10.

Rule 33.- Let the right hand (but not any single finger) point downwards, when anything low or grovelling is expressed.

GESTURE FOR SPEAKING.

Let the

Rule 34.- Begin as in reading. whole weight of the body rest on the right leg; the other just touching the ground, at the distance at which it would naturally fall, if lifted up to show that the body does not bear upon it. Let the knees be straight and firm, and the body straight, yet not perpendicular, but inclining to the right and rather forwards. Let both arms hang in their natural place by the side.

Rule 35.-As soon as the sentiment requires a gesture, let the right arm be held out, the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as possible, and the flat of the hand neither vertical nor horizontal, but between both.

Rule 36. During the utterance of the last word in the sentence, the right hand, as if lifeless, must drop down to the side.

Rule 37.-When a change of position be comes necessary, the body, without moving the feet, must poise itself, on the left leg: the left hand must be raised exactly as the right one was

before, and continue in this position till the end of the sentence, and then drop as if lifeless.

Rule 38.-Take care to end each sentence completely, before the next is begun.

Rule 39.- In every movement of the arm, keep the elbow at a distance from the body.

Rule 40.- Let the eyes be directed to those who are addressed; excepting when the subject requires them to be raised.

Rule 41.

Endeavour to suit the action to the word, enter into the sense and spirit of every passage, and feel what is expressed. This is the best guide to emphasis, tone and gesture.

PART II.

DISCRIMINATION AND RETENTION.

THE student having acquired habits of correct enunciation and graceful deportment, it is unnecessary to urge that they are to be preserved, during the exercises which are yet to be prescribed.

Hitherto there has been no exertion of the intellect. The practices of reading and recitation, require very little more of mental effort than patience and attention.

To relate accurately any circumstance or reasoning with which we are acquainted, needs all the requisites enumerated for good reading and recitation; but to understand a subject clearly, and recollect it faithfully, there are also necessary, the addi. tional powers of Discrimination and Retention.

The discrimination here required is the faculty of distinguishing the principal features of a narrative, description or argument: so as to collect them in the mind independently of its subordinate parts.

Retention is the power of holding them in the mind after they have been thus discriminated.

We have no ideas but of persons, objects and actions; and all we can do is to relate, describe, and reason on them. Hence the faculties of discrimination and retention, can be employed only on Narratives, Descriptions, and Arguments.

OF NARRATIVE.

Rule 1.-Narrative is an account of events, and of the persons or objects concerned in them.

Rule 2.

-The principal features of a narra

tive are expressed by nouns and verbs.

Rule 3.- Narrative includes detached events, biography, and history.

Rule 4.- Detached events are single circumstances, generally preserved on account of some particular instruction or amusement which they convey. Such are fables, anecdotes, &c.

Rule 5.-When the principal nouns and verbs of a fable, &c. are collected together, they contain its real substance.

The following are examples:

A dog crossing a little rivulet with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shadow represented in the water, and believing it to be another dog, who was carrying another piece of flesh, he could not forbear catching at it; but was so far from getting any thing by his greedy design, that he dropped the piece he had in his mouth, which immediately sunk to the bottom, and was irrecoverably lost.

In this fable the principal nouns are dog, flesh, shadow, water. The principal verbs are―saw, believing, catching, dropped, lost.

These nouns and verbs collected together, represent, with very little assistance, the substance of the fable: thus-A dog with flesh saw his shadow in the water; (believing it to be another dog, with another piece of flesh) catching at it, dropped the flesh, and lost it.

In the following examples, the principal nouns and verbs are distinguished by italics:

A coachman hearing one of the wheels of his coach creak, was surprised; but more especially when he perceived that it was the worst wheel of the whole set, and which he thought had but little pretence to take such a liberty. But upon his demanding the reason why it did so, the wheel replied, that it was natural for people who laboured under any affliction or infirmity to complain.

The tortoise, weary of his condition, by which he was con. fined upon the ground, and being ambitious to have a pros pect and look about him, gave out, that if any bird would take him up into the air, and show him the world, he would reward him with a discovery of many precious stones, which he knew were hidden in a certain place of the earth: the eagle undertook to do as he desired; and when he had performed his commission, demanded the reward: but find. ing the tortoise could not make good his words, he struck his talons into the softer parts of his body, and made him a sacrifice to his revenge.

Agesilaus, king of Sp rta, being asked, what things he thought most proper for boys to learn, answered, "Those which they ought to practise when they come to be men." A wiser than Agesilaus has inculcated the same sentiment: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Sir Philip Sidney, at the battle ne: Zutphen, was wounded by a musket-ball, which broke the bone of his thigh. He was carried about a mile and a half, to the camp; and being faint with the loss of blood, and probably parched with thirst, through the heat of the weather, he called for drink. It was immediately brought to him: but as he was putting the vessel to his mouth, a poor wounded soldier, who happen. ed at that instant to be carried by him, looked up to it with wishful eyes. The gallant and generous Sidney took the bottle from his mouth, and delivered it to the soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine."

Rule 6. Detached events are sometimes used to inculcate a moral principle or opinion to which the fable or anecdote evidently leads.