disagreeable as completely to spoil the effect of what he says, and thus cause him, in a great measure, to fail in the object he has in view. Those who have attended the debates in the House of Commons will remember one or two speakers who evidently have not made the " art of reading" a part of their oratorical study.

Knowing that such debating societies as I have alluded to are much on the increase at the universities, and feeling sure that it only requires attention to be called to these details of their management to secure many far more valuable suggestions than I can offer, I forbear to enter further upon the subject.

CHAPTER IV.

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it and persevere will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable."-CHESTERFIELD.

E now consider the case of those who, having left the University and entered upon their various spheres of labour, are brought to realize for the first time their deficiency in this important branch of education. It would, however, be manifestly impossible to suggest any plan which should enable men gradually to obtain the skill and confidence necessary to speak on important matters in public, and which should, at the same time, be universally applicable.

The man of property who may have to speak at public meetings or take part in county business, the statesman having the interests of a large constituency entrusted to him, the lawyer whose ambition rises above sitting silent and briefless, or the physician, who may often experience the inconvenience of not being able to express his ideas correctly and lucidly, will each and all find opportunities, incidental to

their several positions, of making their first attempts at public speaking on a small scale.

A few suggestions may be made to men so situated. The first is, that they should never miss an opportunity of speaking, when they may have any legitimate excuse for so doing. * It is told of one of our great orators that he himself attributed his fluency of speech and readiness of reply, not to any laborious cultivation of his natural powers, but to the fact of his never having for years been present at any debate in Parliament without speaking, however shortly, upon the subject under discussion.

Lord Chesterfield's maxims on this subject are too valuable to be passed over. He advises every man not only to aim at correctness of speech in his ordinary conversation, but even to write the most common-place letter with care and accuracy; showing that the habit thus acquired will, in time, make it difficult for him to avoid expressing himself, on all occasions, with elegance and propriety.

The correctness here insisted upon in our ordinary

*The cacoethes loquendi which pervades all ranks of our transatlantic kinsmen has been held up as a warning to those who would make rhetoric a more prominent subject in this country. Talking, however, is not the Englishman's forte; and such are the antecedent difficulties which anyone aspiring to speak in public will have to contend with, and so difficult and discouraging will his first attempts inevitably be, that there is little fear of any, but those who really take up the study con amore, ever becoming troublesome from their facility of expressing their sentiments in public.

conversation may at first sight seem likely to lead to pedantry and affectation; but a moment's reflection will be sufficient to enable us fully to appreciate the value of the suggestion. In the first place, very few persons, in casual conversation, seem to think that their having begun a sentence involves the least grammatical obligation to finish it. Let an ordinary colloquial discussion between educated men be taken down verbatim, and I question whether even the gifted possessor of a first class Government certificate would be able to parse and analyze it. A person of excitable temperament will doubtless experience some difficulty in thus forcing himself to complete a sentence when he sees that it will not quite express his meaning, or after some new or different idea has struck him; but, until he has formed the habit of doing this in private, he is never likely to pass muster as a speaker in public. Another habit, which we are all more or less apt to fall into is that familiarly known as "humming and hawing," whilst mentally groping for a word which most provokingly eludes us. What should we think of a person who, when writing, should give utterance to similar sounds every time his pen stopped and he had to think how to express his meaning? And yet there is no reason why a man should not think as quietly in speaking as in writing-the very pause which he is obliged to make will often add to rather than detract from the force of his words; besides which, the calm

ness and deliberation which this involves is the very soul of good speaking, as without it a man has not even command over himself, much less of his audience. Until, in "the very torrent, tempest, and, I may say, even whirlwind of his passion, he can acquire and beget a temperance which may give it smoothness,"* he will never be able to avoid the " inexplicable dumb show and noise" which the above habit often involves.

That Lord Chesterfield's remark also applies to the use on all occasions of appropriate words and forms of expression is manifest; but it is a question whether much of the significance of his admonition has not been lost by confining it entirely to elegant accuracy, which, after all, is a matter of secondary importance; for if the words immediately suggested to the mind are such as clearly convey the meaning of the speaker, they must be more appropriate for ordinary conversation than any which cost him a greater effort. As Bacon justly observes:- "Discretion of speech is better than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words, or good order." By attending to such simple matters as the above, a man will both render his ordinary conversation agreeable and correct, and will find his intercourse with society become one of the best preparations for his efforts in public.

We cannot, however, under any circumstances,

* Hamlet.