of instruction in this point. Boys are generally taught to employ the prescribed action either after, or during the utterance of the words it is to enforce. The best and most appropriate action must, from this circumstance alone, necessarily appear a feeble affectation. It suggests the idea of a person speaking to those who do not fully understand the language, and striving by signs to explain the meaning of what he has been saying. The very same gesture, had it come at the proper, that is, the natural, point of time, .night, perhaps have added greatly to the effect; viz. had it preceded somewhat the utterance of the words. That is always the natural order of action. An emotion,* struggling for utterance, produces a tendency to a bodily gesture, to express that emotion more quickly than words can be framed; the words follow, as soon as they can be spoken. And this being always the case with a real, earnest, unstudied speaker, this mode of placing the action foremost, gives, (if it be otherwise appropriate) the appearance of earnest emotion actually present in the mind. And the reverse of this natural order would alone be sufficient to convert the action of Demosthenes himself into unsuccessful and ridiculous pantomime.

"Format enim Natura prius nos intus ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum ; juvat, aut impellit ad iram:
Aut ad humum mærore gravi deducit, et angit:
Post effert animi motus interprete lingua."

Horace, Ars Poet.

APPENDIX.

Pages 20, 120, 241. [A.]

OMNINO noc volumus, locos omnes, quorum frequens est usus (sive ad probationes et refutationes, sive ad suasiones et dissuasiones, sive ad laudes et vituperia spectent) meditatos jam haberi, eosque ultimis ingenii viribus, et tanquam improbe, et prorsus præter veritatem, attolli, et deprimi. Modum autem hujus collectionis, tam ad usum, quam ad brevitatem, optimum fore censemus, si hujusmodi loci contrahantur in sententias quasdam acutas et concisas ; tanquam glomos quosdam, quorum fila in fusiorem discursum, cum res postulat, explicari possint.

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*

*

Ejus generis, cum plurima parata habeamus, aliqua ad exemplum proponere visum est. Ea autem antitheta rerum nominamus.

IMPERIA.

LAUS, EXISTIMATIO.