excitement. The following, from one of Cicero's orations, is an appropriate

EXAMPLE.

I seem to myself to behold this city, the ornament of the earth, the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one conflagration. I see before me the slaughtered heaps of citizens, lying unburied in the midst of their ruined country. The furious countenance of Cethegus a rises to my view, while, with a savage joy, he is triumphing in your miseries.

8. Personification.

Personification is that figure by which we attribute life and action to inanimate objects.

The language is taken in its literal sense, and the figure lies in the thought. It is prompted by passion, or a strong and lively imagination. All poetry, even in its most humble forms, abounds with this figure. It has three forms:

1. It consists in ascribing to inanimate objects, some of the qualities of living creatures.

EXAMPLES

A deceitful disease. A cruel disaster. The The merciless ocean.

A raging storm.

thirsty earth.

The groaning forest.

2. It consists in representing inanimate objects, as acting like those which have life.

EXAMPLES.

1. The Mountains skipped like rams, and the little Hills, iiko lambs.

a Cethegus, (Cornelius,) a Roman of the most corrupt and abandoned character; an accomplice in Cataline's conspiracy, and, by order of the senate, was strangled in prison.

QUESTIONS forms has it? example.

What is personification? In what does the figure lie? How many
What is the first? Give an example. What is the second? Give an

2. So saying her rash hand, in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked and ate;
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing, through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.

3. It represents inanimate objects, not only as feeling and acting, but as speaking to us, or listening when we address

them.

EXAMPLES.

1. I asked the golden Sun, and silver Spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years:
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare,
And bids us for eternity prepare."

2. Oh! unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!
Must I leave thee, Paradise! thus leave

Thee, native Soil

Fit haunt of gods?

these happy walks, and shades,

.. O, Flowers!

Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount ?

Thee, lastly, nuptial Bower, by me adorned

With what to sight or smell was sweet, — from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down

Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air,
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

9. Apostrophe.

An Apostrophe is an address to some real person either absent or dead, as though present and listening to us; or an address to some object personified.

An apostrophe is nearly allied to personification. It is a figure which abounds with sublimity and feeling. All great

QUESTIONS. What is the third? Give an example. What is an apostrophe? To what figure is it nearly allied. What is here said of it?

and beautiful objects in nature, such as the sun, a mountain, the ocean, &c., as well as persons, may be apostrophized. The manner of utterance must be governed by the strength of passion indicated by the language.

EXAMPLES.

1. Weep on the rocks of roaring winds, O Maid of Innislore! a Bend thy fair head over the waves, thou fairer than the ghosts of the hills, when it moves in a sunbeam at noon over the silence of Morven.b

2. O Thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O Sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest above! who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy

course.

3. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls, and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more, whether thy yellow hair floats on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun! in the strength of thy youth. Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; when the blast of the north is on the plain, and the traveler shrinks in the midst of his journey.

Innislore, the name given to the Orkney Islands, by Ossian, a Caledonian bard, who flourished about A. D. 300. b Morven, a province of ancient Caledonia, or Scotland.

.

10. Climax, or Amplification.

A Climax, or Amplification, consists in a gradual eightening of all the circumstances of any object or action, which we desire to present in a strong light.

EXAMPLES.

1. It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in bonds; it is the height of guilt to scourge him; little less than PARRICIDE to put him to DEATH; what name then shall I give to CRUCIFYING HIM?

2. The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn TEMPLES, the great GLOBE ITSELF,
With all that it INHABITS, shall dissolve,

And like the baseless fabric of a vision

Leave not a wreck behind.

3. We have complained, we have petitioned, we have ENTREATED, we have SUPPLICATED; we have even PROSTRATED ourselves at the foot of the throne, without moving royal clemency.

QUESTION. What is climax, or amplification? Give an example.

TO TEACHERS.

PART FIRST should be taken up in the order of its arrangement, and taught agreeably to the author's suggestions. The class should be exercised daily, on the tables, examples, and reading exercises illustrating the rules, until the principles of elocution therein contained, are clearly understood, and can be correctly applied in reading the miscellaneous lessons of the Second Part.

It is believed that the extent and variety of the reading matter it embraces, will not only relieve the dullness and tediousness of thus carefully studying elocutionary rules, sometimes complained of, but will be found amply sufficient, in the hands of a faithful teacher, to secure, on the part of his pupils, both in reading and speaking, a natural, easy, graceful, and impressive manner of delivery.

In PART SECOND, it was deemed unnecessary to introduce the rheto ical notation. It will be seen, however, that an occasional direction is given at the heads of the lessons, sometimes with, and sometimes without a reference to one or more of the rules which are especially exemplified by the piece. This is designed, both as an aid to the student in preparing himself for the reading exercise, and as a suggestion to the teacher, that he should never neglect to call the attention of his class to such principles of elocution as the lesson exemplifies, and thereby endeavor to secure to each member, a perfect familiarity with the rules, and their practical application.

It is also recommended to students, after they have determined the general character of the language, or style of the piece, the kind and structure of the sentences, and the emphatic words, inflections, transitions, and tones of voice, &c., which the sentiment requires in order to its most effective delivery, to designate the same with a pencil, in accordance with the notation of the First Part. Such an exercise cannot fail to awaken their minds to the importance of the subject, and, at the same time, to make them critical in the application of elocutionary principles, both in reading and speaking.