85 : ESSAY ON ELOCUTION. Id assert ratio, docent liter, confirmat consuetudo legendi et loquendi. CIC. MUCH declamation has been employed to convince the world of a very plain truth, that to be able to speak well is an ornamental and useful accomplishment. Without the laboured panegyrics of ancient or modern orators, the importance of a good elocution is sufficiently obvious. Every one will acknowledge it to be of some consequence, that what a man has hourly occasion to do, should be done well. Every private company, and almost every public assembly, afford opportunities of remarking the difference between a just and graceful, anda faulty and unnatural elocution; and there are few persons who do not daily experience the advantages of the former, and the inconvencies of the latter. The great difficulty is, not to prove that it is a desirable thing to be able to read and speak with propriety, but to point out a practicable and easy method by which this accomplishment may be acquired. |