ADVERTISEMENT BY THE COMPILER. THE Elocutionist is now presented to the Public, in such a state of improvement as no preceding Edition has exhibited. The experience of the Compiler has enabled him to supply various deficiencies in the Introduction; which, in its present form, may be said to afford a comparatively perfect system of Reading. The principle of the seriesthe law of Mr. WALKER's harmonic inflection, though he was not aware of it being applied to phrases and accented words of every description; the student is no longer at a loss for the inflecting of passages, the construction of which did not seem to have been contemplated in preceding systems. By the judicious arrangement which the Proprietors have made with respect to the Debate, as well as by their liberality in greatly enlarging the work; variety has been consulted, and a mass of rich selections introduced-some of them original, many presented for the first time, and all of them of a marked and interesting character. One important department in which preceding editions were wanting, will be found in the present one-Dialogue; the materials for which have been carefully selected, not only from the elder and modern Dramatists of our own nation, but also from the immortal Father of the Drama, ESCHYLUS; and from his contemporaries, SOPHOCLES and EURIPIDEs. Another valuable addition has been made in the department of extracts from Sacred Poetry. Having thus briefly stated the grounds upon which the superiority of the new Edition is founded, the Compiler remarks, that, notwithstanding the attention which he has bestowed upon the Introduction, he would be far from recommending to the student a slavish attention to system. Nothing should be allowed to supersede Nature. Let her, therefore, stand in the foreground. The reader abuses his art who betrays, by his delivery, that he enunciates by rule. Emotion is the thing. One flash of passion upon the cheek-one beam of feeling from the eye -one thrilling note of sensibility from the tongue-one stroke of hearty emphasis from the arm-have a thousand times the value of the most masterly exemplification of all the rules, that all the rhetoricians, of both ancient and modern times, have given us, for the government of the voice-when that exemplification is unaccompanied by such adjuncts. The Compiler has not attached to this collection any system of pronunciation; as pronunciation is better, because more amply, taught in Dictionaries. He has also differed from all his predecessors, in not attempting to give a description of the principal passions; and for this plain reason-No man who really feels a passion, can err in his delineation of it; and he concludes these few preliminary remarks, with one brief recommendation, which he conceives to include all that is essential in delivery-Be in earnest. |