the Continent, were habitually read aloud, with all the emphasis becoming to their rounded periods, to several audiences in turn. Madame de Sévigné's letters were not more prized, or more discussed by the frequenters of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, than were the effusions of a gentleman of quality upon the grand tour' by his friends in Shropshire. Who is at the trouble to read a letter aloud now? But then, indeed, it may be asked, who is at the trouble to write one?

None but books written in the very best style should be read aloud, for there is no test to which an author can be subjected so severe as this. Whether serious or light, the composition must be in well-balanced English; otherwise, the halting phrase, the meagre vocabulary, which might be passed over if read in silence, will offend us past forgiveness when subjected to the trial of the human voice. On the other hand, there are subtle beauties in a finely modulated piece of prose which only reveal themselves in the actual sound of the words. The structure seems to be clothed with new life, and to breathe a spirit of music which the dead letters before our eyes never can possess. Reading aloud, therefore, renders both reader and listener more critical as to the literary value of a book (of course I do not refer to its intrinsic excellence) than the same persons would otherwise be. I have seen this exemplified in the case of an intelligent servant who dropped her h's, but enjoyed reading aloud to her old mistress, and whose judgment had, in the course of years, become curiously critical as to what she read.

The gift of teaching to read aloud is given to few; but there are some principles which anyone of intelligence who devotes his attention to the subject will probably master for himself, and which he will find of universal application.

The first and most important rule to bear in mind is, that the position of the reader, whether sitting or standing, should be one which does not impede the action of the pectoral muscles, and leaves the respiratory organs perfectly free. The reader who leans over his book, instead of holding it up at a sufficient distance to enable the voice to travel unhindered, can never be effective, and will be more tired at the end of half an hour than he would be at the end of two, in an attitude befitting the exertion. If called upon to read standing, as is often the case in the lecture-room, let him be upright, and not slouch, or rest entirely on one leg. Sur quelle jambe jugez-vous? › asked an eminent physician of a magistrate who consulted him as to sciatic pains. He divined rightly that his patient was suffering from the effects of a habit he had acquired of throwing the weight of his body always on the same side. If, on the other hand, the lecturer be on a chair, it should be rather a high one, if possible. Let him be perfectly at his ease, with his back supported; and if shortsighted, let him wear spectacles honestly astride upon his nose-not what Thackeray called 'spectacles in disguise,' which are apt to become unseated.

It is not in reading, as in recitation, where the expression of the eye is of value: the reader's sole concern should be that his visual apparatus for following the text before him be complete and welladjusted. It is said that when Père Lacordaire was elected to the French Academy he read with spectacles the speech he had prepared, as is the custom, before a committee of seven members, who were greatly delighted with the force of style and simplicity of manner of the eminent preacher. But the effect was not the same when he delivered this discourse in public, on the day of his 'reception.' He then thought fit to discard his glasses, and to endeavour to combine the graces of oratory with the sober distinction which had characterised his reading. The taste of his critical audience was offended. He cast his fine eyes around-and lost his place; he tried to trust to his memory; he tried to be eloquent, and to gesticulate, as he was wont to do in his improvisations at Notre Dame; but it was a failure. He was reading, and not declaiming; the spectacles would not have militated against his success; and the vehemence was felt to be out of character with the nature of the address.

This leads me to speak of a danger to which all persons who have any dramatic instincts are exposed: that of not distinguishing sufficiently between reading and recitation; of not seeing that the delivery of words which the eye follows should be different in tone, in quality, in passion, from that of words learnt by heart, and which may be supposed to flow spontaneously from our lips. There are occasions, no doubt, when to read dramatically is permissible. The man who reads Falstaff or Sam Weller without some attempt at personation must be devoid of humour. And humour will save its possessor from perils in this, as in other matters. I once heard a clergyman read the lessons in a fashion which convulsed half the church with laughter. The good man had been told that his voice. and his declamation were fine; and it was evident that he was proud of the amount of expression and individuality with which he found himself capable of charging the sacred narrative. His countenance, like his tone, varied with every speaker; he was wrathful, or sarcastic, or jubilant, according as the text warranted a change of sentiment. In short, it was no longer reading; it was acting. A sense of humour would have saved him from this unseemly exhibition, for which neither the subject nor the locality was fitted.

I have spoken in the earlier part of this paper of the attention that should be paid to the pitch of the voice. That it should be sustained to the end of the sentence, without those rises and falls, and final collapse, which the French call the 'chant' in utterance, and deprecate as false and unnatural, is essential to good reading. I am aware that there are eminent men to whom this up-hill-anddown-dale style of delivery commends itself, and who maintain that poetry should be so read. However this may be with certain stately

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blank verse, I feel sure that all poetry should not be intoned thus. I remember once hearing a poem of Wordsworth's followed by Browning's Good News from Ghent;' both declaimed alike in this manner. The ponderous sonority which was, at all events, permissible for the elder poet's verse, converted the breathless haste of the gallop into a heavy jog-trot, exasperating to listen to. It would seem unnecessary to observe that the style of reading should depend upon the nature of the text, were it not that those who are most accustomed to read-notably clergymen-often acquire habits of delivery which apparently they regard as unalterable, whatever the subject may be. There can be no error more offensive to good taste than this. That which is addressed to our argumentative powers should be differently conveyed to us from that which appeals to our imagination. The wild music of Shelley, the polished wit of Sheridan, the exuberant prose of Ruskin, the castigated prose of Macaulay, the humour and pathos of Dickens, the scathing satire of some speech of Mr. Gladstone's-each of these requires a separate and individual method of delivery, which only study and thought, directed by that sympathy of intelligence which is the finest reading-master in the world, can give.

But the finest master can do nothing unless his pupil be subservient. The voice is a far more tractable one than most people imagine. Some of the greatest singers that the world has known have had made voices; and the modulation of a refractory organ, for reading purposes, is only an affair of time, and of a sensitive ear. The latter qualification for reading I am inclined to consider of more importance than the voice. Indeed, without it, it is impossible to conceive anyone with the finest vocal powers seizing and reproducing those various tones upon which so much of the effect of spoken words depends.

In expressing a hope that those especially whose vocation it is to superintend education in this country will come to regard the art of reading aloud as of more importance than they have hitherto done, and that greater pains may be taken to combat defect of respiration and articulation while voices are still young and pliant, I cannot do better than quote a passage of Legouvé's, which is a delightful recognition of the many happy hours which he owes to the cultivation of this taste:

Qu'est-ce que je vous offre? (he says to his readers.) De partager avec vous ma joie de quarante ans. Ah! quel grand service je vous rendrais, à vous, vieux ou jeunes, parents ou enfants, qui voulez bien me lire, si je pouvais vous souffler au cœur un peu de cette passion pour la lecture à qui j'ai dû de si bons moments! A la campagne, l'été, je m'en vais tous les jours. . . récitant, apprenant des vers, essayant de leur donner leur accent vrai. Aussi, quand je reviens le soir, la mémoire pleine de mon mélodieux butin, je me sens aussi fier que le chasseur qui rentre avec son carnier tout chargé de gibier que dis-je? aussi fier! mille fois davantage ! Car, que fait le chasseur? Il tue. Que fait le naturaliste ? Il tue.

VOL. XV.-No. 88.

3 S

Que fait l'herborisateur? Il dessèche. Que fait le lecteur? Il ranime! Au lieu d'éteindre la voix dans les gosiers les plus harmonieux, au lieu de frapper de mort les créatures les plus élégantes, il rend la vie de la parole aux créations les plus pures, aux pensées les plus sublimes, il ressuscite des immortels! . . .

I do not anticipate that many of my countrymen, either for their personal gratification or with ulterior objects of ambition in view, will scour the country reciting at the top of their voice; but the enthusiasm of the eminent Frenchman indicates what untold and independent pleasures lie, unguessed, within the reach of many. I believe that most of us would find a fresh element of happiness, a new sphere of usefulness, a keen implement of power, if we cultivated, to the utmost of our ability, an art which at present, in England, is brought to perfection by few.

HAMILTON AÏDÉ.

WITH BAKER AND GRAHAM IN THE
EASTERN SOUDAN.

ONE day in the summer of 1878 an Arab trader of Suakin, by name Osman Ali Digna, known to the local gossips as a person of eccentric habits, and to every merchant between Darfur and the Hedjaz as a great traveller, held a secret meeting of Suakin notables under the large sycamore tree close by the wells whence the town, two miles distant, procures its water. Osman had been a prosperous dealer, not only in ivory and ostrich feathers, but also, and principally, in slaves. Osman was the travelling partner of a firm of which his elder brother, head of the family of Digna, was managing member at Suakin. The junior used to hawk his live stock among the towns of the Central Soudan, sometimes extending his expeditions to the neighbourhood of Dongola and Abou Hamed; those of his captives who had found neither death nor a purchaser, he would drive to the sea-coast for transport to the markets of Jeddah. But now and then the British cruisers were too wide-awake for the stealthiest driver or the smartest skipper of a slave-dhow. In 1877 one of the Digna vessels was captured somewhere off Suakin: about the same period. three or four slave caravans, partly owned by Osman and his brother, were seized and liberated;-in a word, the house of Digna had fallen upon evil days; for patriotic, no less than for personal reasons, the chiefs of the Soudan must be stirred up to resist the Ghiaour-Turkawi trespass upon a right and an institution sanctified by the Book and by the example of Mahomet. When, therefore, the Suakin notables met Osman under the sycamore, he produced the Koran, and, in an excited speech, called upon them to vow the death of their 'heretical ’ Turkawi Governor, and to help him in organising a tribal crescentade. His hearers admitted the justice of Osman's cause and the force of his reasoning, but they refused to act with him. Perish in your cowardice!' exclaimed Osman, and, disdaining to return with them, he left them there and journeyed to Erkowit, a village high among the hills, twenty-five miles from Suakin. It was from Erkowit that, five years after, Osman proclaimed his divine mission, and directed the first assaults of the insurgents against Tewfik Bey at Sinkat. In Erkowit dwelt most of his kindred, and to it he owes his nationality.