8.-TOBACCO INJURIOUS TO THE VOICE.

"The use of tobacco, in any form, has a deleterious effect upon the speaking and breathing organs. It enfeebles the nervous system, and tends to make the voice dry, harsh, husky, and inflexible.

"Public speakers who are votaries of the weed, if they cannot give it up entirely, ought, by all means, to refrain from the use of it for several hours previous to speaking or engaging in any public vocal exercise. For this brief period of self-denial they will be rewarded by a clearness and fullness of tone, and a flexibility of voice which will surprise and delight them."-Kidd.

MODULATION.
Lloyd.

1. 'T is not enough the voice be sound and clear, 'T is modulation that must charm the ear.

That voice all modes of passion can express,

Which marks the proper words with proper stress:
But none emphatic can that speaker call,
Who lays an equal emphasis on all.

Some, o'er the tongue the labored measures roll,
Slow and deliberate as the parting toll;
Point every stop, mark every pause so strong,
Their words like stage processions stalk along.

2. All affectation but creates disgust;
And e'en in speaking, we may seem too just.
In vain for them the pleasing measure flows,
Whose recitation runs it all to prose;
Repeating what the poet sets not down,
The verb disjointing from its favorite noun,
While pause, and break, and repetition join
To make a discord in each tuneful line.

3. Some placid natures fill the allotted scene
With lifeless drawls, insipid and serene;
While others thunder every couplet o'er,
And almost crack your ears with rant and roar.
More nature oft, and finer strokes are shown
In the low whisper, than tempestuous tone;
And Hamlet's hollow voice and fixed amaze,
More powerful terror to the mind conveys,
Than he, who, swollen with impetuous rage,
Bullies the bulky phantom of the stage.

4. He who, in earnest, studies o'er his part,
Will find true nature cling about his heart.
The modes of grief are not included all

In the white handkerchief and mournful drawl!
A single look more marks the internal woe,
Than all the windings of the lengthened Oh!
Up to the face the quick sensation flies,
And darts its meaning from the speaking eyes:
Love, transport, madness, anger, scorn, despair,
And all the passions, all the soul is there.

Every student should carefully analyze that epitome of instruction, "HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS." He will be delighted to notice that the "Great Artist" has presented in a single page a concise summary of invaluable suggestions.

HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS.

Speak the speech, I pray you,' as I pronounced it to you: trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do,' I had as lief the town-crier spake my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, (as I may say,) whirlwind of your passion,' you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither,' but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word;' the word to the action: with this special observance :` that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature;' for any thing so over-done is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time,' his form and pressure. Now this, overdone or come tardy off,' though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, (not to speak it profanely,) that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well: they imitated humanity so abominably.

SELECTIONS.

I.-RICHTER'S DREAM.

1. INTO the great vestibule of heaven, God called up a man from dreams, saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of my house." And, to the servants that stood around His throne, He said, "Take him, and undress him from his robes of flesh: cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his nostrils; only touch not with any change his human heart—the heart that weeps and trembles.”

2. It was done; and, with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage; and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes, with solemn flight of angel wings, they fled through Gaarahs of darkness-through wildernesses of death, that divided the world of life: sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under the prophetic motions from God.

3. Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time through a sleepy film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them; they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment, the rushing of planets was upon them: in a moment, the blazing of suns was around them.

4. Then came eternities of twilight, that revealed, but were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left, towered mighty constellations, that by self-repetition and

answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up triumphal gates, whose architraves-whose archways-horizontal, upright-rested, rose-at attitudes by spans that seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number were the archways, beyond memory the gates.

5. Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below: above was below-below was above, to the man stripped of gravitating body: depth was swallowed up in height insurmountable: height was swallowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly, as thus they rode from infinite to infinite: suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose, that systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other depths, were coming-were nearing-were at hand.

6. Then the man sighed, and stopped, and shuddered, and wept. His overladen heart uttered itself in tears; and he said, " Angel, I will go no farther; for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from the persecutions of the Infinite; for end, I see, there is none."

7. And from all the listening stars that shone around, issued a choral cry, "The man speaks truly end there is none that ever yet we heard of." "End! is there none ?? the angel solemnly demanded: "Is there indeed no end! and is this the sorrow that kills you ? " But no voice answered that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands toward the heaven of heavens, saying, "End, is there none to the universe of God? Lo! also there is no beginning."

II.-DEATH-BED OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.

GEORGE LEPPARD.

1. FIFTY years ago, in a rude garret, near the loneliest suburbs of the city of London, lay a dying man. He was but half dressed; though his legs were concealed in

long military boots. An aged minister stood beside the rough couch. The form was that of a strong man grown old through care more than age. There was a face that you might look upon but once, and yet wear it in your memory forever.

2. Let us bend over the bed, and look upon that face. A bold forehead seamed by one deep wrinkle visible between the brows-long locks of dark hair, sprinkled with gray; lips firmly set, yet quivering, as though they had a life separate from the life of the man; and then, two large eyes-vivid, burning, unnatural in their steady glare.) Ay, there was something terrible in that face-something so full of unnaturable loneliness-unspeakable despair, that the aged minister started back in horror. But look! those strong arms are clutching at the vacant air: the deathsweat stands in drops on that bold brow-the man is dying. Throb-throb-throb-beats the death-watch in the shattered wall. "Would you die in the faith of the Christian? faltered the preacher, as he knelt there on the damp floor.

3. The white lips of the death-stricken man trembled, but made no sound. Then, with the strong agony of death upon him, he rose into a sitting posture. For the first time he spoke. "Christian!" he echoed in that deep tone which thrilled the preacher to the heart: “Will that faith give me back my honor? Come with me, old man, come with me, far over the waters. Ha! we are there! This is my native town. Yonder is the church in which I knelt in childhood: yonder the green on which I sported when a boy. But another flag waves yonder, in place of the flag that waved when I was a child.

4. "And listen, old man, were I to pass along the streets, as I passed when but a child, the very babes in their cradles would raise their tiny hands, and curse me! The graves in yonder churchyard would shrink from my footsteps; and yonder flag would rain a baptism of blood upon my head!"