THE North American Review for July, has a number of good articles. That upon the principles of Elocution, we were particularly pleased with. Our opinion is with the reviewer, upon this subject, except upon one or two of the points, which he advances. We do not intend now to bring this difference of ours before our readers, as we do not think it would have any useful bearing upon this, as we view it, important branch of education. How seldom we hear a really good reader, that is, one who reads naturally, and with good taste; and yet, in the every day intercourse of life, this acquirement, within the compass of every one, enables its possessor to give more useful pleasure than any other. But it is our present purpose to give extracts from the article, as our space is limited to three or four pages, rather than any of the many thoughis, which present themselves to our mind upon this extended and practical subject. An octavo, on the Philosophy of the Human Voice, by James Rush, M. D. of Philadelphia, and a much smaller work, an Analysis of the principles of rhetorical delivery, as applied to reading, by Ebenezer Porter, D. D. professor of sacred rhetoric in the theological seminary of Andover, both painted 1827, are the basis of the reviewer's remarks. High praise, with very little drawback, is bestowed on both works. Those who have labored before in this field are named. The actual matter in point is discussed. The neglect, with which it has been treated in our country is then animadverted upon, and finally we have the expression of the reviewer's conviction of the capability of the American character for eloquence. The following is we think all truth.

'There are but few men who can be statesmen or philosophers of the highest order; but there are many of various degrees of excellence, to whom we apply these titles. Let it be so with orators; and let it not be said that because only one in a century can rise to the highest sphere, therefore but one has any call to exertion. Or if any one choose to understand by eloquence, the loftiest pitch of excellence, we will not dispute about a word; let us then, we say, have good speaking; and good speaking we are sure, will pass oftener than men expect, into eloquent speaking. All that we are anxious for is, that no mystical or unphilosophical ideas of eloquence should prevent men from cultivating the powers they have, and from availing themselves of the noble opportunities that are offered to them in this country. For, look abroad through this goodly land of free and intelligent communities, with its thronged schools, and academies, and colleges, with the most popular institutions in the world, with its theatre for oratory in every town-meeting, with its churches, and tribunals of justice, and halls of legislation, and tell us why eloquence may not flourish here; why its elder glories may not be revived among us. We are accustomed to say, and not without reason, that this country offers the fairest field in the modern world for the cul ture of eloquence. Nor have men lost their eagerness to witness the displays of this divine art. There is nothing, in ordinary times, that will draw such multi. tudes together, or transport them with such enthusiasm. They actually feel, that is, the multitude, as if there were something divine, something like inspira

tion, in the inexplicable and overwhelming powers of a great orator. They are ready, like those who listened to the Oration' of Herod, but not with the same venal feeling, to exclaim, 'It is the voice of a god! We well remember, in the days of our boyhood, when our fathers and seniors had been up to the distant City, and talked to us, on their return, of the eloquence of Hamilton, that we caught from them an impression of wonder and delight, bordering almost upon supernatural awe and admiration.

'If any one would judge of the estimation in which this glorious gift is held, let him observe how the least approaches to it are received; how a fine voice, or a prurient imagination, like charity, will cover up a multitude of sins against taste, and reason, and truth; how the most absolute dearth of thought, or the most barren commonplace, will be forgiven, will escape the notice even of cultivated audiences, if it wear the veil of an elegant delivery; how—we had almost named names-but how men of the most ordinary talents will make a sensation wherever they go, and collect crowds, not of the weak alone, but of the wise, also, to hear them; nay, how dignified senators, the most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors' of the nation, will sit as if they were fastened to their seats, and listen by the hour to the most trifling anecdotes, to the most irrelevant stories, when delivered with the ease, and grace, and charm of finished oratory. Indeed, in this matter we grow skeptical about the authority of our (by turns) most wise Hamlet. 'The judicious' do not 'grieve;' but they smile, and listen,-and listen, and look grave, and say it is very 'good talk.' And the multitude—it is indeed a 'gaping multitude,' and ready to swallow any thing that comes in the shape of rhetoric. They are hungering and thirsting for it. They are lifting up their souls for it,-to the pulpit, to the bar, to the senate chamber. They are ready to be instructed, to be moved, aroused, transported; yes, the most obstinate are willing to be enlightened, the most obdurate to be melted, the dullest to be charmed, if the power and the wisdom come in the form of eloquence.

"The field is white to the harvest' (not irreverently to make the application,) but where are the laborers? Indeed, the laborers are few.' Some eloquent men there are in this country; eloquent from the simple force of talent, from the irrepressible burstings of genius, on great themes and occasions; eloquent, because they cannot help it. But any thing like settled, concentrated, patient effort, for improvement in oratory; any thing like an effort, running through the whole course of education, renewed with every day as the great object, pursued into the discharge of professional duties, is scarcely known among us. The mass of our public speakers would as soon think of taking up some mechanical trade as a subsidiary occupation of life, as they would think of adopting Cicero's practice of daily declamations. They would be ashamed, like the member of Parliament, mentioned by Chesterfield, and very properly justified by him, of being caught in any practice of this sort. The art of speaking well, seems to be thought a trifling or an unworthy art. Or, is it that most extraordinary desire that prevails so much among our speakers and writers, to have it supposed that their best and most successful efforts cost them little or no preparation?

'Whatever be the cause of this general neglect, the consequence is plain enough. The making of good sentences, the first business of a public speaker, seems, by most of our legislative debates and forensic orators, to be least of all

understood. Violations of sense, of the structure of sentences, nay, and of grammar, too, are constantly witnessed. It is really perilous to listen. We are in perpetual terror lest the speaker should make shipwreck of all reason and sense. As he rises on the wave of some swelling period, our own minds partake of his insecurity to such an extent, that we lose all thought of his subject, in sympa, thy for his situation.

'It fares no better with our discourses, than with our sentences. Alas! what would Father Quinctilian and Dr. Hugh Blair say, if they could listen to some of our speeches? The most solemn rules about the exordium, narration, statement, argument, peroration,-about the order, progress, climax of a discourse,-about the consistency of metaphors, with themselves and with the subject,-about figures, comparison, vision, hyperbole, are scarcely more regarded among us, than if these venerable personages had never lived.'

'If there be any force in what we have said, we would most earnestly solicit a hearing for it, from the trustees and guardians of our academies and colleges, and of those higher institutions which are designed to prepare our youth for the pulpit and bar. We humbly suggest to them, whether oratory, as a science and an art, should not be more distinctly recognized in the plan of a public education; whether it should not have hours of study and practice appropriated to it; wheth er, in fact, it should not occupy as large a space as any other branch in the course of public instruction. We had it in mind before closing our observations, to suggest a project and plan for a School of Oratory in this country. But in truth all our colleges ought to be such schools. There is a great deal to be done. It is one of the miseries of our college exercises in rhetoric, that a great deal of time must be taken up merely with correcting faults and removing bad habits, before the student can enter, free and disembarrassed, the career of great excellence. It is notorious, that but few of our educated young men, when they leave college, are so far advanced even as to be good readers. We see and lament this defect continually in our pulpits; and we lament it the more, when occasionally in the hands of a skilful reader, the Bible is unfolded to us, almost as a new book. But we leave our suggestions on this point, again earnestly commending them to those, with whom it remains to decide whether we are to go on for years to come, without any essential improvement.

'But we cannot leave our public institutions, without taking notice further, of what seems to us the prodigious waste of study and talent, which the present system involves. Here and there a man, from some fortunate direction of his mind, or strong natural propensity, or favorable situation, breaks through the difficulties that keep down other men, and rises to a considerable measure of eloquence, and becomes conspicuous in his neighbourhood or in the country at large. But do we not know that there are hundreds of others, whose powers and acquisitions are equal,-who think as clearly, and feel as deeply, but whose talents are buried in comparative obscurity? who think eloquently, who feel that 'it is within' them to address eloquent thoughts to their fellow men, but who can never say, with Sheridan, 'it shall come out!' It is not for the want of study, that these men, the majority, fail. their substance too; what days of they pursued to the midnight hour.

What years have they spent, and spent all toil, and evenings of patient thought, have The waning lamp has been no romance to

them, the fixed brow and the feverish pulse no poetry; they have toiled, reckless of health and comfort, they have kindled, and rekindled the fire within them, that has wasted away the strength and prime of their youth; and when they come to the crisis of their fate, when they stand before the great public, and are put to the trial in which they are to rise or fall, for this world,-they find, alas, that the very office they have there to discharge, is the office which they are least of all prepared for. With all the sciences and arts they have labored to understand, they have never learnt the grand art of communication, the science of speech; with all the languages they have mastered, they have never learnt the language of eloquence; and their acquisitions, their reasonings, the collected wisdom of sages, the gathered lore of centuries, sink to nothing before the pretensions of some flippant declaimer. It is from this cause, no doubt, it is from want of the power of communication, that preachers are often unreasonably charged with dulness. It is not, always, that the man is dull; but it is, that being placed in a situation for which he is not properly trained, he sinks into a mechanical habit, from the very inability to give just and natural expression to his emotions. Many and many a sermon has been written (it is not too much to say) with burning tears, and when it come to the delivery, has been struck, as if by magic, with the coldness of death; and he, whose breast glowed with sacred fervor in the closet, has appeared in the pulpit, as a marble statue. May we be permitted, in passing, to suggest to our preachers and public speakers, the propriety, nay, the duty of paying some attention to this subject? We allow that the effort to improve, at this late period, is attended with considerable danger. Some, no doubt, have injured their style of delivery by such an effort. Their manner has become artificial; and they have lost in power, what they have gained in correctness. We venture to point out what we think is the only remedy; and that is, to forget all definitions, rules, and praxes, when entering the pulpit or the bar, to have no gestures or tones provided beforehand, but to give ourselves up wholly to the im pulse of the occasion, letting whatever improvement there may be in manner. tone, &c. be, at the moment, altogether unpremeditated and insensible. With this precaution, we have no doubt that reading or declamation an hour every day would be of the most essential service, and would in a single year, if the practice were universal, put almost a new face upon our pulpit and bar.'

THE

WESTERN

MONTHLY REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1829.

A Narrative of the Anti-Masonic Excitement, in the western part of the State of New-York, during the years 1826, 7, 8, and a part of 1829. By HENRY BROWN, Esq. Counsellor at Law. Batavia: Adams & M'Cleary: 1829. pp. 244.

NOTHING is more natural, than that an association for convivial, scientific, or charitable purposes should wish to cultivate esprit du corps, sodality, and an exclusive regard for the members. To have certain peculiar words, or signs, known only to the initiated, by which they may instantly discriminate each other amidst the crowd of strangers, is a natural adjunct to the general intention. Emblems and badges will ap pear striking and agreeable, or puerile and unworthy, according to the temperament of the beholder. From their being adopted by all governments, by all religions, by all scientific institutions, and by almost every considerable association, that has ever appeared, it would seem, that to adopt them fell in with the general bent of human nature. The church has its symbols, the government has its ensign. Our country has its eagle, its stars and stripes, the British navy has its green and blue, and the masons have their square, compass, and ornamented apron. Enjoying, perhaps quizzing, the strained eyes and the eager and wondering gaze of the peo ple at the long and gorgeous procession, it is natural, that masons should have assumed a look of peculiar and knowing solemnity, while descanting upon an origin, as old as the world, and the architectural orders, and the historical inscriptions of the pillars of Seth. There can be no doubt in truth that Adam and Eve were masons, as well as carpenters and tailors.

But we do not believe, that any intelligent mason ever attempted to trace its origin beyond the authentic records of the order. These, we apprehend, do not ascend beyond the fourth or fifth century. They have unquestionable evidence, however, that even then the institution was considered, as having its beginning lost in the unrecorded ages, that preceded them. From the fifth century to the present, the most wise, enlightened and distinguished men in Europe, and in recent days in America, have exVOL. III.-No. 4.

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