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ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by

JOHN FROST,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern Distric, of

Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

THE importance of Elocution as a distinct branch of instruction, is too well understood at the present day to render any apology necessary for offering a new work on the subject. Eloquence is one of the chief instruments of political distinction, as well as one of the most efficient aids in advancing the cause of moral and religious improvement. How necessary a correct and tasteful elocution is to the education of an orator, is obvious on the slightest reflection. If it is true that some remarkable men have won their way to distinction as orators, without carefully studying the principles of elocution, it is not less true that their way would have been smoother, and their difficulties fewer, if they had afforded themselves this auxiliary; while with the great mass of aspirants for this sort of eminence, a course of instruction in elocution is a matter of absolute necessity.

Impressed with this view of the subject, I have prefixed to the following collection of pieces for declamation and reading, the whole of Mr. Ewing's Principles of Elocution, and a considerable number of pieces

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marked with the inflections. The learner may thus acquire the principles, upon which a classical and correct style of oratory can be formed; and he will find among the pieces which constitute the body of the work, a number of the happiest efforts of our most successful orators. Almost every piece in the book may be used for declamation, without the necessity of introduction or explanation to render it intelligible to an audience.

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