by the variety of Objects .

And therefore Young Men would do well to apply themselves as much as possible to the Perfections of such Great Persons as these ; but for the Faults they find intermixt with their Good Qualities , they must have a care of running away with them too ; lest they set up for their Action , as the noisie followers of Seneca did for his Elocution . He was a very brave Man , and a very Great Wit , no doubt on 't ; so that the young people in his days had good reason to study to be like him , and to follow so fine an Example . But as Quintilian says , he had a great many good faults ; and it was his agreeable vices they chiefly endeavoured to imitate , because they found the least difficulty in it , and what ever was the most easiy was the most of their business . Besides , says he , when they took upon them to speak as he did , instead of doing him an Honour or a piece of Justice , they did but do him a Diskindness , and defamed him with their Affectation and Foppery . There are many others yet , now-a-days , not only among Young Students , but also among Men who are come to years of Discretion and Government , and Men of Sense too , that commit the same Error . They think the Vices of their Language sufficiently warranted by the Authority of so Great a Man as Seneca , and their Style current enough by his way of Writing . But we must be govern'd in this matter , as in every thing else , by Reason ; and not be led away by Example .

CHAP. IV . Of Speaking ; and , first of all , what the Orator must do to be Heard without Difficulty and Trouble .

THe first thing to be considered in this Treatise is Pronunciation , or Speaking , as it regards the satisfaction of the Ear ; which is called the Organ of Learning , or the Sense of Discipline : That is to say ; it is the Hearing which conveys the first principles of all Sciences and the praecepts of all Arts to the Understanding .

Give me leave to say then , that the Orators chief business ought to be to Speak , in his Place , so as to be heard and understood with ease . For if he were not heard at all , he 'd speak to no purpose ; and if he were not well heard , without difficulty , he 'd lay under these two disadvantages . The one is , that People would be unwilling to give themselves the trouble of hearing him ; for whatever is difficult to the Ear , must needs be heard with Chagrin and Impatience , because it requires so much attention : And then again , the Auditor that could have the patience for a while , would without doubt be harangued quite out of humour , and discouraged from hearing him out , if this forced attention were to hold for any long time . The other disadvantage would be this ; that when the Ear were at so much Pains to make out his words , the mind would be so much the less attentive to the matter of his Discourse , which is always the best worth our while and our hearing .

But to avoid both those inconveniencies , he had need have a clear and a strong Voyce : If not to the same degree of Perfection that Trachallus had ● who Quintilian tell us , upon Fou● Courts sitting all at once in the Julia● Hall for the hearing of Causes and the dispatch of Justice , was heard and understood and commended not only by the first where he pleaded , but by all Four ; such a Voyce at least he should have , as would fill the place where he speaks . For , St. Austin very well observes , that the Voyce ought to be so loud as to reach the farthest Ear of the Auditory . Some Men have such a Voyce naturally ; others have it only partly by Nature and partly by Art , as they perfect the one by the exercice of the other ; and some again have it not at all , nor know which way in the world to attain to 't . Now he that Nature hath endued with this faculty to a degree of Eminent , has a great gift without question for Speaking , and is in a fair way to make an Eloquent Man ; if he do but discharge his own Duty and emprove so good a Talent to the best advantage . But on the other hand , if Nature has given a Man no such blessing , and his Voyce be good for nothing , through some Indisposition of his Organs , either of the Tongue , the Throat , the Breast or the Lungs ; or if he have any notorious Lisping and invincible Hesitation or Stammering in his Speech , I cannot advise him better than Apollonius , the Rhetorician , did those Gentlemen that would have learned this Art of him . For as soon as he saw they wanted the natural Endowments that were absolutely necessary to qualifie them for the work , he pronounced upon their incapacity , and declared for their studying something else ; rather than beat their Brains about an exercice which was not in the Art of Man to teach them with Credit or Success , and run the risque of forcing Nature to the prejudice of their Health ; which next to their very Being was the most valuable thing under the Sun , and the greatest good they had to Preserve .

However yet , if he have all the other Parts and Powers of Oratory , and wants only this one Qualification , I would have him make use of his Talent and do as Isocrates did under the same Imperfection of Speaking , who excelled in every thing else but his Voyce . I knew , says he , in his PANATHENAICON , that my Nature was too Weak and too Soft for Action , and my Voyce too Feeble and Puny to Speak as I should do upon Publick Affairs . I found my self unqualified , in this respect , for Harangue ; and ye● , me-thought , I was capable of conceiving the Truth of Things as well as others th●t bragged more of their Faculties and Knowledge ; though not of speaking them so well off the Lip in a Great Assembly . For I want the two main things that do the work of an Orator among us , Voyce and Confidence , as much as my Neighbours ; and they that are not furnished-out with these Excellencies , are of no Esteem in the World . However I had so much Courage left yet , that I could not bring my self to resolve upon leading a life of Obscurity and Dishonour : So that being unfit for managing the business of Law , and no ways qualified for Publick Employment , I be-took my self to the Private Study of Wisdom , and to write my sense of things , not upon such little Subjects as Deeds , Bargains , Covenants or Contracts betwixt Man and Man ; but upon the State of Greece , upon the Publick Affairs of Government and of Kings .

In this Case , let him take my Council , and follow the Example of that Great Orator ; and though he cannot set-off his Harangues with the Graces of Good Speaking and Gesture , I would advise him to make a mends for that failing by Figures that adorn the Speech and soften the sound of words ; by fine Turns of Expression ; by the Elegant number of Oratory and the delicate Cadences of his Periods : So that his Discourses , like Isocrates's , may be agreeable enough of themselves , without Action ; or without being Read with much Art and Study . But the Man that lays under no greater Impediment then of having only a weak Voyce , need not despaire , nor be discouraged from attempting to Speak upon Publick Occasions , but ought to do what he can rather to strengthen it up and accomplish it for that purpose . Demosthenes did so , and gained his point too . However , Plutarch says in his Life , that he had naturally a weak Voyce , an Impediment in his Speech , a Short-Breath ; and yet he ventured in spite of Fate and all his failings , to speak publickly twice : But he was hissed both times . He adds also , that the Orator being discountenanced by the bad success , made his Complaint to Satyrus , to this Effect : That he took more pains than any Orator of 'em all , and could never yet please people . Why , says Satyrus , take no thought , Man : I 'll mend that matter presently , I warrant you . Upon this he made him repeat some Verses out of Euripides , or Sophocles ; which he did , you must think , with a very ill Grace . But when he had made such stuff on 't , Satyrus said the same Verses after him : and he gave them such an Air in the Repetition ; Spake them with an Accent and a Gesture so suitable to the Subject , that Demosthenes himself thought them quite another thing , and discovered his own Failing and Infirmity . Eunomus and Andronicus , two Great Masters of Rhetorick , gave Demosthenes the same Advice too , and the same Encouragement ; and after that , he fell upon the Study of this Art of Speaking and Gesture with the utmost Application and Eagerness . Well then ! And what came on 't at last ? Why , first he built him a little Closet under-ground , and then he went down thither every day to practice his Voyce and manage his Body . He would often stay there two or three months together a-poring upon this Study : and he would shave his Head half-way on purpose , when he had a mind to go abroad either upon Business or Diversion , that he might not appear in the Condition and Dress he was in there . There did he exercise himself with no little Contention and Force , upon speaking what he had read and what he had got by Heart , with a Loud Voyce : So that his Organs open'd by degrees , and his Voyce clear'd-up very sensibly and grew stronger every day than other . But he had many other great difficulties to encounter yet besides this . His Tongue was so Gross , that he could not speak his words Plain and Distinct , nor pronounce some Letters at all ; as the ( R ) in particular : Which made people say in a Joke , that he knew not so much as how to pronounce the first Letter of the name of his Art. He was so short-winded , in the next place , that he could speak but a very few words together without taking his breath upon 't ; which was a Resty and a Broken-winded kind of Pronunciation . The great noise of Assemblies before which he was to speak , was another difficulty he h●● 〈◇〉 ●urmount . But for all this , he found out a way to overcome every one of these obstructions . First , he cured the grossness of his Tongue by putting Pebble-stones in his Mouth that he pick't-up out of the purling Stream ; which was a very troublesome experiment to him , and hindered his Speech mightily at first ; but afterwards , when he came to practice without Pebbles in his Mouth , he found the good effects of it in the Liberty of his Tongue and the Facility of Speaking . He brake himself of breathing-short , in the next place , by running up-hill and repeating over certain Verses or some Sentences of his Harangues that he had by Heart , bolt upright as he went ; which strengthened his Lungs and made him long-winded . And last of all , he conquer'd the clamour of Assemblies , by going now and then to the Sea-shore , when it was most troubled , boysterous , and roaring at Full-Sea ; saying off some or other of his Orations there aloud , and striving to raise his Voyce above the murmuring noise of the Waves . So that , in fine , he made himself absolute Master of Speaking . And for Gesture , he took this method , after he was well instructed in the Praecepts and Exercice of it : He had a great Looking-glass made him , where he might see all his Shapes at once in full Proportion and Symmetry ; and know how to correct every Motion or Posture of his Body , which transgress'd the Rules of Art that his Masters had taught him , by the help of so Just a Reflexion . By this means , he became at last one of the Best Speakers of the Age he liv'd in , for Action as well as for all the other parts of Oratory . Well then Gentlemen ! Imitate Demosthenes , towards the accomplishing of this work . Do but give your selves so much trouble as the thing will require , and your Nature will easily bear up to 't , and I 'll warrant the rest , both for Success and Applause . 't will make you as good Orators as the best Favourite of them all at the Barr.

Have you a weak voyce then ? Make it your business to fortifie it as much as possible . Whatever you Read or get off-Book , speak it out a loud , and make it your own by Pronunciation . This Exercice , if it be moderate , is very good for your health ; but you must have a special care at first not to over-strain your Voyce . And therefore Plutarch very well recommends several Exercices of Body to other People , that may conduce to the Health as well as divert ; but he appoints no other for those Persons that speak upon publick occasions , than what their Profession obliges them to in course : That is , to be often discoursing and haranguing , or at least reading out a loud and raising up the Voyce as High as Nature will well bear . An Exercice , in his Opinion , far more wholesome and useful for this purpose than all others ; for says he , while other motions only set the Limbs at work and stirr the External Members of a Man , the Voyce exercises a Nobler Part of the Body and strengthens the Lungs that give it breath . It augments the natural Heat , thins the Blood , cleanses the Veins , opens all the Arteries , prevents every obstruction , and keeps the gross Humours from thickening into a mischief . But if this exercice prove too hard for you ; too violent for your Constitution , or too dangerous for your Breast and your Lungs ; you may then very well be allowed the conduct of managing it as St. Ambrose did ; who , St. Austin tells us , used to read low down to himself to preserve his voyce , because he knew well enough if it ▪ had been spent in his private readings , it would have failed him upon his Publick Performances . However , in the mean time , you would do well to be turning over a Leaf now and then , and Reading some Pages a-loft , to try your strength , and to keep up the vigour of your voyce .

Are you apt to faulter in your Speech● accustom your self in your private Lectures and Rehearsals , to pronounce your Words and Syllables so distinctly , one after another , that they may all have their full Sound and Proportion . And when once you have got a habit of speaking intelligibly plain , you may afterwards express your self more fluently , wihout maffling through a Sentence . But do you find it a difficult matter to avoid this fault of Stammering in some cases , as upon set forms of Speaking or Phrases that you commonly make use of ? Why then , if you cannot otherwise bring your business about , as 't is impossible for some Stuttering People to do 't ; it is but changing the Order of the words , inserting a smooth Particle or two , and putting a Synonomous word in here and there for that which made you faulter ; and you 'll gain your point with the greatest facility imaginable .

If you cannot pronounce the Letter ( R ) , after all the pains you have taken to master the weakness , and think it in vain to attempt it against a natural incapacity , you are not to give it over yet for an impossibility , but to use all means within the power of Nature and of Art , to correct the Error and conquer the Difficulty . For although the Athenians , that had so Nice and Delicate an Ear , could endure this Imperfection in Alcibiades , it was either out of the fond Affection and Favour they had for his person , or because he had some other Charms in his Pronunciation to make amends for 't , and they thought that it gave a certain Natural Grace and Attraction to whatsoever he said . But if Stammering be a vice for all that , which very much offends the Ear , renders the Expression often Ambiguous to the understanding , and is made the subject of Raillery and Ridicule , ( as the Poets of those days give us to understand it was laugh'd at in the Theatre of Athens : ) we ought to endeavour the correction of it for our own Interest , and need not despaire either of Power or Capacity to do it , by good Instruction and constant Practice . Thus Demosthenes industriously refined his Pronunciation of the ( R ) , and thus may you as well perfect yours too if you please . And if this do not come up to your Poynt of pronouncing that Letter roundly , with the utmost Liberty and volubility in the World ; provided yet that you do but pronounce it indifferently well , in some degree only of Perfection , it will be sufficient perhaps to establish you a Reputation of having the Grace on 't among some or other of your Hearers .

There are some persons again that are affected with another vice , which the Greek Rhetoricians call Plateasm : That is to say ; a Broad way of Speaking with the mouth wide open , and of bellowing out a great sound , but nothing so confused and inarticulate as the noise of it : Insomuch that a Man may hear them a great way off with ease , but understand no more of their Bawling than of the Bruit of Wild Beasts . Now this is not Nature's Fault , but a Vice of meer Affectation and Conceit . For these noisy People affect to speak open-mouth , and phancy that this thundering Clatt of theirs gives Power and Majesty to their Speech : But , on the contrary , 't is this deprives it of it 's greatest Virtue and Perfection , which is to be well Heard every word on 't , and well understood in all it 's Parts . Besides that it robs it of it 's very Being a Speech too ; for there 's not a Word in it , but only an Inarticulate Huddle of Sound and Voyce . And where 's the Elocution of unintelligible Gibberidge ? We must therefore take care to avoid this way of Speaking that renders a Discourse as contemptible to the hearing as it is Unprofitable to the Understanding . For five or six Words pronounced O' this fashion must needs make us lose the Sense of a whole Sentence , and many Sentences so ill Spoken and so ill Heard must needs endanger the Understanding of a whole Discourse : So that a Man can carry nothing away with him , either of neat or of perfect , from such a Clamorous Harangue and so Clownish a piece of Jargon .

There 's another vice of Speaking yet quite contrary to the former , which the Graecians have called Coelostomy . It consists in Mumbling , when a Man does not open his mouth wide enough for his Words . He makes a confounded noise rumbling about the Roof of his Mouth , as if he were speaking out of a Cave or a Churn , but hardly ever sends forth one distinct Sound all the while on this side his Teeth , or conveys you one Articulate Word farther than his Lips : And this hollow way of Speaking is no less troublesome and disagreeable than that above mention'd .

I am now to advance only two words more upon the Orators Care to be Heard and Understood without difficulty . First , there are two things requisite to qualifie a Man for this Work : That is , a very Distinct and Articulate Voyce , and a very Strong and Vigorous Pronunciation ; but the former is the more important and necessary of the Two . For a Man that has only an indifferent Voyce , if his Pronunciation be but Distinct , he shall be understood with far more ease than another that has a stronger and more Audible Faculty of Speaking , but does not articulate his words so well . For the purpose , I have the Honour to be acquainted with a Worthy Person of about Threescore years of Age or upwards , that speaks in a Publick Character ; and though he always had but a very mean Voyce , yet because he pronounces his Words so distinctly , without losing the Sound of a Syllable , he 's always Heard with Admiration , and understood with the greatest facility in Nature : And that to this day too , unless his Organs have failed him very much within these few years , and be grown too weak for an Auditory , through the Infirmities of Old Age . Secondly , the next thing required is an Aud●ble and a strong Voyce ; and we must not think to acquire it all on a sudden neither by main strength or intemperate violences upon Nature , but to come to 't by degrees . For so the Voyce which at first was Faint , Low , or Weak , will become Louder by little and little , and grow Stronger insensibly , by accustoming our selves to the moderate exercises of Art ; without doing any prejudice either to the Breast or the Lungs . By this means , in short , a Man may bring his Voyce at last to that Pitch of Perfection ; which he never thought himself able to Accomplish .

CHAP. V. The way to be Heard with Delight .

IT is not enough for the Orator to be Heard only without difficulty and pain , but he must endeavour to be Heard also , if possible , with Pleasure and Delight . And therefore you must make it your main business , in the first place , to render your Voyce as Sweet and Soft , and Agreeable to the Ear as you can : So that if you be naturally inclined to any thing either of a Harsh , Hoarse or Obstreperous Voyce , you must enquire into the cause on 't for a cure . And if you find it comes only from an Ill Habit you have got , or so ; you ought to take up a resolution of unpractising it as soon as possible , and of running up a Counter-Custom against it , of better Service and Satisfaction to the Publick . But if you discover that it proceeds from some Natural Indisposition of your Body and the Organs of your Voyce , you must then try to recover it , as well by sobriety and good Regimen according to the Advice of your Physicians , as by careful and constant exercice . As for T●mperance and Government , I leave it to the Doctors ; but the Antients have observed the morning for exercice , and advised it for the best time when all the Organs of the Body are least embarassed and obstructed . But that this Art of Softening and Timing of the Pronunciation may be acquired by care , Industry and Exercice , it is plain from the example of Cicero , to a Conviction : For Plutarch says in his Life , that he had at first a very Rude and Obstreperous Voyce , before he went into Greece , but by staying there a while , he brought it to so much Sweetness and Delicacy , that he charmed the Ear with the Softest Sounds and a most Agreeable Harmony . In fine , you must endeavour to give your Voyce such a Smoothness , that the Turns , the Tones and the Soft measures of it may please the Ear of your Auditor , though he understand nothing at all either of your Language or of the Subject of your Discourse : As Philostratus tells us of Phavorinus the Sophist and of Adrian the Phoenician , that those very Persons who knew nothing of the Greek Tongue , took great delight yet to hear them declame in Greek , their Periods were so Smooth and their Cadences so Delicate .

In the next place , you must also shun that reigning Vice among many People , of Coughing and Spitting often , while they are a Speaking , which mightily interrupts the Pronunciation , and is extreamly ungrateful and disagreeable both to the Eyes and the Ears of the Hearers . But that it is not impracticable to avoid this vice , on the one hand , and that it is for the most part an effect rather of an ill Custom than of necessity or Nature , on the other ; is as Plain as experience can make it , because most Men refrain from it : And I know a Divine that never Coughs nor Spits in the Pulpit , when he has got the greatest Cold in his Head ; 't is no matter whether he comes to have this Conduct by long Practice , or whether it be the Heat of his Action which stops the Defluxion of Rheum for that time . However , I mean yet that you are to do no more than you can to avoid Hawking and Spawling ; for some People are so troubled with Phlegm and Tisick at certain Times and Seasons of the year , that it is impossible for them to abstain wholly from one or t'other in their Preaching : but they ought to do as much as they can at least towards the correcting of so Unmannerly a Vice , if they have any value for a decent way of Speaking , or would make the Pronunciation agreeable to their Hearers . But as to the matter of Coughing , it was in Fashion in former days ; and there have been Preachers formerly so extravagant as to affect it for a thing that added Grace and Gravity to their Discourse . As for example . Oliver Maillard , in one of his Sermons he made at Bruges in the Year Fifteen Hundred , mark'd the Places and Paragraphs of his Discourse with a Hem , Hem , Hem , where he had a design to Cough upon 't ; as it may be seen at this Day in Print .

The only thing , after this , I can recommend to your care and your time , is to put your self upon varying your Voyce according to the diversity of the Subjects you are to set forth , of the Passions you would either express your self , or excite in others , and of the several parts of your Speech ; according to the variety of Words , Stronger or Weaker , Higher or Lower , as will best serve your Turn and answer their quality . For as a Scraping Fiddler that should harp always upon one String , would be Ridiculous ; and his Musick Intolerable : So there is nothing can grate the Ear of your Auditors so much , and give them so great a disgust as a Voyce still in the same Key , to the Tune of Hum-Drum , without either Division or Variety . This Vice is remarkable in most Speakers , and I cannot but take notice on 't . There 's hardly a good Voyce to be found among Men , that fills the Ear well , which has not something agreeable in 't , let them manage it never so much without measure : But it would be infinitely more pleasing , if they knew how to give it the just Turns and a Variation suitable to Subjects and Passions . Besides that , such Voyces , which are so fine and yet so ill governed , are very rare and uncommon : But for ordinary ones that are common enough in the World , this Vice renders them disagreeable to all Intents and Purposes .

To pass on further then . I say that this stiff uniformity of the Voyce is not only unpleasant to the Ear , but prejudices the Discourse it self extremely too , and disappoints the effect it should have upon the Hearers , for two reasons . The one is , that an equal way of Speaking , when the Pronunciation is all of a piece and every where upon the same Sound , renders all the Parts of the Speech equal too upon a very unjust level ; for it takes away all power from that which has the greatest strength of Argument in the reasoning part , and all Lustre from that which has the greatest splendor of ornament in the figurative part of a Discourse , throughout the whole Work : So that , in short , that which ought to strike the Passions most , moves them not at all in effect , because it is spoken all alike so , and slabbered over without any distinction or variety . The other , that there is nothing lulls us a Sleep sooner , nothing so dull and heavy as a long Discourse without ever turning the Tone or changing a Note for 't : and there are many Persons , although they should fix never so stedfastly upon such a Speaker and resolve to hear him with the utmost regard and attention , would not be able yet to hold up their Eyes 'till he had half-done , upon this deficiency of his Pronunciation . And yet , for all this , Monotony is not only a common vice , but almost universal too among publick Orators . I was subject to 't my self , at first , as well as other Men ; and I cannot imagine how any body could endure to give me the hearing upon 't ; for my Delivery then was so troublesome and disagreeable , that I could hardly reconcile it to my own Ears : Upon which , I bethought my self ever after of varying my Voyce several ways to make it less uniform , and ungrateful . In the first place , I began to consider how this vicious way of Speaking came to such a height among Men , and crept up so much into Fashion and Discipline ; some people running carelesly into it , without ever giving themselves leave to think , and others knowing very well it is vicious , but have much a do to reform it : and I could find no other cause of it at last , but bad Education . For they that teach Children to read , learn 'em an ill custom of pronouncing every word a like , in the same Cant and Tone ; the fault of most School-mistresses : And when these Children again advance into Grammar or Rhetorick , they fall perhaps into no better hands , of Masters that teach them their Rudiments in the same measure and method , without ever taking care to correct the ill habit of Speaking they have got ; but rather giving them a bad example themselves by pronouncing every word they read or say off-book , with the same Accent , and quite another tone than what we use in our daily Discourse and Common Conversation , then instructing Youth in the variation of the Voyce for publick business ; how they ought to proportion and adjust their Pronunciation upon every punctillo ( when they come to make Speeches ) to the Grandeur of their Audience and the multitude of their Auditors . Upon this , I resolved to be governed by better Masters , and to make Nature and Reason my Guides : and they must be your Masters too , take my word for 't , if you would do any good in this Art.

Nature it self tells us that we ought to pronounce our selves otherwise when we speak of Melancholy and Mournfull Things , then we should do a Merry-making upon Joy or Pleasantry ; otherwise , when we reprove people for committing some Great Crime or other , than when we are a comforting them that are in Affliction ; otherwise , when we upbraid a Man with his faults , then when we would ask Pardon for our own ; otherwise again , when we threaten ; otherwise , when we promise , or pray a thing and humbly beg the favour ; otherwise , when we are in a good humour , the Passions calm , and the Mind serene ; and otherwise , when we are upon the transports of Choler and ill Nature . This variation is so natutural to us , that if we should hear two persons haranguing both together in a Language we did not understand at all , the one in Anger , and t'other in fear , one of them speaking with joy , and t'other , with sorrow : We might easily distinguish the Passions of the one from the other , not only by their countenance and their gesture , but by the different Tone and Cadence of the Voyce . So that the pronunciation ought to be natural , and we must do as Nature dictates : For the nearer it comes up to Nature , the more perfect it is ; and the further off from it , the more vicious . The less affected , still the better ; for a natural variation is best . The only way then to get this knack of varying the Voyce , is to make your own reflections upon common Chat , and to take notice of any ordinary Discourse , either in Town or in Table-Talk . You are likewise to mind how you Speak your self , when you are in Company ; what a Woman says in a Passion for an injury done her , and how she pronounces upon the loss of her dear Husband or her Child . And when you have made these private Observations , you must endeavour to express your self after the same manner upon the like occasions in publick ; only you would do well to distinguish upon the place , how much more audible your Voyce ought to be for the Court or a Church , than for a private Chamber . Our best Actors change their Voyce thus , according to the different quality of persons and the diversity of Subjects ; and they speak as naturally upon the Stage , and in the same Tone too , as they would do in a familiar Club-room ; saving that they are obliged to accent their words louder there , and to proportion the force and vehemence of their Voyce to the vastness of a Theatre .

As for Reason , it teaches us , in the first place , that God Almighty hath-blessed Us with the faculty of Speech above all other Creatures , and given us words for the interpretation of our Thoughts and the Mirrour or reflection of our passions : So that we are under the greatest duty both to him and our selves , to set forth the naked truth of things , and to express the different operations and sentiments of our Souls , ingenuously , by the different Accents and Turns of our Voyce , for the raising of the like Passions and Opinions in those that hear us . But it shews us also , in the second place , that as God in the Creation of the World , in general , divided it into so many several shapes and forms and figures in the visible Order and Harmony we admire now ; without which , it would have been but a confus'd Chaos still and an indigested Lump ; and as in the production of our humane body , in particular , he made it up of so many different parts and particles , members of Life and Action ; without which , it would only have been a monstrous dull mass of Flesh : So ought we to make use of variety to enliven the matter of our publick Discourses ; not only by Invention , Disposition and Elocution ; but as well also by the Powers of pronunciation and speaking .

Now if we would polish and refine our Speech , and set-off our pronunciation with so much Grace and Agreeableness , that it should oblige the hearers , even under the greatest prejudices and disgusts , to recollect their attention to it with Relish and Delight ; we must vary the Voyce as often as it lays in our power . All the difficulty therefore that remains , is to know how to do 't ; and to do it well to the purpose too : Which I am now going to remark into the best Rules I can .

CHAP. VI . General Rules for the variation of the Voyce .

AS the Body has three dimensions , for it 's Length , Breadth and Thickness ; so the Voyce has three principal differences , of Highness or Lowness , of Vehemence or Softness , and of Swiftness or Slowness . The Orators business is to keep up a just measure in all these distinctions , and to observe that variety , throughout the whole Speech , which we have asserted for so necessary a Virtue .

But the chief thing will be to maintain a true medium of the Voice , because both the extremes of it are vicious and disagreeable . And therefore , first , with a regard to the height of it , we must have a care of raising it always to the highest Note it can reach , on the one hand , or of debating it always to the lowest it will go , on the other : For to strein it up always to such an extraordinary height , would not be to Preach or to Plead , but to make a noise , like those loud-tongued Orators in the time of Tully , whom he compares to Cripples that got a Horse-back because they could not walk a foot : They made a bawling because they knew not how to Speak . And as he did himself too , before he was better instructed in this Art by the skillfulest Masters ; forcing his Voyce often up to the harshest accents and the most obstreperous heights . For , over and above the indecency and ungenteelness of Clamour and Noise , it very much offends the Throat of the Speaker to a Hoarseness , and the Ears of the Hearer to an aversion . To sink the Voyce likewise , on the contrary , into the lowest base , and keep it always in the same tone , would be to mutter rather than to Speak ; and it would make a very silent meeting , where a Man could not be heard at all , or be heard but by a very few people , and the rest of the Auditors might go away as they came , not one word the wiser for him . Martianus Capella is mightily mistaken in this Point , or else he explains himself very ill , when he says that the Orator ought to set his Voyce to the best of his Ear , by reading to himself in private , before he pleads in publick , and to begin it rather with a low murmur than a loud noise in his Chamber , that he may be able to speak with the same Voyce and the same Tone in Court : For how could he be heard in a Great Assembly , I would fain know , with a low murmuring Voyce ? There 's no Consort or Musick without keeping a mean betwixt high and low , muttering and making a noise .

Secondly , For the vehemence of the Voyce in the next place , a Man must not force it upon every turn to the last Extremity . For he would not be able to hold it long-up to this violence , till it would fail him all o' the sudden ; like the Strings of a Musical Instrument , that break when they are wound up a Pin too high . In this case , he would either have the same fortune with Adrian the Phoenician , that Philostratus speaks of , who suffered himself to be transported into such a Tragical Fit of Speaking , that he lost his Voyce in a moment , and was forced either to hold his Tongue , or to mourn it out so Faint and so Low , that people could hardly hear him and much less understand what he said : Or else , he would run the risque of Zosimus the Freeman of Pliny Junior ; who having overstreined himself with the violence of his Rehearsals , vomited Blood upon 't : So that his Master was forc'd to forbid him that Exercice for some time , and made him take a short Tour into Aegypt for the Recovery of his Health . The Country-retirement and good Air set him quickly to rights : but , upon his return , he fell a Rehearsing again with the same vehemence , and relapsed into the same indisposition and danger , worse than ever .

A Man of a Weak Constitution , and in Years especially , ought to beware of this Intemperance , for fear of falling into King Attalus's misfortune . He made a Speech once at Thebes , in a publick Assembly ; and being transported upon it into an Action too Violent for his Crazyness and old Age , he was struck Speechless all on a sudden , without the least motion or appearance of Life in him , so that he was forced to be carried home to his Lodging : But a little while after , he was conducted from thence to his Palace at Pergamus , and there he Died . On the other hand , an Orator ought not to be too Remiss neither in his Action , nor too Mild-spoken : For such a soft resolution of the Voyce argues an Infirmity , and too much mildness destroys the Energy and Force of a Speech , because a dispassionate Discourse raises no body's Affections a pitch above common Story and ordinary Tattle .

Thirdly , As to the Swiftness and volubility of the Orator's Voyce , he ought to moderate it in such a manner as to avoid all precipitation ; the vice of Haterius , which made Augustus say once in Rallery , There must be a Spoke put in our Haterius's Speech , comparing his Discourse for its rapidity to a Flying-Coach upon the descent of some steep Hill or other : We put Spokes in it 's Wheels then , for fear of running down too fast , and of tumbling or overturning upon us . This was Serapion's weak-side also , of whom Lucilius wrote thus to Seneca , that he spake exceeding fast and thick , one word upon the neck of another ; insomuch that one single Tongue seem'd insufficient to express the vast multitude and hurry of his Thoughts , so much did the Fruitfulness of his phancy precipitate his Pronunciation . But this is a vicious way of Speaking in several respects . For such an extravagant volubility is either the fault of a School-boy , that , to shew you how perfect he has conn'd his Lesson , gabbles it off as fast as his Tongue can go , in a hurry ; or , the faculty of a Montebanck-Doctor that would draw a Crowd about his Stage by rapid Clack and Non-sense : Not the business of a Man of Honour or Eloquence that addresses himself upon a Grave , Solemn and Noble Subject . It is as ungenteel for a Gentleman to transport himself into such a Rant of Jabbering in his Discourse , as to run himself out of Breath about the Streets , which is only fit for Foot-men and Fools . A Man of Sense and Breeding speaks no faster than he Walks , and minds his words as well as his Steps , keeping an even pace both in the one and the other : As Seneca says , Tully did in his Ora●ions . But however , a Man that labours under this vice of Jabbering in his Speech , will perhaps be admired yet by some or other for his Fluency . For , as St. Jerom observes , after St. Gregory Nazianzen his Master , there 's nothing so easie as for an Ignorant Fellow to make himself popular , and to win the Esteem of the Mobb , by a Rally of Words and a jabbering volubility of the Tongue . But then all the vulgar Reputation he 'll get by 't , will not last him long ; and the character will not weare-out his Life : For his fluency of Speaking will neither do any honour to his Writings , nor to his Memory : So that when either he comes to Write or to Die , the credit on 't is quite lost for ever . For the purpose , Tacitus says of Haterius above mentioned ; that He was famous for Eloquence in his Life-time ; but the Works he left behind him , had not the same approbation and applause : And as he shew'd more of Fire then of Study , and more of Fluency than of Art ; so that Fire was extinguish'd with him , and never out liv'd his Speeches nor passed into his Writings . Whereas the Labours and Meditations of other Men keep up the same Spirit still after their Death and preserve their Memories for ever .

This vice is not only very unbecoming an Orator either a Preaching or a Pleading , but it is also very prejudicial to the main end he ought to propose to himself , of persuading others : For how should he convince his hearers , if he do not give them time to think , or leave to consider his Reasons and weigh his Arguments ? How should a Judge be able to keep up with a Lawyer that talks as if he were Riding Post ; or what better can he be for such a precipitated Plea ? How should people ever remember one Reason in Twenty that are hurled upon their Ears at this rate , like Flashes of Lightening upon their Eyes ; or how should they be convinced at last of the Truth and Justice of the Cause by Jabbering ?

This extraordinary volubility of the Tongue , without any pause , is a great disadvantage also to the Speaker himself as well as an injustice to the hearer , for it does not so much as give the Auditors leisure to observe the distinction of his Periods and the fine Cadences that illustrate the Speech with so much Grace and Ornament . Not to say , that there 's nothing , over and above , so hurtful to the Lungs , as to speak with violence and praecipitation , without any intermission or ever drawing breath for 't : Insomuch that it has cast many Persons into deep Consumptions , and cost some of them their Lives too . But when I precaution a Man against this extreme , I do not mean that he should throw himself upon the other ; and when I find fault with him for running too fast , I am not presently to be understood as if I would have him walk like a Sick Man just come out of a lingring Disease , that can hardly draw his Legs after him . All I would be at in the matter is this , that the Orator's Tongue should be agreeable to the Ears of his Auditors ; without either running faster than they can follow , or drawling out his words slower than they can have the patience to attend : Vinicius's great failing ; of whom Asellius said , that he spake always upon the delay , by the slowest snatches , pauses and intervals ; and Geminus Varus , that he wondered how he managed his Eloquence to any credit or account , for he could not speak three words together without intermission . There 's no manner of pleasure in hearing a Man drawl-out his words so , one after another , that one might very well bid him , Speak , or hold his Tongue . His Speech must be more fluent , before it be good for any thing ; but then it ought to flow like the gliding Stream , and not as a rapid Torrent .

I have likewise added that our Speech ought to have the grace of variety , because the medium of the Voyce I mention does not consist in an indivisible point , but admits of a certain Latitude and certain degrees . For as to the highness or lowness of the Voyce , there are five or six Tones between the highest and the lowest : So that the Orator , although he avoid both extremes which I condemn , and keep-up to a discreet measure , may find room enough yet to vary his Voyce betwixt the excess and the defect of it , by turning these five or six notes to a just Harmony . As for the violence or the softness of it , in the next place ; his business will be to govern it with such a moderation ; that although he neither force it to the utmost extremity of violence that either hurts nature or offends the Ear , on the one hand ; nor make it languish to the last degree of softness or effeminacy , and droop into contempt , on the other : he may yet give his pronunciation more or less vehemence and mildness , at discretion , as the different circumstances of his Subject or the qualities of his Speech shall require . And as to the swiftness or slowness of it at last , though the Orator avoid an extraordinary dulness in speaking , on this side , as well as an extravagant praecipitation on that , he may never the less speak faster or slower , upon occasion , according to the best of his judgment ; and be as quick , voluble and smart , more or less , as he pleases , if it do but answer the Subject and Passions of his Discourse .

However let him take this hint along with him into the bargain ; that whenever he has a mind to vary his Voyce , upon a turn of Discourse , he must not do it over hastily , and with too remarkable a distinction of this from that ; but with all the Softness , Courtliness and Moderation imaginable . I take notice of this vice by the By , because I have seen many a Great Man run foul upon 't ; for when they came to vary their Voyce , they did it so very grosly all on the sudden , like a Thunder-Clap , and with so palpable a change , that it at once surprized and displeased all their Auditors : Besides that they who heard them out of sight , thought it was some other Person a speaking to them ; the Voyce was so different and the varition so notorious . But in short , this vice is to be avoided for it 's fulsom indecency and praecipitation .

CHAP. VII . Particular Rules for the Variation of the Voyce ; and first , how to vary it according to the Subjects .

't is not enough for the Orator to know that it is his business to vary his Voyce the best he can , to make his Speech the more acceptable and agreeable to his Hearers ; nor sufficient neither to practice it in general only : But he must have Particular Rules also for all the changes and variations of the Voyce that are necessary to set-off his Discourse with a taking Air of Elocution , according to the quality of the Subjects he treats of , the nature of the Passions he would shew in himself or raise in others , the several parts of his Discourse , the different Figures he makes use of , and the variety of his words and his Phrase .

To begin then with the Subjects of Discourse which the Orator may chance to fall upon ; there are several sorts of them : As things natural , the good or evil actions of men ; the happy or unhappy events of Life : And these things being all of a very different nature , ought to be spoken with a quite different accent and air . If you 've occasion to speak of natural things , with an intention only to make your hearers understand you and no more , there 's no need of any great heat or motion upon the matter ; but a clean and a distinct Voyce will do 't ; because your business here is not to move the Will and Affections , so much as to inform the Understanding . But if your design be to make them admire the Wonders of his Bounty , of his Wisdom and of his Power that created them ; you must then do it with a Grave Voyce and a Tone of Admiration .

If our Discourse fall upon the Actions of Men ; either just and honest , that we would have our Auditors value as much as we esteem them our selves , by the way of Panegyrick and Commendation , or unjust and infamous , that we have a mind to make them abhorr as much as we abhorr them our selves , by the way of invective or Philippick : We must then adjust our Voyce to the quality of the one and the other ; expressing the Just and Honest with a full , lofty and noble accent , with a Tone of satisfaction , honour and esteem ; but pronouncing upon the unjust and infamous , with a strong violent and Passionate Voyce as well as with a Tone of Anger , Disgrace and Detestation .

If it be upon the events of Humane Life , some are Fortunate and others Unfortunate : So that the Orator must then also vary his Voyce according to this difference ; speaking of the Fortunate , as in Congratulatories , with a brisk and a Cheerful Air ; and of the Unfortunate , on the contrary , as in Funeral Orations , with sad and mournful Accents : For Mirth best answers the Character of Good-Fortune ; and Moan , the story of Disappointment and Affliction . The one is the Subject of Gaiety and Good humour , and t'other , of Melancholy and Moroseness .

I have one Observation more yet to make upon all these Subjects , and that is this . As for natural things , they are not all alike . Some are more considerable than others , for their Grandeur , their Beauty and their lustre , as the Heavens are far more noble than the Earth , and the Sun and Stars are far more Illustrious than Herbs and Insects . And therefore they are not to be spoken with the same Voyce , nor set forth with an equal Gallantry , State and Magnificence of Pronunciation .

As to the Actions and Events of Humane Life , good or bad , happy or unhappy ; they are not all of the same size and import : And because a Great Crime or an Extraordinary Cruelty is of worse Consequence than a common venial Peccadillo ; because the interest of Honour and of Life is of greater concern than the Interest of Money ; the noble exploits of a Brave Conqueror than the vulgar Actions of a Captain of the Mobb , the safety or the destruction of a whole Kingdom than the profit or the disadvantage of a Private Person : They also require a quite different Elocution according to the diversity of the Subject ; some of them a far more vehement Accent and Passionate Pronunciation than others . For it would be ridiculous to speak Common and Ordinary Things , that happen every day , with a Tragical Concern or a Tone of Admiration ; and as absurd on the other hand , to speak of Great Affairs and matters of extraordinary moment with a low unconcerned and familiar Voyce .

CHAP. VIII . How to vary the Voyce according to the Passions .

THose Objects I have just now mentioned , being well weighed and imprinted in your imagination , will give you such Idea's as are able to raise in your own breast the Passions of Joy or of Sorrow ; of Fear or of Boldness ; of Anger or of Compassion ; of Esteem or of Contempt : and if they be well represented and pronounced with that variety which they ought to be , they will move the very same Affections also in your Hearers . The Orator must therefore , first consider the thing he 's to speak of , with care , and carry a deep impression of it in his mind , before he be either sensibly touch'd with it himself or able to move others upon it with a more effectual Sympathy . As the Lawyer ought to be well instructed before hand , in the Cause he is to Plead , to be thoroughly satisfied of his Clients Right , to engage himself in his business with Concern , to be moved with his Misfortunes , and to be in some indignation at the Wrong done him as well as at the Malice and Vexation of his Adversaries ; if he would convince the Judges either of his own Integrity or the Justice of his Cause , and strike their Judgments with the same Passions which they perceive in him for his Client . The Divine ought , first , to frame in his mind the best Conceptions he can of the Majesty of God , of the Truth of his Doctrines and of the Justice of his Commands : He must have a true love for Virtue , a real hatred for vice , a great tenderness for the Poor he recommends to the Charity of the Rich ; and be enflam'd with an ardent desire for the Salvation of all his hearers : And being so sensibly touch'd before hand upon the main point , he will then easily shew the inward motion and concern of his Soul by his Pronunciation , and by adjusting his Voyce to every one of those Passions that may affect the hearts of People with Regard and Compassion . For the String sounds as it is touch'd : if it be softly touch'd , it entertains the Ear with a soft sound ; if strongly , it gives you a strong and a smart one . 't is the same in speaking as in Musick : Words for the Euphony of the one , and notes for the Harmony of the other . If your Speech proceeds from a violent Passion , it produces a violent Pronunciation ; if it comes from a Peaceable and Gentle Thought , the Pronunciation again is as Peaceable , Gentle and Calm : So that the Orator would do well to adjust every Tone and Accent of his Voyce to each Passion that afflicts or overjoys him , which he would raise in others to a degree of Sympathy .

He will shew his Love best by a Soft , a Gay and a Charming Voyce ; and his Hatred , on the contrary , by a Sharp , Sullen and Severe one . He 'll discover his Joy well with a Full , Flowing and Brisk Voyce ; and his Grief , on the other side , with a dull , Languishing and Sad Moan ; not without breaking-off abruptly sometimes , with a Sob ; and fetching-up a Sigh OF a Groan from the heart . His Fear will be best demonstrated by a Trembling and Stammering Voyce , somewhat inclining to uncertainty and apprehension . His Confidence , on the contrary , will be easily discover'd by a Loud and a Strong Voyce , always keeping-up to a decent Boldness and a daring Constancy . And he cannot give his Hearers to understand his Anger better than by a sharp , impetuous and violent Voyce ; by taking his Breath often , and speaking short upon the Passion . So when Geta says in Terence's ADELPHI ; Oh misfortune and misery ! I am so transported with Anger , that I 'm almost out of my Wits . The thing of the world I desire most , would be to encounter the whole Family of that Wretch , fresh and fasting ; and to spit the Fire of my Passion in their Faces , while it burns for Revenge . I 'd be satisfied , if I could but be reveng'd of 'em out of hand . I 'd hamper 'em sufficiently . I would first send the Old Rogue's Soul to the shades of Darkness for begetting such a Monster of a Villain ; and for Syrus the Author and Abetter of all this mischief and disappointment , Oh how I 'd tear him in a Thousand Pieces ! I 'd snatch him-up by the wast , toss him into the Air , and dash his Brains out in the fall against the stones in the Street for the Scavenger . I 'd pull-out Aeschines's Eyes for him , make him dance upon the High-Rope and leap at his own Destruction . And as for the rest of that Treacherous Gang , I 'd maul ye them so ; take 'em by the Noses , send 'em a-packing to the Devil's Arse-a-Peak ; Kick 'em about ; knock 'em down , and trample on 'em ; set my foot upon their Necks , and Sacrifice 'em to my Fury . He must needs speak those words with an elevated Tone ; an enraged Voyce , and the Accents of a Man all on Fire and in a Fury next to Distraction . And when he says again , upon meeting his Mistress there , in the Crisis of his Passion ; Madam . Alas ! We are , we are all undone . There 's no Remedy . Aeschines has now forsaken us . He 's fallen in love with another Lady . And he makes no secret on 't neither . He carries-on his Amour in the Face of the World , and bo●y● of the Intrigue . It is plain by Sostrata's expressions inserted there between those short Sentences , that the Actor spake puffing and blowing , and took his Breath at every Period : As if his Passion had choak'd-up his Pronunciation , and he could not utter more words together for vexation and Choler .

If the Orator be mov'd with a Compassion which he would influence upon others , he must express himself with a very soft , submissive and Pittiful Voyce . So when Cicero concludes his Speech for Quintius , in this Manner ; Quintius hath left no stone unturn'd , Sirs , he has try'd all the ways and means in the world that are just and honest ; but he could never yet find a Praetor that would so much as give him leave to make his demands , nor a Friend of Nevius so far as to grant him the Favour of his Ear to his Complaints . He has often cast himself at their Feet . He has pray'd them over and over by all that 's Sacred and Solemn , either to do him Justice and proceed against him according to Law ; or at least to preserve him his Honour , if they did confiscate his Estate . He has not deny'd himself to the angryest frowns of his Enemy , but born his Discountenance with Resignation and Patience . He has kiss'd the hand that threaten'd him the Blow . He has endeavoured to mollifie the hardness of his heart by all that might work upon the inclinations of obstinate Men . He has adjur'd him by the Ashes of his Brother , by the dear name of Father , by the passionate tenderness of his poor Wife and Children , by the Sacred Obligation of their Affinity and Friendship , to take Pity of him ; to have Compassion of his Age , if he had no regard to his Fortune : If Quintius could not move him to Mercy , the name of Man at least was in his good Graces ; and Humanity might induce him to condescend to an Agreement , where he insisted upon nothing but Honour ; quitted all other pretensions at his Enemy's Discretion , and gave up every thing else but Integrity to his Courtesie . In fine , Sirs , Quintius being turn'd out of Doors by his Kinsman ; rejected by those whom he addressed to with Tears ; brow-beaten and terrifi'd by his Judges : He has nothing more left now to rely on but your Justice and Humanity , Aquilius , for his Good Deliverance . And therefore he throws himself upon your Judgment , and puts his Honour , his Estate , his Life and all into your hands . You are the Umpire of his Innocence ; you are the Arbitrator of his Fortune , his Hopes and his safety . After so many Tryals and Troubles both of obloquy and scandal , he appeals at last to your Justice and Decision of the matter ; not in the quality of an Old Offender , or a notorious Malefactor ; but in the Circumstances of an Injur'd Wretch , a Miserable Object and an Innocent Person . 't is a hard Case , Gentlemen , He 's cast out of such an Inheritance . 't is hard he 's over power'd thus with Reproach , Calumny and Contempt , and forc'd to truckle under Wrong and Ignominy . He sees Another Man put into Possession of his Paternal Estate and his own Right . He has a Daughter Unmarried yet to provide for , and can make her no Fortune at all ; not a Farthing of a Portion to give her . In a Word , he 's oppress'd on all sides by Might and Misfortune ; and after all these Grievances , he has done nothing yet unworthy of the Character of an Honest Man . Wherefore he humbly beseeches you , Sir , to grant him your Authority to be gone , and begs leave to take that Reputation away with him , which he brought Hither ; after having liv'd a Life of Threescore years in the Approbation and esteem of the World , without ever a Blot in his Escutcheon or the least note of Infamy in his Quality , Conduct and Character : So that he may not see either his Enemys triumphing over the spoiles of his Fortune , or Nevius insulting upon the Ruines of his honour ; that he may be allow'd to carry-off his Glory with him to the Grave , and that the Credit and Good Name he has got in his Life-Time and kept-up to his Old-Age , may be upon Record yet after his Death and live in the Mouths of Posterity as well as in the Memoires of Fame . It is as clear as day now that the Orator was oblig'd to Pronounce those Words with the Lowest Voyce and the Humblest Accents of Submission imaginable ; as he was Pleading before the Judges , upon whom the All , the Honour , the Estate and the Life of Quintius depended . He must needs have turn'd his Voyce upon such Tones in Court as he thought fittest to incline their Affections and set Inclination it self a Bend . He could not but speak with Passion too ; but then 't was a Passion of Tenderness , a Passion of a mind afflicted and sensibly touch'd with the misery and Oppression of his Client , that he might move the same Pity in the Bench : And there 's no doubt but they were all touch'd to the quick too , upon the hearing of the motion ; for 't is impossible that a Passion so tenderly represented should not melt the hearts of those People before whom it is Pleaded , into Sympathy and Compassion .

To this purpose , the same Author again , Tully in his First Tusculan Question , says ; that , when these Verses , out of one of the Ancient Tragedians , which represented a young Man Dead , and Unburi'd yet ; rowzing-up the Earth in the Character of her Son , and invoking his Mother .

Mother , awake ! thy careless rest deferr ; Think on thy Son , and his poor Bones interr : Before wild Birds , and Beasts , for Prey that roar , My scatter'd Limbs and mangled Corps devour .

When these Verses , I say are spoken with a doleful and deplorable Voyce , they fill the whole Theatre with Grief and Melancholy . But for the Speaker to do this well , there are several ways of softening the Voyce requir'd , according to the different quality of the Words he makes use of and the Character of things he treats of in his Discourse : However , 't is far more easie to be Taught off the Lip in express Language than in Writing .

We come now to other Passions of the Mind and other variations or Inflexions of the Voyce and to shew how our Orator shall acquit himself in the Action of them to the best advantage . If he would give his Audience a Character of some Brave Hero and testifie his own Esteem of the Person , he should do 't with a Lofty and a Magnificent Tone , and his Voyce must be as noble as his Strains ; as when Tully speaks in his Oration for the Manilian Law , after this manner : Now there 's none but a Pompey in the World , who by his Immortal Exploits hath out-done the Glory of the Living and the Memory of the Dead ; why do we doubt any longer , and delay giving him the Commission of all our Hopes ? For in my Opinion , a Great Captain ought to have these Four Eminent Qualities at Command ; Military Discipline , Virtue , Reputation and Fortune . But who was ever yet more knowing in the Art of making War than Pompey ? And who so fit a General as he that left his Play and his Pastime at School in the most Troublesome Times , and went out against the most Powerful Enemies to learn the business of Arms in his Father's Camp , who was one of the most Famous Warriors of the Age ? As he that has been train'd up to Arms from his Cradle ; a Soldier and a Child at one and the same Time , and and has had the Command of Armies even in his Infancy ? He that has fought more Battles than others have Duels ; put an end to more Wars than others have Read , conquer'd more Provinces than others have attempted only in Wish ? He that has advanced himself from his Youth-up to the knowledge of Military Discipline by his own Conduct and not by other Men's Wisdom or Council ; by Triumphs and not by Misfortunes ; whom Victory has flush'd to an Illustrious Character , rather than Experience , Service or Time ? He has not serv'd so many years , but he has made more Conquests than Campagnes . In short , is there any danger and difficulty he has not encountered ; or any Country , where the Fortune of the Commonwealth has not exerciced him to the hazard of his Life for 't ? In Africa , beyond the Alps , and in Spain ; against strong Towns and warlike Kingdoms ; in Civil Wars , in Wars with Slaves , in Servile and Sea Fights . And now , what are so many Wars that have all been waged , carried-on with success and happily concluded by Pompey , but so many Tryals of his Skill , his Knowledge and his Virtue ? What are so many Enterprizes he has bravely accomplished , and the Battles he has won , but Heralds of his Glory and his Valour ? What are so many Enemies he has vanquished and slain in the Field , but Eternal Monuments of his Courage and Conduct ? Let a Man speak those fine words with a Low and Languishing Voyce , and nothing can appear more Cold , Flat , or Insipid ; nothing more unworthy , either of the Eloquence of Cicero , or of the Honour of Pompey . But , on the other hand , let him pronounce them with a Noble Accent and animate them with a lofty Tone of the Voyce answerable to their own Spirit and Magnificence ; and then they will appear in their proper Lustre , quicken the Hearers with Admiration , and entertain as if they came from the Mouth of Tully himself yet , Sixteen Hundred years and more after his Death .

To pass now from Admiration or Esteem to the contrary extreme of it . If the Orator would shew the Contempt he has of a Man , and expose him to his Auditors , he must do 't with a Scornful Tone ; but without any Passion , Eagerness or Violence of the voyce : As Cicero spake to Coecilius , who pretended to be preferr'd before him for Pleading in the Accusation of Verres . But you , Coecilius ; pray what can you do ? Where 's your Capacity , upon this mighty Pretension of yours ? When , and upon what Affair have you ever made any Tryal of your Skill or given any proofs of your Parts and sufficiency to Men of Sense , and have not attempted at the same time upon your own Weakness , and run the hazzard both of your Reputation and Judgment ? Do you not consider the difficulty of managing the Cause of the Commonwealth , of maintaining the Peace of the Publick from Disgrace and Oppression , of unravelling the whole Life of a Man from the first breath of business , and not only of setting it forth in it 's proper colours to the understanding of the Judges , but of exposing it also to the Eye of the whole world ? The difficulty of defending the safety and wellfare of Allyes , the Interest of Provinces , the Power of Laws and the Authority of our Courts of Judicature ? Take it from me , Sir , This is the first opportunity you have met with of learning something from your Betters : you must know there are a great many good qualities a Man had need be endued with himself , to accuse Another ; if you find one of them in your self upon a strict Scrutiny , I 'll be bound to give-up the Cause to you frankly , and quit the Charge of this Affair to your Ambition ; &c. Reflect upon your own Conscience and Capacity ; weigh the matter well , and consider who you are , and what you can do . Do you think you are able to assert the thing from Aspersion and Blunder ? And if you should undertake to defend the Cause of our Confederates , the Common Good of a whole Country , the Rights of the Romans , the Liberties of the People , the Authority of Laws and the Obligation of Judgments and Decrees ; could you maintain so many weighty matters and difficult Points in Quaestion , as you should do , either by the strength of your voyce ; the Faithfulness of your Memory ; the Justice of your Conduct ; the Integrity of your Wisdom , or the Elegancy of your Wit ? &c. No , you know nothing of that , not you : you never think on 't ; never inform your self , nor take the Pains to be made Wiser than you are in you own Conceit and Pretension . If you can but steal out of some Old Harangue or other , an , I beseech the Good and Great Jupiter ; and , I could have wish'd , SIRS , if it had been Possible : Or , some such formal expression for a Preamble : and have time enough to conn it by heart for your own , you are well enough , you think : you are ready for the Barr and finely furnisht for a Favourable Hearing ; and yet if no Soul were to appear against you in Court now , I dare say that you could never state this Controversie fairly for a Decision , nor acquit your self of the Cause with Honour or Success . But do you not remember now , that you would have the most eloquent Adversary living to encounter ; be obliged to fight him at all Weapons , and to plead against him with all the Powers of our Profession . He 'd baffle you to your Head else with Art , Argument and Reason ; &c. But you , Coecilius ! methinks I see how he would play upon you ; how he would banter you out of your little Sense at every turn ; how he 'd confound you upon matter of fact ; confute you upon the merit of the Cause ; and laugh at you upon the main Point , when he had done . O poor Mortal ! What blunders you would commit ! In what a Pother and Ferment , in what disorder and confusion , in what shame and ridicule would you be engag'd ! How much in the dark you 'd be ! you that are none of the wisest of Politicians , nor the most Accomplisht Gentleman in the World . This is a Discourse of Slight and Disdain ; and by so contemptible a Character of Coecilius , he endeavour'd to persuade people that the poor Man did not deserve the Office he set up for : And he gain'd his point too ; disgrac'd his pretension , and disappointed his hope . But if he had spoken with a passionate voyce , and shew'd any great concern of indignation in the matter , he had palpably contradicted his Design . For then he had declar'd his contempt of him only in Word ; but in Deed , thought him worthy of his Anger and Rhetorick ; and encounter'd the little Creature with all his might , as if he had been some considerable Enemy . The prudent Orator will be sure to avoid this Error , when ever he would treat a Man with Scorn and Derision , or fool any ridiculous argument of his Adversary . For he would be laugh'd at himself , if he should answer a dull Reason with Heat , and plead in a Passion against that which deserves only to be bantered ; if he should put himself upon the last effort of his voyce and his Eloquence for a trifle , against silly people and insignificant arguments ; as if he should make use of Hercules's Club to kill a Worm , which is easily trod to pieces and crushed underfoot .

But if the Orator have a Barbarous Injustice to complain of , that has been done him by an Enemy , as Demosthenes did of those abuses he had receiv'd at the hands of Midias upon the Feast of Saturn ; he must speak in another manner , and express his Affliction and Grievance with an Elevated Tone ; proportioning the vehemence and passion of his voyce to the Cruelty of the Injury : And certainly he could not do 't otherwise , without doing himself wrong ; for if he should speak it without any Heat or Concern , People would neither believe the Case to be True nor himself really aggrieved ; and all that he could say then of the Indignity , would never avail him in Court before the Judges of his Complaint . This was the reason Demosthenes reprimanded a Man once that came to him upon an Assault and Battery , and desired him to plead his Cause for him ; telling him the plain truth of the matter with a great deal of simplicity , and shewing no manner of concern or vexation by his voyce . Why , says the Councellor , I cannot believe what you tell me . But another Man having told him the same story over again in a Great Passion , with a Spirit of Fury and Revenge for the Affront . Well! I believe you ( says he ) now you speak with the Accent and Zeal of a Man that has been assaulted and drubb'd . And this was to shew him with what tone of the voyce he ought to speak upon Oppression and Injury , either to be believed or to make his Cause Good .

Cicero , in his Speech for Gallus , makes use of this argument against Callidius ; who , as we mentioned before , had spoken very coldly upon a most Important Affair of his own , and pleaded it without any Warmth and Emotion . You , Callidius , if what you say were not false , would you speak with that Air of Indifferency ? You that us'd to defend others with so much vigor , and to assert them out of Trouble and Danger with Zeal , would you so neglect your own safety and wellfare ? Where is the Grief ; where is the Fervency ; where is the Affliction of your Mind that us'd to draw Cryes and Complaints even from the mouths of little Children , on the behalf of your Clients ?

One word more upon this Subject of varying the voyce according to the Passions . 't is plain , when the Speaker comes to cool upon a violent Passion and to command himself after a Transport , that he ought to lower the Tone of his voyce and humble it as Tully certainly did in his Oration for Celius , where he says : But I must now return to the Crime ; although the Grief that sensibly afflicts me in speaking of so Great a Man , hath already very much weakned my Faculty and Speech , and almost deprived me of the freedom of Thought .

Besides , not to omit any thing that may contribute to the advancement of so necessary a Work , as the several inflexions of the voyce are in point of speaking , I must add this ; That the only way to acquire the Faculty of varying the voyce upon all kind of Subjects as well as Passions , is to be often reading of Comedies , Tragedies , and Dialogues a loud , or some other Discourses of Authors , whose Stile comes nearest up to the Dramatick : For nothing can be more serviceable to the Emprovement of Action and Elocution .

CHAP. IX . Of varying the Voyce according to the different Parts of a Discourse .

THe several Parts of a Speech must needs be of a very different nature ; and so ought the manner of speaking to be as different , as the Quality and Character of each Part shall require .

The Exordium ought to be spoken with a low and a modest voyce ; for to begin with modesty is not only agreeable to the Auditors , as it is a virtue which shews how great an esteem we have of them , and demonstrates the respect we pay to their presence ; but a necessary qualification also for the Orator , to manage his voyce discreetly and to work it up by degrees of moderation to a higher pitch of warmth and Passion : Otherwise , he would put himself out of breath at first start for want of good conduct , and never be able again to recover himself genteely at the full stretch of his Lungs , to so much moderation and command of his voyce as would give the other parts of his Speech a greater force than the Exordium ; where the stress of it lies more , and requires a more vehement Pronunciation . However , I do not mean that he should begin so low neither , as to be heard only by a very few People , just under his nose ; but , on the contrary , I would have him speak-up , at first , so clear and distinct , as to be heard without difficulty or trouble by every Man of his Auditors that would give himself the liberty of attending : Let him say what he will else , 't is no more than a Wall-Lecture and a disappointment to his hearers ; for what signifies the preamble of a Speech , when they can be never a word the better for 't ? I have heard a great Divine fail mightily in this Point , and run foul upon that dull vice in Preaching . He began so low at first , that hardly a dozen people of a great Congregation could hear him ; but presently Up he lift his voyce so loud , chafed his Accents to such an excess and rung such a Peal in the Auditory , that he both offended and astonished their Ears with the violence of the Transport and Thunder . I am only for having the Exordium , courteous , soft and easie , and to be spoken with a lower tone , or in a humbler address , than the other parts of a Discourse . But this rule yet will admit of an Exception ; for there are some Exordiums do not fall under it , which we may call unexpected or abrupt , from a Term of Art , and the common EX ABRUPTO of the Schools ; as that of Cicero's is , in his first Oration against Cataline . How long will you , Cataline , abuse our Patience ? How long shall that madness of yours impose upon us , and falsely insult ? Whither will your ungovernable Impudence carry you at last ? And that of St. John Chrysostom's ( if we may believe Socrates ) in his Discourse against the Empress Eudoxia ; who having got him deprived once and persecuted out of the Empire , was yet working after his return and re-establishment to have him banish'd again in a Pe●● for a Sermon he Preach'd against a kind of Ball she kept at the consecration of her Image , or the Dances which were celebrated before the Temple of Saint Sophia upon the Dedication of the Statue of that Princess . The words were these Herodias then is once again incensed ; Once again she Dances ; once again she demands the Head of John in a Charger ! That Exordium of the Homily he made to the People of Antioch immediately after the demolishing of the Statues of the Emperor and Empress , deceased ; is also of this quality and latitude : What shall I say now ? How shall I speak ? This is a time to Weep and not to Speak ; to Groan and not to Discourse ; to pray to God and not to Harangue the People . He has another of this kind too , in his Sermon to the Christians of the same Place , upon a Panick Fear that had seized them in their Assembly , for want of being established by a Heathen Governour . Truly I cannot but commend the care and conduct of your Governour ; ( says he ) who , seeing the whole Town in Consternation and all the Inhabitants ready to fly for 't , is come into this place ; has encourag'd you with his Presence ; established you by his Authority , and given you that resolution and hope which you had utterly lost . But for you here , I am covered with confusion ; That after so many excellent Sermons to teach you better things , you should yet want to be put in Heart and confirm'd by a Man out of the Pale of the Church . I could have wish'd that the Earth had open'd under me and swallowed me up , when I heard him speak to you ; sometimes comforting you under the apprehension , and sometimes blaming you for taking so groundless and impertinent a fright without any shadow of reason or colour of Religion for 't . It was not sit for such a Man as He , among Heathens , to tell you what you ought to do : but 't was your business to be Doctors to the Infidels , and to teach them their Duty . With what Eyes now shall we behold them hereafter , with a regard to Faith and Conversion , and keep in Countenance upon the guilt of so timorous a behaviour ! with what tongue shall we undertake to comfort or confirm them under their calamities ; having shew'd our selves more fearful than Hares , with so much impatience , Chagrin and weakness upon this occasion ! We are Men , say you ; why , for that very reason , you ought not to be frighten'd with bugbears nor har'd with suspicions or appearances of Persecution ; because you are Men and not Beasts . Beasts are affraid of every thing that stirs ; and the least noise commonly alarums them , for want of reason to dispute the Fear and keep off the Impression : But you that have the Guift of Reason and Understanding ; How are you sunk into the last degree of Irresolution and Cowardice ! Such Exordiums as these that begin abruptly and break forth on a sudden with a violent Passion , are very rare , and seldom found but upon extraordinary occasions : But when ever we have occasion to make use of them , 't is manifest that they are to be spoken with an elevated voyce , according to the Passion , either of anger that transports , or of grief that afflicts , and obliges us to set-out so abruptly in our Discourse .

In the next place , the Orator need not put himself in a Passion nor raise his voyce to any great vehemence upon the Proposition or Narration of his Speech ; for his business in this part is only to inform his hearers , or to instruct his Judges , and to give them a right understanding of the matter in question . So that 't is enough here for the Pronunciation to be a degree higher than that of the Exordium ; only he must take care all the while to be very Articulate and Distinct upon it , because the Narration lays the groundwork of the whole Discourse and contains the virtue of all those reasons that are to be drawn from it : And therefore it mightily imports and concerns him to have it well heard , if he would Build well or raise any great Arguments upon that Foundation . There must needs be some difference too , in the manner of speaking it , according to the different quality of Actions and Events in the relation : But this is not the proper place yet for the vehemence and contention of the voyce , which must be kept in reserve for a better occasion and the following parts of the Speech .

As to the Confirmation , which sets forth the main arguments of our Cause ; and the Confutation , which consists in solving our Adversaries Objections : There lies the greatest stress of our Discourse and the last effort of the voyce ; for as our mind is most mov'd there , upon all the fine Figures of Speech we make use of in Rhetorick , so 't is there also we ought to speak with the utmost Force and Contention , and to vary our Pronunc●●●ion over and above with Decency and Good Grace .

As for the Peroration , the Orator would do well to make a handsome little Pause between this part and the former , and to begin it again with a lower Tone and a different Accent from the last Cadence of his voyce upon the Confutation . After that he should break forth upon it with a louder voyce , and pursue it with more Gaiety , Magnificence and triumph of his Pronunciation ; upon an assurance both of the Justice of his Cause , which he presumes sufficiently made good , and of the entire satisfaction of his hearers whom he supposes fully convinc'd of his Right and Integrity . And at last , he should arrive at the Conclusion of his Speech , like a Vessel that has been long out at Sea ; had a difficult Voyage on 't ; weather'd many dangerous Points and Passages , and comes into Port Full-sail , with the greatest acclamations of Joy and Good Cheer .

CHAP. X. How to vary the Voyce according to the Figures of Rhetorick .

AS Figures are the lights of Speech , that render it most agreeable both for variety and Good Grace ; every one of 'em carrying a long with it a particular Air , Ornament and Novelty : So they are to be spoken with a different Tone from the rest of the Discourse , upon an Exclamation . The very name of that Figure shews the reason ; for nothing would appear so Hat and Ridiculous , if it were not pronounced with a louder Voyce and a more Passionate Accent than any other . As for example ; when Cicero , in his Oration for Cluentius , said of Sassia that had inveigled her Son-in-Law to a Decauche ; got him divorced from her own Daughter , and married him her self : Oh the incredible wickedness of the Woman ! A crime that had been unheard of yet in the world , but for this abominable wretch ! Oh the raging and ungovernable lust on 't ! Oh lascivious and unparallel'd impudence ! Neither to stand in awe of the Majesty of the Gods nor to regard the Honour of Men ! Not to tremble into an Aversion at the Approach of that very Night ; not to blush at the light of those very Nuptial Torches ; not to stumble at the threshold of the Chamber , at the sight of her Daughter's Bridal Bed , and at the walls , that were so many witnesses of the former Marriage ! If he had spoken those words without any Elevation of the Voyce , had he not deprived them of all their Clatt , Ornament and Force ? And had he not better have said then Plainly , without any more ado ; She was a very lewd , lascivious and Impudent Woman to marry her Son-in-Law ; in which there would have been no Absurdity at all and no P●ssi●● requir'd ? Much better sure , th●● to ●●●nounce those Exclamatory Expressio●● without either Grace or Exclamation

The same way of speaking must be us'd too upon forms of Swearing ; especially when there 's something extraordinary in the Affair : As that of Demosthenes in his Oration for C●esiphon , which has been so much esteem'd and admir'd by the Antients . You have not fail'd in that Point , Gentlemen : no , I swear by those of our Ancestors that so bravely hazzarded and won the Battel of Marathon ; by those that generously maintain'd the Fight at Plataeae ; by those that fought by Sea at Salamis ; by those that were slain at Artemisium , and by all those other Gallant Men that have deserv'd to be interr'd in publick Monuments , with all the Glories of Honour , Fortune and Fame . There 's no doubt now but the Orator pronounced this asseveration with a very Elevated Tone and a Great Contention of the Voyce ; or else nothing would have chilled the Passions more upon the Hearing .

In a Prosopopoeia , nature her self shews us ; First that the Orator ought to change his Voyce , to the end it may appear as if it were not he a speaking , but some other Person brought in by the By : And secondly , that he must vary it according to the Diversity , Character and Business of the Persons that he introduces , and feigns a speaking in this Disguise . For Instance , In those two Prosopopoeia's which Cicero makes use of in his Oration for Celius ; the one of the Venerable Old Man APPIUS , the other of the young Rake CLODIUS , a Debauchée ; who may not see with half an eye how differently they are to be spoken ; and how that ought to be Grave and Severe ; but this loose and effeminate , according to the different qualities of the Persons ? Read over the one and the other in the Speech it self , and you will easily judge of them for the Pronunciation . But if you would bring in a Man talking with himself , upon a point of deliberation , and arguing in his own breast what he should do in the matter , you must manage it with a low voyce , and introduce him as if he were only speaking to himself and within the compass of his own Ears , with a design not to be overheard by any body else . We have an example of this in Tully's Oration for Cluentius , where he says of Stalenus ; When the poor perfidious wretch saw a round sum of Money brought home to him , he began to think of all the ways and means that Malice , Corruption and Fraud could invent . Talking thus with himself . If I should let the rest of the Judges come in now for snacks with me , what should I get by the bargain but Danger and Disgrace ? Can I think of nothing , to have this Oppianicus condemn'd for 't ? What then ! Why , I 'll try what can be done , &c. And when Cicero says again in his Speech for Quintius against Naevius's hard-heartedness and inhumanity : you have not ask'd Council of your self . You have not consulted your own Conscience and Honour . You have not recollected upon the quaestion ; What am I a doing ? For two hours that are gone and past , must I ruine my Friend ? For failing an appointment , must I undo him for ever ? The Orator must observe here to pronounce these words , you have not consulted your own Conscience and Honour ; you have not recollected your self upon the Question , with as loud a voyce as is commonly made use of in an Apostrophe , upon a sudden diversion of the Speech to a different Person ; but the following words must be turn'd off with a low voyce , as t' were in a secret soliloquy or a private reflexion .

Upon an Apostrophe , you ought to have a peculiar regard both to the Circumstance of the Person to whom you address your Speech and to the design you have of making use on 't ; so that you may adjust the Tone of your voyce to the turn of your Discourse and the necessity of the figure . For Example . First , when you speak to inanimate things , you must raise your voyce above an ordinary pitch or a common tone , as you would to people that are very thick of hearing . And without doubt Cicero himself spake with an uncommon Accent upon that fine Apostrophe , in his Speech for Milo , to this purpose . I call you to witness , you little Hills and Groves of Alba ; and you Altars also of the Albans , that were once of the same Religion and Antiquity with those of the Romans : Which , Clodius being hurried on with Sacrilegious Madness and Ambition , has now cut down and destroyed , to lay the Foundation of all his cursed Practices , and has prophanely buried them under the Weight and Oppression of his own prodigious Buildings , &c.

Secondly , This holds also in an Apostrophe to God . For , as you raise your voyce to a proportionable height when you would be heard a far-off , and reach the utmost Ear of your Audience : So , when you speak to the great Divinity that sits upon his Throne in Heaven above , you ought to do 't in a higher strain and a loftyer tone of the voyce ; than if you were only a speaking to Men here on Earth , that are even as low as your self , upon the same Turf and Level . And with this elevated Accent too , we must read all those happy turns and Apostrophe's , which we meet with in the Perorations of the First Catalinary , of the last Oration against Verres , and of Pliny's Panegyrick to Trajan .

Upon a Dialogism , or Conference , where two Persons are brought in as 't were Dialoguing one another , one of 'em moving the Question and t'other making the Answer , you must change your voyce by turns , as if two Men were really a talking together . We have an example of this , in the Dialogism , which Cicero makes use of in his Oration for Plancius ; where he first personates Laterensis a speaking for himself and complaining against the People for preferring Plancius before him to the Commission of EDILE ; and then brings in Plancius as it were answering his Competitor's Objections and justifying the Election , in a feigned Conference betwixt the two Candidates for the Office . The People have not judg'd right . But they have judged . They ought not to have done so . But they have don 't . I cannot endure it . But many better Men of the wisest and most Illustrious Citizens have endured it before you : &c. And that dialogism in his Oration for Flaccus , upon the Examination of Asclepiades against him , is of the same quality and requires the same change of the voyce . Let 's hear Sextilius , what he has to say . I have not brought him a long with me , say you . Produce his Papers and Accounts then in Court . I have not brought them neither . Where are your Brothers ? Let them appear at least . I have not Subpaena'd them hither for Witnesses . Why then , shall we take that for a Crime or good Evidence , whatever Asclepiades alone , a Man of a notorious character , shall please , forsooth , to charge upon us without any Account , Credit or Authority ? Upon these Conferences and Rencounters , we must always observe to pronounce the Answer with a different Tone from the last Cadence of the foregoing Question and Objection .

In the Figure call'd Epimone by the Greeks , and which we may call Insistance , whereby the Orator presses his Adversary to a pinch and dwells upon it ; insisting still upon the same argument , and expressing it home to him several ways over and over till he seems asham'd of it , and confounded at the Repetition : Here the Orator must make use of a brisk , pressing and insulting voyce , where he lays the main stress of his Speech and clinches it upon the hearers . As when Tully says in his Oration for Ligarius : What did you , Tubero , in the Battel of Pharsalia , with your Sword drawn there ? Against whose breast did you direct the point of it ? What was the sense of your Weapon , the design of your Arms the Intention of your appearance ? Where were your thoughts , your wishes , your desires , your expectations ? What meant those Eyes , that Zeal , that Passion , that hand , that Weapon ? But I urge the thing too far upon him : The young Man is asham'd , and in Confusion at the Conviction ; I 'll say no more . And so likewise when Crassus was a pleading in Court against the lewd Debauchée , BRUTUS , seeing the Corps of Junia , the Old Matron and Mother of his Family , carried By at the same time in publick pomp and Parade to her Grave , took occasion to say thus to that dissolute Spark . What do you there , you loose and lazy Brutus ? What news would you have that venerable defunct carry of you , to your Father in another world ? What do you pretend she should acquaint the Illustrious Dead withall , whose Images you see born before her Herse ? What shall she say to your Grandfathers , and especially to the famous Lucius Brutus , whom the people are beholden to for asserting their Liberties and freeing them from the Government and Tyranny of Kings ? Upon what noble Study , upon what glorious design , upon what Virtue shall she tell 'em you employ your Time ? Upon emprovement of your Estate ? That 's below your Character , and does not become your Nobility : But suppose it did , you have not a foot of Land left ; you have spent it all in Debauchery and Extravagance . Upon the knowledge of the Law ? That would be to follow the footsteps of your Father indeed and to inherit his Glories ; but she 'll say you have sold your House , and not reserv'd among all the Moveables so much as your Father's Chair , out of which he spake so many Oracles . Upon the Exercise of Arms ? But you never saw a Battle fought save only in Paper and Picture . Upon the study of Eloquence ? But you do not know the very Rudiments of Rhetorick : And if you have any thing of a voyce , or a faculty at pratling , you employ it all to your own disadvantage , and make a trade of your foul calumnies and bawdy expressions . Infamous creature ! Dare you then behold the day ? Dare you look upon this Assembly ? Dare you shew your head now in the Court , in the Town , in the business or Conversation of Men ? Is not your Conscience struck with Horror ; does it not fly in your Face , when you cast your Eyes upon that dead Body there , and those Images which have not the least hope left of finding , either any imitation of 'em in your manners , or any place for 'em in that which was once your House ? This Figure that great Orator , as Tully says , did attend and enforce with a Pronunciation wonderfully Grave and Pressing , Solemn and Clinching .

Upon a Parrhesia , or the bold Figure of taking the liberty to say every thing we have a mind to say , let the danger be what it will , where there 's any confidence in the Cause , or any fear of losing the Point , our voyce must be full and loud , as upon these words of Tully in his Oration for Ligarius . Oh admirable Clemency ; worthy of eternal praise , honour and memory . Cicero has the boldness now before Caesar to confess himself guilty of a Crime , for which he cannot endure another should be falsly arraign'd , neither does he fear the private resentments of his Judge for 't . See how undaunted I am now , upon the confidence of your Goodness . See the great lights of Generosity and Wisdom that countenance me from your Royal Aspect . I will raise my voyce as loud as I can , that all the People of Rome may hear me . The War being begun , Sir , and almost ended , I went over to your Enemy's Camp before the finishing stroke of it , upon my own choice and without any Compulsion . The voyce must be as round and as frank too , when the Lawyer is forc'd to plead in private and Speaks things that he would have the whole world hear ; as in these words of a Famous Councellour , spoken sometime since in the Parliament of Paris . This Audience will either deliver France from the upstart Monsters that are bred here to destroy it : or else , if their cunning Policies ; if their tricks of slight and artifice , if their reports that are spread abroad bear-up and take : I say it aloud ( They have found out the way to shut up the Gates upon us ; but my voyce shall ring to the Four Corners of the Kingdom : And I will transmit it now to Posterity , which will judge without Fear and Prejudice , who have been the best Frenchmen , the Truest Subjects , and the most desirous of leaving their Country a Liberty after them , like unto that which we have recieved from our Ancestors : ) I say it aloud then , and will raise my voyce to the utmost effort of it ; They will do us more mischief yet then ever they did or we are aware of . Where it is easie to perceive with what Passion and Height of Voyce the Orator spake those words , and how he pronounced himself with the boldest Elevation .

Upon a Climax , or a Gradation ; where the Discourse climbs up by several clauses of a Sentence to a Period or Full Point ; 't is manifest that the Voyce must be rais'd accordingly by the same degrees of elevation to answer every step of the Figure , till it is at the utmost height of it : as upon this Climax of Cicero's in his last Speech against Verres . To lay a Roman Citizen by the Heels , and in Irons , is a bold attempt ; to whip him , an Abominable Crime ; to put him to Death , a notorious piece of Parricide . What shall I say of executing him upon the Cross ? I cannot find a word to express such a wicked horrible attempt . And upon another , in a Remonstrance to the City of Paris , after the death of Henry the Third . Thou could not endure so Debonnaire and Gallant a King . What do I say , could not endure him ? 't is far worse than so . Thou banish'd him his Town , his House , and his Bed . What Banish'd him ? Thou pursu'd him . What , pursued him ? Thou murther'd him ; thou canonized his Assassinator , and made Bonefires and Illuminations upon his Death .

Upon an Aposiopesis , or holding one's peace and concealing what might be said farther in the matter , the Orator must lower his voyce a tone or two , and pronounce the foregoing words that introduce it with the highest Accent ; as in this of Demosthenes for Ctesiphon : For I can say of my self . — But I will not say any thing piquant or severe at the beginning , though every body sees he is come to accuse me of Alacrity and Lightness of Heart .

In a subjection , where several questions are put and an answer made to every one of them , the Orator must vary his voyce , and give the Interogation one Tone , and the Answer , another ; either pronouncing the demand higher and the answer lower , or on the contrary ; as when Cicero says in his Oration for Flaccus . And indeed , Sirs , to what other assistance shall I apply my self now ? What other help shall I beg ? What other Power shall I implore ? Shall I address to the Senators . The Senate it self craves your assistance , and know , that you alone have the power to confirm their authority . Shall I address to the Roman Knights ? you that are Heads of that order here , know the sentiments of all the rest . Shall I address to the Commons ? They have given up to you all their power and authority of judging our Affairs . And in this again for Sylla . When the Plot grew high , and all things were ready for a dispatch , where was Sylla , I pray ? Was he at Rome ? Nay , he was a great way off from that place . Was he in those Legions and Forces , which Cataline went about to raise ? He was yet further off still . Was he in the field of Camertus , of Pi●enum , or of Gaul ? Whither did the fury of this Conspiracy transport him ; What places did he invade , or whose minds did he infect there ? Nothing more false . He was then at Naples , in that part of Italy which was not in the least suspected .

In an Antithesis , he must distinguish upon both the contraries , and pronounce the first of 'em with a different Tone from the latter ; this with a louder Accent than that , to shew the opposition betwixt the one and the other and to adjust the voyce to the Contrariety , as in this example of it in the second Catalinary : If we will but compare both parties , and weigh the Justice and the Reasons of the one against the other , we shall find how inconsiderable our Enemies are and how easie it is to conquer them . For modesty fights on this side , and impudence on that : Here's purity of manners , there Impurity ; Here's Faith , there Fraud ; Here's Piety , there Wickedness ; Here's Constancy , there Fool-hardiness ; Here's Honour , there Infamy ; Here's Continence , there Lust . Here , in fine , Justice , Temperance , Courage , Prudence and all kind of Virtues are in Confederacy , and contending with Injustice , with Luxury , with Cowardice , with Temerity and all kind of vices got a head together upon the Rendezvous . Here Abundance makes War upon Necessity , Reason disputes it against Madness , Good Sense against Folly , certain Hope against Despair , and Assurance against Uncertainty . And if the hearts of Men should fail 'em now , in such a famous Rencounter as this , would not the Gods declare themselves in favour of so just a Quarrel , vindicate your Cause against the foulest of Crimes , and give those Heroick virtues of yours the victory over these abominable vices of a Conspirator ?

Upon the figure which the Greeks call Anadiplosis ; That is to say , a redoubling , or an immediate repetition of the same word : As , It was , it was a virtue formerly in this Commonwealth , &c. The Senate knows all this , the Consul sees it , and yet Cataline lives : Nay he does not only live , but comes into the Senate too ; &c. And nevertheless , you live ; and live , not to forsake , but to confirm your presumption and impudence ; &c. He has reign'd three and twenty years now , and reigns still with so much Insolence , that he never absconds for 't . The Orator must give the same word repeated here a different sound , and pronounce it the second time over far louder and stronger than at the First .

In an Anaphora , where one and the same word is repeated over and over in the beginning either of several Sentences one after another , or of several clauses of the same Sentence ; as it is in the Oration for the Manilian Law : A witness of it is Italy , which the Conquerour himself confess'd was owing its deliverance to Pompey's Bravery and Council : A witness of it is Sicily , which he sav'd from a Thousand imminent dangers that begirt it on all sides , by the Wisdom of his Conduct and the quickness of his Dispatches , without ever striking a blow for 't : A witness of it is Africa , oppress'd with the numerous Armies of the Enemies , where he made the Field flow with the Blood of the Slain : A witness on 't is France , &c. And in the second Philippick again : My Consulship does not please MARK ANTONY at all ; but this is my Glory , that it has pleas'd all honest Men . It pleas'd P. SERVILIUS , whom I name the first as the oldest of the Consuls , and the last that died in our Time . It pleased Q. CATULUS , whose Credit and Authority will never die in this Commonwealth . It pleased the two LUCƲLLUSES , M. CRASSUS , Q. HORTENSIUS , L. MURAENA , that were all then appointed to the Consular Dignity . It pleased several others also , whose Reputation will always be had in Honour and Veneration of the Republick . He must pronounce the word here repeated , always with the same Accent and Sound ; but in a different manner from the Pronunciation of all the other parts of the Period , to give the Figure its due Emphasis and Distinction in his Discourse , upon the Repetition of the same words . And so again in an Epizeuxis , when the same word is reiterated several times over one after another at the end of Sentences , he must likewise humour the Emphatical Redoubling of the word , with the same Accent of his Voyce ; as it is in the same Philippick above mentioned : You lament the loss of three Armies of Romans that were ruined . 't was MARK ANTONY ruined them . You resent the Death of so many Noble and Famous Citizens destroy'd . 't was MARK ANTONY destroyed them . The Authority of the Senate suffers extreamly , and is intrenched upon . 't is MARK ANTONY intrenches upon 't , and ' does it this Disgrace , &c. Or when several words are repeated over and over again , as they are in the Seventh Philippick : What! Sirs , when you decreed such great and just honours to Young Caesar for raising an Army against MARK ANTONY ; did you not then declare MARK ANTONY an Enemy to the Commonwealth ? When you order'd the Thanks and the Praise of the Whole House to be given to those old Disciplined Soldiers that listed themselves Voluntiers in Caesar's Service and followed him to the War ; did you not then declare MARK ANTONY an Enemy to the Commonwealth ? And when you promis'd a reward to the strongest Legions for coming over to us from Antony , that usurp'd the Title of Consul and was our vowed Adversary ; did you not then declare MARK ANTONY an Enemy to the Commonwealth , &c.

CHAP. XI . Of the Pronunciation of Words and Sentences .

SEntences commonly consist of two principal Parts , that are link'd together with certain Particles ; which the Grammarians call Causals , Copulatives , Conditionals , Comparatives , Relatives or Adversatives : But they are not All of the same measure and length .

For there are some Sentences very short ; each part of which is but a simple expression and consists only of one single Proposition ; as these of Malherbe . He died young , but he died happy . His Friends have not had him long , but his Death is the greatest Trouble and Grief they ever had for the Love and the Loss of him . He has enjoyed the Sweets of the World only for a little while , but he never tasted the Bitters on 't . He has not taken a long Walk , but he went only upon Flowers . Whatever Life has of Rugged , or of Harsh , Piquant and Uneasie , was to come in those years which he has not lived to see . Those Periods may not only be pronounced with one Breath ; but can hardly be pronounced otherwise , without prejudice to the expression .

There are some Sentences again , longer ; as those in the same Author . Look upon the World as a Place where you will be losing something every Day , till you have lost All and have no more to lose ; and with those Meditations prepossess your dear Soul , that , having its Original from Heaven , it will one Day have the happiness to return thither . And those may be pronounced all at a Breath too , if the Voice be naturally good for any thing : and however , you ought also to do it as well as you can ; for a Period so pronounced looks rounder , and appears with more Beauty and Force , than it would do upon several Breathing's by fits . For this purpose , you must make it your main Bus●ness to acquire a long-winded Habit by Study and Exercice : but that must be done by degrees : For Nature is not chang'd in an instant from a short Breath to a long one . Nature indeed is absolutely necessary in the matter ; but Art also can do much towards the accomplishing of this end : and we read in the Bibliotheca of Photius , that Demosthenes , who had naturally a very short Breath ; finding that he had need of a very long one to speak upon Publick Occasions , gave Neoptolemus the Stage-player , and a great Actor of Comedy , a thousand Drachms to teach him this Art ; which he became Master of at last to perfection by the force of Practice and by exercising himself upon all the difficulties of Respiration . You must likewise exert your Faculties , as he did , and neither spare any time , nor pains , nor cost , to make your self long-winded and an Orator .

There are other Periods that have a longer Train yet , and take a larger Tour than either of the former ; which you cannot pronounce without taking your Breath once or twice ; as this of St. Bernard for instance . As it is prejudicial to one's Health to take Food and not to digest it , because Crude and Indigested Meats create ill Humours , and do not nourish , but clog and corrupt the Body : So when the Stomach of the Soul , that is , the Memory , is fill'd with a great deal of Knowledge ; if this Knowledge be not well digested by the warmth of Charity ; if it do not diffuse it self after that through the Arteries and Marrow of the Soul and pass into the Manners and Actions of Men ; and if it does not become good it self upon knowing what is good , and what goes to the making of a good Life ; does not this Knowledge turn into Sin , as that Nutriment does into bad Humours ? You must pronounce the first part of that Period without ever taking Breath for 't ; but you cannot pronounce the second in the same manner : So that you ought rather to make a pause upon 't , than force your Voice to an Absurdity and run your self quite out of Breath ; which would be very ungenteel and indecent . Only you must take care by the Way to stop in proper and convenient Places : that is to say , after two Points , a Colon , or a Semi-colon , or at least after a Comma ; for to do it otherwise , or oftner , would be a thing extremely disagreeable . Nothing is more untoward , and uncourtly than to break off in the middle of a Word or an Expression .

In fine , there 's another sort of Periods , that the Rhetoricians call Spiritus ; which have not the same Order , Scope and Composition of those Sentences that are properly called Periods , but only couch and contain a great number of Articles , simply propounded all in the same manner ; as this of the aforesaid Father again for an Example : Let your Spirit rest upon those Prelates who fear nothing but God , and Hope nothing but God : Who being sent into Provinces , go not after Gold , but follow Jesus Christ : Who do not believe their Missions to be for a Money-Bank , but seek the Fruits of their labour for God , and not Presents for themselves : Who are , a John Baptist to Kings and Princes ; a Moses to Aegyptians ; a Phineas to Fornicators ; an Elias to Idolaters ; an Elisha to Niggards ; a Peter to Liars ; a Paul to Blasphemers ; a Christ to Mercenaries and Mony-changers : Who do not despise the People , but instruct them : Who do not flatter the Rich , but rebuke them : Who do not oppress the Poor , but relieve them : Who do not dread the Men●ces of Princes , but contemn them : Who do not go into their Assemblies in Trouble , nor come out again in Anger : Who do not rob Churches , but reform them : Who do not pick People's Pockets , but comfort their Hearts and correct their Vices : Who take care of their own Reputation , and bear no Malice to another's : Who love Prayer and apply themselves to Devotion : And who , in all Affairs of the World , have more confidence in their Prayers , than in their Industry and Labour , whereby their Discourses may be Edifying ; whereby their Lives may be Just ; whereby their Presence may be Agreeable ; whereby their Memories may be Blessed : Who render themselves Amiable , not by Words but by Deeds ; and Venerable , not by Pomp or State , but by their Actions : Who are Humble with the Humble , and Innocent with the Innocent ; but rebuke the hard-hearted with boldness and severity ; who reprimand the Wicked with Authority , and who render to the Proud according to their Deserts : Who neither inrich themselves , nor their Parents , nor their Officers with the Portion of the Widow and the Patrimony of the Crucifi'd ; but who give gratis that which they received gratis , and do Right out of meer good Will to them that suffer Wrong : Who testifie , in fine , they have received the divine Spirit , as the seventy Judges did the Spirit of Moses ; who both absent and present endeavour to please you and to please God ; who return home to you now wearied , but not laden with the Spoyls of Nations ; and who do not glory in having brought away with them the most curious and pretious things of the Countries whither they were sent , but in leaving behind them Peace to Kingdoms , Laws to Barbarians , Quiet to Monasteries , Order to Churches , Discipline to the Clergy and a People Just to God . In such Periods as those , you are upon no force at all to strein your Lungs ; for you may take your Breath as often as you shall have occasion , and make an equal pause at every Article they contain ; there being no manner of Reason why you should not make a stop upon one as well as another . So much for what concerns the Breath and its Pauses ; when and where it is to be taken upon all sorts of Periods . As for what remains to be said of it , I think the Orator would do well to observe the following Rules .

You must not distinguish the parts of a Period , as if there were more Periods then one in a Sentence ; and yet you must make some Distinction too , that the Auditor may more easily discover the several Clauses of it one from another : But this is to be done especially , when the Period is longer than ordinary ; otherwise the Mind and the Memory of those that hear you , and perhaps your own faculties too , would be confounded : and the Period , tho' never so well turned , would perplex the Pronunciation and appear embarassed by the length of it . However when there are several Clauses in a Sentence , and every one of them requires a peculiar distinction for some reason or other , you would do well to distinguish them by the Pronunciation , but without taking your Breath for all that ; except there be so many of 'em , that one single Respiration cannot serve all their Turns , nor reach the end of the whole Period . Cicero without doubt observed that upon this Period of his Oration for the Manilian Law . What a shameful thing 't is , Sirs , that he who Massacred such a vast Number of our Citizens in one Day throughout all Asia , in so many Cities there , at a Word's Warning and upon one single Dispatch ; has not only not condign'd Punishmennt yet for so barbarous a Crime , but has reigned now three and twenty Years since that Butchery : and reigned too with so much Insolence , that he neither lurks for it in the Kingdom of Pontus nor in the obscurity of Cappadocia ; but Hectors in the Inheritance of his Fore-fathers , braves you in your own Revenues , and appears in the open Light of all Asia .

't is proper to make a pause upon every Period , but it must be a very short one upon short ones , and a little longer upon long ones : For , over and above that it very much conduces to the better distinguishing of Periods among themselves , and does not a little assist the Understanding and the Memory of the Hearer ; it is almost incredible how it also reinforces the Lungs , the Breast and the Arteries of the Speaker : And if you do but practice this Rule you will find the benefit and advantage of it by Experience . I would advise you also to take care to begin the following Period always a degree lower than you concluded the first ; which will both contribute to the variation of your Voice and to the reinforcement of your Organs . Sometimes on the contrary , 't is better to begin it with a Tone a little higher than the Cadence of the last , according as the Orator shall best judge of the Nature and the necessity of the Subject : which will serve also to vary even the variation of the Voice it self ; for you must not do 't always on the same fashion or in the same Key .

There 's another Observation yet which I have to make here . 't is this . When you have a Period to Pronounce that requires a great contention or elevation of the Voice , you must moderate and manage your Voice with good Conduct upon those Periods that precede it ; lest by employing the whole force of it upon those , you be spent and constrained at last to pronounce this languidly , which requires more of vigour , vehemency and effort . 't is this Government that Roscius and Esopus , two of the famousest Actors the Romans ever had , very well observed ; as Tully takes notice in his third Book of the Orator . For Roscius did not rehearse these Verses .

The brave Warrior's noble Choice and Shield , Is Honour , not the Booty of the Field .

with all the vehemence of Action and Gesturo , that he might have done ; but altogether simply , with moderation and conduct , to the end that falling immediately upon this exclamatory Period ; What is 't I see ! he comes Arm'd , Even into our very Temples ! he might act it more earnestly , represent it more strongly , and accent it with greater Admiration and Astonishment . And Esopus did not pronounce these Words , Where shall I find Relief ? Or whither shall I fly ? with all the contention of Voice and Accent within the compass of his Power ; but softly or languidly , and without any immoderate Action at all ; having a regard all the while to what immediately follows ; But , O Father , O Country , O House of Priam ! which he could not have spoken with all necessary Exclamation , if he had already spent himself and as it were exhausted his Voice beforehand upon a former Emotion and Violence . Thus Painters represent some Parts of a Piece with Shades and Distances , to set-off others with greater light and advantage and to make them bear so Masterly , that one would almost swear they stood out of the Picture and have Life .

From Periods and perfect Sentences , I come now to Words . First , you must observe to pronounce them according to common custom and the ordinary Conversation of those that speak well . In every Country or Province , there are certain vicious Pronunciations and Dialects , that are peculiar to particular People ; either for the quantity of Syllables , as we find where they pronounce the first Syllable of VALET , of HABIT , of PAPIER , long , and the first of Teste , of Paste , &c. short ; or , for the sound of Vowels , as there are some People make use of an e Open , or Neuter , instead of an e Shut and Masculine , in the Words MERE , PERE , FRERE ; or , for the Elision of an e , where it ought not to be left-out , as there are some say PARL'IL , instead of PARLE-T-IL ; or , for the Addition of an e at the beginning of a Word , where it ought not to be us'd , as there are some Places where they both say and write L' ESPLENDEUR , L' ESCANDALE , L' ESPHERE ; or , for the s which some People insert where it ought not to be inserted , writing and pronouncing CONSTRAINDRE for CONTRAINDRE ; and which they omit again where it ought not to be omitted , as in JUSQUES and PRESQUE , pronouncing them JUQUE and PREQUE ; or , for the Letter h , which some do not pronounce with an Aspiration , where it ought to be pronounced harshly ; as they that say L' HAZZARD , L' HARANGUE , L' HALEBARDE . There are also many more Corruptions crept into vulgar Heads , and talkt into custom among the common People in City as well as Country ; not excepting even that where the Court is kept : For you shall meet with a false Pronunciation now a days at Paris , as well as you might have done formerly at Athens . But a Man that speaks in Publick ought carefully to avoid all those faults abovemention'd , for fear of being laugh'd at and treated with the contempt of a fleering Auditory ; which was the Sophister Pausanias's Misfortune , of whom Philiscus writes that he spake coarsely , and pronounced his Words very gross and corrupt ; making long Syllables short , and short ones long : for though he was an eloquent Person in all other respects , a ready Wit , and famous for speaking off Hand ; he was compared yet for his unhandsome Pronunciation , to a Cook that could not dress good Meat well when he had it in his Hands , and made but a very bad Dish of the best in the Market . For this purpose ; he must converse as much as possible with Persons that speak better than himself ; observe their Pronunciation so nicely as to make it his own ; and not only not be asham'd to ask their advice , upon a doubt , how to pronounce such and such Words ; but desire them also to set him right at every turn , if he chance to blunder and be out in the Pronunciation of other Words , where he makes no scruple at all : so that by little and little he may polish his Speech to that perfection at last in good Conversation and Private Discourse , that not a Word which drops from his Mouth shall fall into Contempt or disoblige his Hearers in Publick .

My next Observation is this ; that he must pronounce emphatical Words with an emphasis and a distinction : Whether it be to affirm strongly ; as , certainly , assuredly , infallibly , undoubtedly , necessarily , absolutely , expressly , manifestly , are Words of a very strong and positive Pronunciation : or , to Praise and Extol ; as , admirable , incredible , incomparable , ineffable , inestimable , glorious , glittering , pompous , triumphant , illustrious , heroick , august , majestick , adorable , are terms of Honour that must be pronounced with a magnificent Tone : or to dispraise and detest ; as cruel , heinous , wicked , detestable , abominable , execrable , monstrous , which are all to be pronounced with a most Passionate and loud Voyce : or , to complain and lament ; as , unfortunate , miserable , fatal , mournful , pitiful , deplorable , lamentable , are all sorrowful Words and require a melancholy Accent . He must also lay more stress upon Words of Quantity ; as , grand , high , sublime , profound , long , large , innumerable , eternal ; as well as upon Words of Universality ; as all the World , generally , every where , always , never : Here the Pronunciation must be pois'd to a certain gravity and height of Accent . As for those terms of extenuation and slight ; as , pittiful , insignificant , little , low , mean , despicable , feeble , he must pronounce 'em with a very low , lessening , abject Voyce , and an Accent of the greatest scorn and disdain . For the purpose : If a Divine a Preaching , should bring-in a Soul labouring under the sense of many great Infirmities , and saying : When I search'd into the Faith of my Heart , I found it so weak , so imperfect , so languishing , &c. To speak that Resentment with an elevated Tone or any great Contention of the Voyce , would be a ridiculous Pronunciation , and contrary to the very Nature of things , as well as the Rules of Sence , Reason and Reflection . For those Words of weak , imperfect , languishing , require a doleful Accent , an Accent of Moan , and a low as well as a slow Voyce . This Distinction of the Pronunciation , besides that it is more agreeable to the things signified by such Words , will serve over and above for the variation of the Voyce , which the Orator must always make it his Business to observe .

To conclude this Discourse : I shall add , that you must keep-up your Voyce still to an audible height upon the Pronunciation of the last Words of the Period ; so that they may be as well , not to say better heard than the rest : But this is to be done chiefly , when those final Words are composed of Syllables that make but a weak and a dull Sound of themselves . For if your Period were to conclude with these Words , une splendeur éclatante et incomparable ; though you should not raise your Voyce upon 'em , nor make 'em ring half so loud a peal as you might in the Ears of your Auditors , they would not fail yet of being heard well enough for all that , because of the great and strong Sound which the Letters a and o make of themselves in that expression . But if your Sentence were to end with these Words , Ce n'est q'une figure , une type , & une similitude ; and you should pronounce 'em faintly , they would die in your own Mouth and never reach the Ear of your nearest Auditor under your Nose , because the Letters e , i , and u have so little of Sound in themselves , and appear very low and flat off the Lip . This Praecept upon the Pronunciation of the last Words of Sentences ought to be as much taken notice of and practic'd as any other ; for most of our Publick Orators now a days commonly fail in this Point .

CHAP. XII . Of Gesture , in General .

't is Time now to come to Gesture , which is of no little importance and advantage to a Man that speaks in Publick ; for it qualifies the Orator to convey the Thoughts and the Passions of his Mind to his Auditors with greater force and delight ; their Senses being far more effectually wrought upon by Pronunciation and Gesture TOGETHER , than by Pronunciation ALONE . For this reason , when a Man is Hearing a Sermon , he desires mightily to see the Face of the Preacher ; and if his Pew deprive him of that Happiness , he goes Home with less Satisfaction , let it be never so well spoken . However , these two things are not less important , the one than the other ; and as both faculties joyn'd together express a Thought to perfection , so either of them apart do not fail of expressing it as well too , though with less Power and Vigour . For if it is by Speech alone we converse with the Blind , 't is by Gesture alone that we can converse also with the Deaf ; and without this Faculty , we should have no Commerce or Conversation at all with ' em . Besides Gesture has this advantage above Pronunciation ; that , by Speech we are only understood by People of our own Country and Lingua ; but by Gesture , we render our Thoughts and our Passions intelligible to all Nations , indifferently , under the Sun. 't is as it were the common Language of all Mankind , which strikes the Understanding in at our Eyes as much as Speaking does in at our Ears . And no wonder things of Movement and Action should touch us so sensibly ; since Painting which has nothing of it , penetrates so far into our Affections , and imprints so strongly , that it sometimes surpasses the very force of Words . Speaking alone does the main Work in the Minds of those that understand it ; but when it is destitute of Gesture , which is the Life of all Speech , ( as Asconius says ) it makes but a Dispassionate and a Dead Discourse . For this reason , Pliny Junior mentioning the Recitations which People in his Days made of their Orations and Poems to their Friends , either in reading 'em themselves or in having them read by others ; says , that this Reading of them was a mighty disadvantage to their Eloquence and Character , because the main helps of Pronunciation , the Eyes and the Hands were hinder'd by 't ; and that it was no wonder if the Attention of their Auditors droop'd upon it . But on the contrary , when the Discourse is help'd-on and enforced , not only with a Pronunciation suitable to the Subject , but with an agreeable and powerful Gesture , it appears truly animated to a wonderful degree of Life and Vigour : For then the Orator holds his Auditor ( as it were ) by the Eyes as well as by the Ears and absolutely engages both his Attention and his Reason at once : And if he speaks thus to an Adversary not so well qualified , he dashes him out of Countenance , he confounds him with fear , and overcomes him with shame . Cicero discountenanced Cecilius with this Reflexion , when he would have Pleaded against Hortensius in the Accusation of Verres , and his Ambition carried him beyond his Capacity : Consider on 't ( said he to him ) and weigh the thing well ; for in my Opinion you are in great Danger , not only to be baffled by his Words and his Pronunciation , but to have your Eyes dazzled too by his Gesture and the Motions of his Body ; lest he should disorder all your Thoughts , amuse you and make you forget whatever you had to say . And when Cicero again represents the matter in his Books of the Orator , how Crassus baffled and fool'd Brutus once at the Barr , when he was a pleading against him ; he says , that he pronounced his Words after such a manner that they put him quite out of Countenance ; with an Eye so stedfastly fix'd upon him ; making-up all his Gesture against him , and confronting him at every turn , as if he would have swallowed him up at a Look , or in a Breath . But that this silent Language of your Face and your Hands may be well understood and move the Affections of those that see and hear you ; it must be well adjusted to the Thing you speak of as well as agreeable to your Thought and Design : besides that it is always to resemble the Passion you have a Mind either to express or to excite . For if you should speak of sad things with a brisk Look and pronounce sorrow with a gay Countenance ; or if you should affirm any thing with the Gesture of a Man that were denying it , 't would take away all Authority and Credit from your Words : No Body would believe or admire you . You must also have a care there be nothing affected in your Gesture ; for , generally speaking , all Affectation is odious : but it must appear purely Natural , as the very Birth and Result both of the things you express and of the Affection that moves you to speak them . In fine , the Orator must manage his Gesture so nicely , that there may be nothing , if possible , in all the Dispositions and Motions of his Body , which may offend the Eyes of the Spectators ; as well as take care that his Pronunciation have nothing in it , which may grate and disoblige the Ears of the Hearers : Otherwise , his Presence will be less agreeable to his Audience , and his Speech it self will not have all that Grace , Virtue and Influence which it ought to have .

But the Business of Gesture is far more difficult to observe than that of Pronunciation ; for a Man may hear his own Voyce well enough when he cannot see his Face at all : and as for the other Parts of his Body , he can but see them imperfectly , how they move and keep-up to the Rules of good Action . This made Demosthenes betake himself to speak his Harangues and his Pleadings before a great Looking-Glass , that he might observe his Gestures the better , and be able to distinguish betwixt Right and wrong , decent and indecent Actions . This method , I think , might be practic'd to purpose . There 's only this disadvantage in the Glass , that it always represents on the left what is on the right , and on the right what 's on the left ; so that when you make a motion with the right Hand , you have the reflexion of it as if it were made with the left ; which confounds the Gesture and appears a little untoward : So that if to adjust your self to the Glass , you make a motion with the left , 't is true , it reflects the Gestu●e as if it were made with the right ; but then you may chance to get an ill Habit by so doing , which of all things you ought to avoid . However , this inconvenience is abundantly made up to you in the advantage it gives you of seeing not only your Face in all its Countenances , but the state of your whole Body too in all its Postures and Motions : so that you may easily discover by it any thing that is unhandsome and disagreeable , either in your Habit or your Gesture ; and any Action again , on the contrary , that adds grace to your Person and force to your Discourse . But for want of a Looking-Glass , you should get some of your Friends to do you this good Office ; such an one , I mean , as is capable of judging whether your Gesture be good or not , upon Tryal and frequent Practice . But the most effectual way in the World for a Gentleman to make himself Master of this A●t , is to have some excellent Pattern or other of it always if possible , before his Eyes ; as Hortensius was for Example . He excell'd so much in this mute Eloquence , that two of the famousest Comedians in his time , Esopus and Roscius , always made it their Business to find him out where he Pleaded , and never fail'd of attending upon his Harangues , on purpose to improve themselves ; to carry away his fine Gestures with them , and to practice afterwards upon the Stage what they had learn'd of him at the Barr.

CHAP. XIII . Particular Rules for Gesture .

TO give the World some particular Rules of Gesture , I shall in the first place speak of the Government , the Order and Ballance that the whole Body ought to be kept-up to ; and in the next , how the Head , the Eyes , the Eye-brows and all the Face must be mov'd and manag'd ; and at last I shall come to the Action of the Hands ; of which there is more to be said , then of all the other Parts of the Body put together .

As for the whole Body , it ought neither to change Place nor Posture every moment . This fickle Agitation would be as indecent as the Gesture of Curion , whom Junius compared to a Man at Sea in a Cock-boat , for tossing his Body about continually , sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left , with the greatest inconstancy imaginable : But then , on the other hand , it must neither stand like a Stock , nor be as immoveable as a May-pole ; for over and above that this is not Natural ; God Almighty having made the Body of such a moveable Meen and of such Members as dispose it for Motion , that it ought to move sometimes , either as the Soul directs or as the Body it self requires ; It is also disagreeable and ungenteel for want of Variety ; which becomes it so well upon every occasion or change of Discourse , and sets every thing-off to admiration .

As to the Head , 't is needless to tell you here what Gestures and Signs , what intimations and hints it is capable of making ; as of refusing , granting , confirming , admiring , of being angry , &c. because every Body knows this well enough already : So that I shall only advance two things upon the whole . The one is , that the Head ought not to be held-up too high and stretched-out extravagantly , which would be a mark of A●rogancy or Haughtiness ; nor to be cast down and hang upon the Breast , which would prejudice the voyce mightily and make it less clear , distinct and intelligible ; nor to lean always towards the Shoulders , which would argue an ind●fferency , a languor and a faint inclination : But it is always to be kept modestly upright to it 's Natural State and Position , which is best . The other observation I make on 't , is this ; that it is not handsome for the Head to continue always as immoveable as that of a Statue or a Gentl●man in Tapestry : and yet , on the other hand , it must not be moving continually neither , nor throwing it self about at every turn of Expression , when the Orator advances up to the height of a Discourse ; which is too common an Error . But to avoid both those awkward Extraemes , it must turn softly upon the Neck , when there 's occasion for 't ; as the Nature of the thing requires : not only to look upon those that are directly before your Eyes in the middle of an Assembly , but also to cast a Countenance now and then as well upon those that are on each Hand of you ; sometimes on one side , and sometimes on the other : And after that , to hold it again in such a decent Posture as your Voyce may be most easily heard by the greatest Part of your Auditors ; that is to say , looking streight forward to the middle of the Auditory . To this I must add that the Head ought always to be turn'd on the same side with the other Actions of the Body , save only when they are exerted upon things we refuse : As for instance , when the Poet says ; I think my self not worthy of such Praise . Or , upon things we detest and abhorr ; as when he says again ; Good Gods ! divert from Us so great a Plague . For these things we must reject with an Action of the right Hand and turn the Head away at the same time to the left . But of all the Parts of the Head , 't is the Face that gives the greatest Life and the best grace to Action . This was the reason , why the Ancients , as Crassus observes in Cicero , did not commend Roscius when he spake with a Mask-on ; because they did not see his Face then , nor it 's Motions , it 's Charms and it 's Attractions . So that you must take the greatest care imaginable of your Countenance , that nothing may appear disagreeable in it ; for 't is the Part most expos'd and in view , and your Auditors have their Eyes , if possible , continually fix'd upon 't . But as it mightily concerns you whenever you are actually a● speaking , you must likewise make it your Bus'ness before you come to Speak . There 's not the least Imperfection , Irregularity or Error in it , be it never so little ; but 't is immediately taken notice of at first sight by every Body there save Your self ; for you do not see your own Face when every Body else does . And there is nothing can prevent this but the Looking-Glass or a Friend that will carefully observe your Countenance and frankly tell you what Face soever he finds offensive or disagreeable to the Eye : So that you may easily correct it afterwards either of your self , or upon his Advice and Assistance . But you ought still to adjust all it 's Movements and Countenances , upon the Address , to the Subjects you treat of , the Passion you entertain in your own Bosom or would raise in other People's Breasts , and the Quality of the Persons to whom you speak ; so as to shew a Gaiety upon things agreeable and upon Affections of Love and Joy ; a sadness upon Melancholy Affairs and Passions of Hatred and Grief ; a Mildness upon Consolation , and a Severity upon Censure and Reprehension ; a Gravity and an Authority in speaking to little People or your Inferiors ; but Submission , Humility and Respect to your Betters .

As for your Eyes , you must always be casting them upon some or other of your Auditors and rolling them gently about from this side to that , with an Air of Regard sometimes upon one Person and sometimes upon another ; and not fix 'em like Darts that are once shot , still upon one Place of your Auditory , as many People do to their great Disadvantage : For it is so very disagreeable and dull , that it affects the Persons before whom we speak , much less then when we look them decently in the Face , as we use to do in familiar and common Conversation . Theophrastus had good Reason upon this account , for blaming an Actor call'd Tamarisque , that used to turn his Eyes away from his Auditors , whenever he spake in the Scene , and kept them fixt all the while upon one single and insensible Object . Your Aspect must always be Pleasant , and your Looks Direct ; neither severe nor a-skew ; unless perhaps the Passion you would either express or move , require the contrary . Nature it self teaches you as much , and produces this effect , whensoever you are sensibly smitten with such Passions : For Example , when a Man speaks in Anger his Imagination is enflam'd and kindles a certain Fire in his Eyes , that makes 'em sparkle like Stars out of his Eye-lids ; so that a meer Stranger that understood nothing of his Language , or a Deaf Man that could hear nothing of his Voyce , would not fail yet of perceiving his Indignation and Fury : And this Fire of your Eyes easily strikes those of your Auditors , who have theirs constantly fixt upon yours ; and it must needs set them a-blaze too upon the same Resentment and Passion . There 's the same Power in all other Passions . For if you are afflicted with a violent Grief for your own Misfortunes , or touch'd with a great Compassion of another Man's Misery , 't will draw Tears from your Eyes . This made the Ancient Actors apply themselves with so much Care and Concern to the acquiring a faculty of moving their Imagination to a Power of Weeping and shedding Tears in abundance upon occasion : And they succeeded so admirably well in 't , wrought the Counterfeit up to such a degree , that their Faces used to be all over blurr'd with Crying after they came off the Stage . They brought this point of a Passionate Tenderness to perfection several ways ; but the most effectual was this . They kept their Imagination still at work upon real Subjects and private Afflictions of their own , which they lay very much to Hear● ; and not upon the Fables or F●ctions of the Play they acted , which did not touch them at all in effect . We have two notable Instance ; of this in Story . The one , of that great Comedian Polus . He had not been upon the Stage , it seems for some time ; upon the Death of one of his Sons that he lov'd dearly ; which troubled him so much ; that what with the Melancholy of his Temper upon the Disappointment of his Affection and the Loss of his Darling , he could hardly ever reconcile himself again to Diversion or the Theatre : But he appeared there at last however , upon Acting the Electra of Sophocles , and his Part was the Person of Electra her self , carrying the Urn and the Bones of her poor Brother Orestes in the Play . To do this more effectually to the Life , away he goes to his own Child's Grave ; takes up his Urn and his Ashes , and brings them in his Arms upon the Stage instead of ORESTES's Counterfeit . Upon this , his Imagination was so mov'd and his Heart so melted into Compassion and Tenderness at the sight of a real Object of Sorrow , that he brake out into loud Exclamations and unfeigned Tears in the Tragedy , upon the Fiction and Fate of Orestes , and filled the whole Theatre with Affliction , Lamentation and Weeping . The other Example is of that excellent Actor ESOPUS ; who having a mighty Affection and Zeal for Cicero ; and being extremely concern'd at his Banishment , the Troubles of his Family , and other Disgraces that he lay under , he did him a signal favour once and a singular piece of good Service by the power of this tender Passion . For when he saw all the Friends of that great Man at work upon the People of Rome with their utmost Intercessions to get him Recall'd , he resolv'd to engage himself in it ; to give it a lift on his part , and to strike a considerable Blow in the Affair . Upon this , he acts a Tragedy of Accius , on a Publick Occasion , which contained the fine Verses upon Telamon's Exile , and the horrible Calamities of Priam and his Family , which are related in Tully's Tusculan Questions and in his Oration for Sextius : But in those Verses you must think , his Imagination was not half so much struck with the false Misfortunes of the Persons in the old Fable , as with the Miseries that were too true and the real sufferings of his Friend . Insomuch that the Acting of them transported him to so great a Passion and Grief , that he spake them upon the Stage , not only with a very mournful Voyce , but with Eyes also bath'd in Tears , which set all indifferent Persons that were present there a-weeping bitterly , and even made his Enemies blush with Tears in their Eyes at his Affliction . And this went a great way towards the melting of the Hearts of People and the reconciling of their Affections ; towards the bringing of him Home again and the reinstating of him in his former Dignity , Reputation and Character ; as Cicero himself tells us with the thankfullest Acknowledgments of the good Office , which that famous Actor , his Great and his Cordial Friend , had done him upon this occasion .

Now if this Tenderness of the Eyes or the faculty of weeping at discretion , be of such influence and advantage in the Theatre , where People go only for Diversion and Spectacle ; how much more in the Church then , where the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls , two things of the greatest importance and moment in the world , are your main business , and ought to touch Men in the most sensible part ? And what Power think ye the Tears of St. Paul , wept upon his Exhortations to the Ephesians , might have over the Congregation ? Which he told their Pastors of , in words to this Effect , as you 'll find in the Acts of the Holy Apostles : Remember that for the space of three years , I have not ceased to warn every one of you night and day with my Tears : Remember the many Exhortations I have made you , and the many Tears I have shed for you . The Orator therefore ought first of all to form in himself a strong Idea of the Subject of his Passion ; and the Passion it self will then certainly follow in course ; ferment immediately into the Eyes , and affect both the Sense and the Understanding of his Spectators with the same Tenderness . Passions are wonderfully convey'd from one person's Eyes to another's ; the Tears of the one melting the Heart of the other , and making a visible sympathy between their Imaginations and Aspects . For the purpose ; if we do but look at a Man that has Sore Eyes , we very often feel something of it in our own ; if the same soreness be not catching too . And this puts me in mind of one of the famousest Preachers of the Age he liv'd in : As he was declaming one day in a Great Congregation against the growing vices of his Parish , and shewing the people all the miseries which God would send among them upon the account of their Iniquities , he made this Inference once for all ; And , in fine , God will forsake us . Upon this , he fell a weeping bitterly ; and brake out into this following Expostulation , with a most Feeling and Pittyful Voyce : And if thou forsake us , Good God! what will become of Us ? Which Passionate Rapture overcame all his Hearers to the same Christian Tenderness and Tears , if not also to a better sense of their Duty ; so mightily were they mov'd with the Tone and the Gesture that accompanyed those Languishing Expressions .

As to the lifting-up or casting-down of your Eyes , 't is plain you must do 't according to the Nature of the things you speake of : For if you speak of Heaven and Coelestial Powers , you ought without doubt to lift up your Eyes towards Heaven ; but if you speak of the Earth and Terrestrial things , you must cast 'em down upon the Ground . To do otherwise would be a gross Soloecism ( as one may say ) of the Eyes ; and such an Absurdity as that ancient Sophister was guilty of ; who , Philostratus tells us , when he said , O Jupiter ! cast-down his Eyes to the Ground ; and when he said , O Earth ! lift-up his Eyes towards Heaven . You must also govern your Eyes according to the Passions , so as to cast 'em down upon things of Disgrace , which you are asham'd of ; and to raise 'em again upon things of Honour , which you can glory in with Confidence and Credit . But it is more particularly necessary in Swearing , to turn up your Eyes towards that by which you Swear , and to lift the Hand up in the same Action .

Your Eye-brows must neither be altogether immoveable , on the one hand , nor fickle or too full of Motion , on the other : And you must not raise them both up at every turn , as many People do upon any thing they speak with eagerness and contention ; nor lift-up the one and cast down the other , as Piso did , whom Cicero reprov'd for raising one of his Eye-brows up as high as his Forehead , and hanging the other down to his Chin . But for the most part they ought to remain in the same Posture and Equality that Nature has given them . However , they are allowed yet to move sometimes ; and 't is fit they should , when the Passions require it : That is to say ; to contract themselves and frown in Sorrow ; to dilate again and smooth themselves in Joy ; and to hang-down whenever the Orator shews his Humility and Modesty upon a matter of Discourse .

As for the Mouth , you must never wry it at all ; for that 's very disagreeable . And therefore it was said once to Sestius Pinarius formerly in Rallery and Banter , who used to wry his Chin always in speaking , as if he had got a Wall-nut in his Mouth to crack ; Crack that Wall-nut first , and then say what you have a mind to say .

As for your Lips , you must take care not to bite 'em , nor to lick 'em with your Tongue ; as I have seen some People do sometimes : Which is very Ungenteel and Unmannerly in an Orator .

As to the Shoulders , there are some that shrug 'em up at every Expression ; as those Graecian Witnesses , Cicero derided in his Oration for Rabirius Posthumus , who made all their Gestures with the Shoulders . 't is a very unbecoming Vice , and you ought to shun it as a Disgrace . Demosthenes was at first addicted to it : But he soon corrected it by exercicing himself to declame in a strait Place , with a piece of a Dart or a Dagger hung up just over his Shoulders ; so that as often as he shrugg'd them up ( as it was difficult for him not to do 't sometimes , having gotten an ill Habit on 't ) the Point prick'd him , and put him in mind of his Error : Upon which , at last , he master'd the Imperfection .

There are others , that in speaking , thrust out the Belly , and throw back the Head ; which the Antients had good reason to condemn for an ind●cency and an ill Gesture . Others again lean the Elbow upon the Pulpit , and make what Gestures they think fit with the Hand , rested in this manner , and raised upon the Elbow ; which is neither commendable nor decent .

As to the Hands now , they are the chief Instruments of Action , and they can vary it as many ways too as there are Things , which they are capable of signifying . For we make use of them in Accusing , Acquitting , Promising , Threatening , Intreating , Admiring or Swearing ; and in representing almost all the things we speak of in the World ; which require so many different Actions of the Hands : So that Quintilian says very well , the other Parts of the Body help him mightily that speaks ; but the Hands , as it were , speak themselves . And Martial , instead of saying Tout le Geste , every Gesture , says Toute le Main , every Hand ; as if Gesture were nothing else but the Movement and Action of the Hands . But the main thing however is to move them well , and with a good Grace . These following Rules will be of some service to that purpose .

First , You must make use of no Action at all in the beginning of a Discourse , or at least shew no considerable Gesture , as soon as ever your Mouth is open ; unless it be upon an Exordium , EXABRUPTO , as they call it ; An Abrupt starting of a Discourse , as in that Harangue of Ajax against Ulysses upon the Subject of Achilles's Armour .

With wrath impatient his stern Eyes survey Sigaeum , and the Navy which there lay : Then holding up his Hands , O Jove ! he said ; Before the Fleet must We our Title plead ? And is Ulysses my Competitor ? Whose flightful Fear did Hector's Flames abhorr . Those I sustaind'd ; from those this Navy free'd . Sandys .

This extension of the Hands there , toward the Port , was without doubt very proper and pertinent as well as necessary : but it had been a vicious and impertinent stretch , without such an abrupt Exclamation . For , as we said before upon the Subject of Pronunciation , common Exordium's ought to be spoken mildly and without any Motion . 2dly , You must never clap your Hands , nor thump the Pulpit , nor beat your Breast ; for that smells of the Juggler and the Mountebank , and 't is good for nothing . 3dly , You must make all your Gestures with the right Hand ; and if you ever use the left , let it only be to accompany the other , and never lift it up so high as the right . But to use an Action with the left Hand alone , is a thing you must avoid for its indecency . The only exception to this Rule will be in Places , where you speak of the right Hand and the left by Name ; as if you chance to discourse of the seperation , which the Sovereign Judge of the World will make between the good and the bad in the last Day of Judgement , placing the Just on his right Hand and the Wicked on his left : There 't is not only allowable , but necessary to adjust your Gestures according to that Distinction ; making one of them with the right Hand alone , and the other with the left alone . And so when Jesus Christ commands the faithful Servant to cut-off his right Hand , if it offend him ; I would represent that Action , if 't were my Business , with the Gesture of the left , because there 's no other to do 't ; for the right Hand cannot cut-off it self . 4thly , The right Hand applies it self very pertinently to the Breast , when the Orator speaks of himself , and declares his own Faculties and Passions ; his Heart , his Soul , or his Conscience : I say barely , applies it self ; for it must be done only by laying the Hand gently upon it , and not by beating on 't , as some People do . You must every where avoid making use of the left Hand alone . But there are some Men naturally left-Handed , and 't is impossible for them to forbear using the left Hand sometimes , because they have been accustomed to it from their Infancy . In this case , I cannot advise 'em better , towards the covering of the Imperfection , if they cannot break off the Habit , than to make all their Action with both Hands together ; for then they 'll not offend the Eyes of the Spectators with the left Hand alone ; which can make no motion of it self , but what is unhandsome and disagreeable . 5thly , Your Gesture must pass from the left to the right , and end at the right too ; not as it were in striking with the the Hand , upon a stretch of Violence ; but in laying of it handsomely down with Gentleness and Moderation . 6thly , You must begin your Action with your Speech , and end it with it again ; for it would be ridiculous either to begin your Gestures , before you had opened your Mouth , or to continue them after you had done Speaking . 7thly , The Movement of your Hands must always answer the Nature of the things you speak of ; For to say , Attirer to come in , stretching-out the Hand ; Repousser to go back , pulling your Hand at you ; Separer to separate , joyning your Hands together ; Joyndre to joyn , separating them ; Serrer to close , opening them ; Ouvrir to open , closing them ; Hausser to raise , hanging them down ; Baisser to cast down , holding them up ; would be against the Nature of things and against Reason , and would expose you to the Laughter and Derision of your Hearers . 8thly , Upon all great Great Motions , the Action of the Hands is particularly necessary , to answer the Heat and Passion of the Figures that are made use of in a Discourse . For Example , in this Apostrophe which a famous Lawyer made when he was Pleading to the Princes of the Blood of France : You Noble and Generous Princes , Children of such a Father ! how comes it that you do not strangle those Impostors with your own Hands , who would fix upon your Foreheads the most Ugly and Infamous Blot that can be imagin'd in the World ? And who does not see here what Action of the Hands ought to accompany the Pronunciation of these Words , that you do not strangle with your own Hands , to give the Figure all the force , vigour and efficacy that it ought to have ? 9thly , If you lift-up the Hand , it ought not to be higher than the Eyes , and but very little lower : Whereas there are some that raise it extravagantly up to the Sky , as if they threatened the Stars . The same Proportion ought to be observed in holding the Hand down ; and you must have a care also of doing as some People do , when they are Preaching in a Pulpit ; who hang down their right Hand now and then as if it were Dead ; which is extremely disagreeable to the Eye and dispassionate to the Fancy . 10thly , In fine , your Eyes must always have your Hands within view : They must always be within compass of your Head , and lash-out as little as possible , either over or under , higher or lower than the Eyes : So that they whom you speak to upon an Address , may see your Mouth , your Eyes and your Hands concurring all together , every one in its own way , to signifie the same thing ; which will make a deeper and more agreeable impression both upon their Senses and their Understandings . 11thly , You ought not to stretch-out your Arms , sideways , farther than half a Foot at most from the Trunk of your Body : Or , else you will throw-your Gesture quite out of sight , unless you turn your Head aside to see it ; which would be very ridiculous . 12thly , You must raise your Hand in Swearing ; and God himself , when he speaks to Men with an Oath , whether in his Promises or his Menaces , says in several Places of his Speech , that he lifts up his Hand : That is to say ; he Swears , that he will either bless them in his Mercy or punish them in his Anger . The same thing is to be done upon an Exclamation ; so that the Gesture may answer the Pronunciation , and both of 'em may be adjusted to the Nature of the Thing . 13thly , You must not make use of Action every where . For as the Hands ought not to be idle , on one side ; so 't is impertinent on the other , to keep them in perpetual motion . This would run you foul upon that vice which the Antients have call'd the babbling of the Hands : And it would be below the Gravity , Character and Quality of an Orator , to turn Mimick in an Audience , or to do as those old PANTOMIMES of the Graecians and the Romans did , who signified every thing by their Antick Gesti●ulations and Apish Gestures without ever speaking a Word . 14thly , There are some Actions which you must never attempt to represent with your Hands , nor put your self in the Posture of those that make use of 'em ; as of Fencing , of bending a Bow , of presenting a Musquet , of playing upon an Instrument of Musick , as if you had the Spinette or Virginals under your Fingers , or a Harp in your Hands . 15thly , You must take great care to avoid imitating those Actions which are Base , Filthy and Dishonest , by any Gesture of the Hands or Movement of the Body ; as in making a Description of the Debaucheries and Impurities of a Mark Antony , a Verres , or any other lewd Person . 16thly , As for other Actions which you can represent with Decency and good Manners , your Gesture ought to be very moderate and modest ; not bold , vast and extensive , nor indeed too frequent neither , which would make such a violent Agitation of the Arms and the Hands as would not become an Orator , and as if he were chasing away Flies . This was Curion's fault , who being mightily agitated once in his Discourse , as Quintilian relates , with his Collegue● Octavius at his Elbow , all plaister'd over with Medicaments , and bound-up because of his Gouts and his Sores : Sicinius jeer'd him for his Gesticulations , saying thus in rallery to Octavius . You can never sufficiently acknowledge the Obligation you lay under to your Collegue Curion ; for if he had not been here , the Flies would have eaten you up now upon the spot . 17thly , When you make use of a Prosopopoeia , and a Person is brought in a speaking , you must take care of making use of any Gestures that would not be proper for Him to use , and agreeable to the State and Condition , in which you represent Him a speaking : as if you were to represent Jesus Christ upon the Cross , with his Hands nail'd to 't , a-crying ; My God , my God! why hast thou forsaken me ? or , Father ! forgive them , for they know not what they do . You must not clap your Hands together upon the Exclamation , nor lift them up towards Heaven : Or , in reciting those words which he spake to his blessed Mother at that time , Woman ! behold thy Son ; you are not to make him pronounce them , as if he pointed at St. John with his Finger . One would think that common Sense might teach every Man this Faculty well enough , without ever having an occasion to be told on 't , or advis'd about it . But I thought 't would not be labour lost however , to say something of it , because you are so apt , I know , in speaking of praying to God , to clap your Hands together : or , in shewing a Person , to point at him with your Finger : And there was some danger lest you might have done it also upon this occasion as well as another , without ever thinking how improper it is , if you had not been expressly praecautioned against it here by the posture of the Crucifixion .

As to the parts of the Hand ; and whether it be convenient or proper to reckon the several Members of a Division upon the Fingers , all Men are not of the same opinion . It was an Action very familiar to Hortensius , and Cicero seems to rally it in some Places . For my own part , as I do not think it very necessary on the one Hand , so I find nothing discommendable or unbecoming in it on the other . I say nothing here of that Gesture of the Hands , which was so common among the Antients upon a great Affliction or Grief ; as , beating sometimes the Head , sometimes the Brow , sometimes the Breast , and sometimes the Thigh , because 't is a thing quite out of Use and Fashion in this Age . I do not touch upon those Praecepts neither , which they have advanced upon the Motions of the Feet , and the Knees , or about the Orator's Gate ; because they harangu'd then upon a Tribune , a Place built on purpose for making their Speeches upon ; where there was room enough to walk up and down several Paces , as they often did : Insomuch that Flavius Virginius ask'd a Declamer once in a Banter , whom he went to hear , and who had walk'd much in his Discourse , how many Miles he had Declam'd ? But the Speaker at this day , whether in the Pulpit or at the Barr , stands still in the same Place . And I have contented my self here with Observations and Rules of Gesture fitted only to the present Practice and Humour of the Age we live in ; where I may have omitted many things perhaps , which others have more copiously remark'd ; but I think I have taken notice of the most principal , useful and necessary ACTIONS .

CHAP. XIV . Instructions for putting all the above-mention'd Praecepts in Practice .

THere are several other things to be observed yet , either upon the different Modulations and Inflexions of the Voyce , or upon the Formation of Gestures and Motions of the Body ; and those relating to the Face and Eyes especially , which 't is wonderfully difficult , not to say impossible , to describe or to represent in Writing . You must learn those things by Practice in the Presence of a Friend ; in hearing a good Master , and speaking often before him ; so that he may set you right , whenever you are out , either in your Pronunciation or Gesture . And therefore St. Augustin , in one of his Letters to give Paulinus his Friend to understand the true Sense of a Passage of St. Paul , by the manner of pronouncing it ; excuses himself for doing it in Writing , or any otherwise than Vivâ voce . Which may very well serve us also for an Apology , that we do not undertake to explain things of that Nature more particularly in this Treatise . What I have said here , being well practic'd , will be sufficient in my opinion , to acquire a good Gesture and a laudable Pronunciation . But before I finish this little Tract , I have some general Hints to give the Reader for a conclusion ; which will be of no little Use and Advantage perhaps to an Orator .

First , I am to tell you , that the Rules of this Art , to use Cicero's own Words for 't , are far more magnificent in Practice than in Praecept . For when we teach them only , they seem flat , low and of little importance ; but being well and exactly observed , they give a wonderful Lustre and Grace to a Discourse . And this practice very often renders an indifferent Speech more handsome , persuasive and charming , than another that is abundantly fuller of Perfection in it self , but wants all the external advantages of Action . You must not therefore despise these Praecepts , although some of them seem to be light and childish , or scarce worth a sober consideration . But I must add this , that when I say the Orator ought to observe them , I do not mean , that either the Lawyer should be poring upon it , when he Pleads his Cause ; or the Divine , when he Preaches his Sermon . For he ought to think of nothing at that time but the matter in hand ; and he must not be studying any other Motions or Passions then , but use those only which arise naturally from the Subject of his Discourse , from the Place where he speaks and the Presence of the Person , to whom he addresses himself : For the very thought of Rules and the care of observing them would mightily distract and amuse him upon that Conjuncture . Besides that it would take off the Warmth and Spirit of his Discourse , perplex his Head , and disturb his Memory . For as St. Austin says in his Books of Christian Doctrine . 't is not possible for a Man to speak well , and at the same time to be thinking of the Praecepts that are laid down upon the Art of Speaking well ; and he must have great care whoever takes so much pains to speak according to Rules , lest the things which he must necessarily speak of , slip out of his Memory .

I do not mean neither , that as often as you have occasion to speak in Publick , you ought to study all the Actions which you must make use of , beforehand , in your Closet ; whether they be for the Pulpit or the Barr ; as Roscius us'd to do , who the Antients say , never exercised any Gesture before People but what he had study'd in Private . For that were impossible both for a Divine that has a number of Sermons to make , and for a Lawyer that has a great many Causes to plead : And yet if they had time for 't ; it would be but ill spent upon the Study of so trivial a Business as Action is in comparison ; instead of giving themselves up entirely to meditate upon the grave things they have to say and the important Affairs they have to manage . Their time would be mightily misemployed upon Niceties ; and the very Persons they should speak to , would neither desire it , nor expect it from them . For , as Antony has very well observed , in Cicero , the Auditors do not require the same exactness and care from an Orator , in this point , which they do from an Actor ; because when they hear an Actor in the Theatre , they do not so much mind the things that are represented there , which they know to be False and Fabulous ; but are wholly taken up with the fine way of Acting ; that is to say , either with the Elegancy and Air of his Elocution , or with the Grace of his Pronunciation and Gesture : And if he do not please their Senses , they are disgusted at him . But when they hear an Orator , they attend chiefly to serious things , and to the important points of his Discourse ; and as for his Action they are well enough satisfied , if it be but reasonable and agreeable , and do not offend either their Ears or their Eyes .

In short , all I would have a Man do that proposes to accomplish this Art of Speaking well in Publick , is only to understand these Praecepts of Action before he ventures upon 't ; to try them upon his own Pe●son and Practice them in Private , and to endeavour to get a good Habit and the Knack of Speaking by care and continual Exercice . For example , to acquire as long a Breath as possible , he must practice upon this Period of Cicero's in his Oration for the Manilian Law . What a shame 't is , Gentlemen , that he who Murder'd so many of our Citizens in one Day , over all Asia , in so many several Places there , with a Word of his Mouth , and by one single Dispatch ; has not yet suffer'd Punishment for so foul a Crime , but reign'd these three and twenty years since that horrid Massacre ; and reign'd with so much Impudence too , that he never absconds for it , either in the Kingdom of Pontus , or in the Obscurity of Cappadocia ; but braves it in the Estate of his Ancestors , and huffs you in your own Revenues , in the greatest Light of all Asia . Now it would be strangely difficult for a Man at first , to pronounce this whole Sentence all at a Breath , and I think indeed absolutely impossible too . But he may learn to speak it easily however , at three Breathings ; the first ending at , one single Dispatch ; the second at , three and twenty years since that Massacre ; and the third at , the greatest Light of all Asia . And when he can do 't thus with facility , let him try again to pronounce it at two Breathings only ; the one ending at since that Massacre , and the other at the end of the Period . If he cannot do 't yet with Ease , let him take his Breath sometimes softly , without any Bodies perceiving it , to carry him thorough the whole Sentence , and especially to keep-up his Voyce to the last . But if that be too hard for him also , to take Breath enough without discovery to answer the length of the Expression , let him Conn this Period of the same Oration by Heart . Pleasure does not tempt him out of his way , to seek after sensual Delights ; nor Avarice to make any rich Booty ; nor the Beauty of a Place to divert himself there ; nor the Fame of a City to take notice on 't ; nor the labour and lassitude of a long Journy , to refresh himself with agreeable satisfactions upon the Fatigue . And then let him endeavour to repeat it all at a Breath , over and over , till he has gained his point ; for this Exercice , as far as I can judge of it by the extent of my own Breath , will render it easy to him and make him long-winded without any great danger or difficulty .

The same Practice will teach us the variation of the Voyce too , as well as all other Things , which we have said ought to be observed towards the accomplishing of an agreeable Pronunciation : And to this purpose , I would have the young Gentleman first read and get without Book some fine Passages or other of the most excellent Orators , whether Antient or Modern ; and after that , to be repeating a Sentence sometimes over and over to himself , till he knows how to pronounce it according to Art. He must be exercicing himself upon it every day , and frequently shew it also in his common Conversation ; for he 'll never learn to speak well without Practice as well as Theory . I said expressly , some fine Passages or other ; because they will be less troublesome to get by Heart and to Repeat . The Repetition otherwise would be tedious without Delicacy . This will have another good effect too : Those illustrious Passages , with which he may stock his Memory , will serve him for so many excellent Models , in making his own Periods and polishing his Expressions . And the more Graces and Beauties he finds in them , so much the higher they 'll raise his Imitation , and the more they 'll improve his Fancy .

I would advise him also to observe these Rules of Pronunciation and Gesture in his ordinary Discourses ; as far at least as the things he speaks of will permit , until he has got an absolute Habit on 't , and it may be said that his Action is become Natural . But if he cannot acquire that of himself , without help ; he must take a Master , who both understands and teaches this Art well ; exercice and accomplish himself under his Discipline ; and take delight too in his Corrections , with submission , as often as he finds himself commit an Error against the Rules of Action , whether it be in Pronunciation or in Gesture . Besides that he ought to be careful and curious whenever he has an opportunity of hearing either any famous Advocates or any great Preachers , to observe with the utmost attention what conformity their Action keeps to these Rules , and what makes them merit the Applause of their Auditors , upon their Harangues . He ought to put himself afterwards upon imitating them at home , and to make their Graces his own at last in Publick . For as St. Augustin says , Eloquence imprints it self far more easily upon the Minds of those that hear eloquent Men , than the Minds of those that only follow Praecepts and read Books . And the lively Examples or Patterns of Publick Action are of far more benefit and advantage to young Students , than all the Doctrines of the Schools . But when he has once acquir'd a good Habit of Speaking by such assistances as these , he need not put himself any more in pain for his Pronunciation and Gesture , nor will ever have occasion to make any more tedious Reflexions upon this Art , either in Preaching or in Pleading , or in preparing himself for the one or the other . Only he would do well , for the first year of his Speaking in Publick , to get some of his Confidents to observe the Inflexions of his Voyce and the Motions of his Body in his Publique Performances , so that if they discover any notorious vice in his Pronunciation or palpable irregularity in his Gesture , they may tell him his faults , and he may make it his Business to correct them upon their advice . But if he meet with any other Persons yet , Strangers to him , who have something to say perhaps against his Action , with good reason , he must endeavour still to improve himself for the best , hear all Peoples opinions , and neglect nothing that may render him more accomplisht and agreeable to his AUDITORS .

FINIS .