tion would be in order, together with a large and varied list for private and public entertainment.

My connection with the SHOOLDAY MAGAZINE, in charge of the "Elocutionist's Department," for the past three years, has given me special opportunities for securing a wide range of what is new and good from the various authors of the day.

The increasing interest in elocution and elocutionary performances, and the eagerness with which fresh and popular selections are sought, suggest a corresponding popular want. In answer to this, the design is to continue annually a volume of readings, recitations, dialogues, and miscellaneous performances.

Authors, publishers, and friends, who have in any way contributed to this humble work, have my sincere thanks. J. W. SHOEMAKER.

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 1, 1873.

THE ELOCUTIONIST'S ANNUAL

THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW.

ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

RING

The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
And sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring in the valiant and the free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land;

Ring in the Christ that is to be.-TENNYSON.

HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS.

PEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

SPEAK

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. Oh! 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 show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. 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 anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature;-to show vi.tue 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 unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh!