conceive, that the perfon who read, was the fame with him who had been just speaking. Nor is this brogue confined to reading only, but in general has made its way into all the several branches of public fpeaking: And this, from an obvious caufe. Boys are accustomed to repeat their leffons, declamations, &c. in the fame manner as they read. This mode is not only confirmed in them by habit, but they acquire a predilection for it. They confider this fpecies of delivery, which they have been taught, as far fuperiour to that kind, which comes of course, without any pains, and therefore judge it the most proper to be used on all public occafions. Thus has this unnatural mode of utterance spread itself in the fenate-house, the pulpit, the bar, the stage, and every place where public declamation is ufed; infomuch that the inftances of a just and natural elocu

tion are very rare: the want of which is moft fenfibly, and generally felt in our churches.

Our neighbours, the French, are not altogether in the fame predicament with us, with regard to this article, though it is ftill in a very imperfect ftate among them. For though they have been employed near a century in regulating and refining their tongue, ftill it is, as with us, the written, not the spoken language, which has been the chief object of their attention. There is one article of fpeech indeed, which they have thoroughly afcertained, and reduced to rule; I mean pronunciation. But as to the art of delivery, it has never so much as been thought of among them; and all their treatifes of rhetoric and oratory, have, for their object, like ours, not speech, but only compofition in writing. The art of reading, as taught there, differs from our's

in one effential article, which has been the main cause of the difference between their public elocution and our's; in which they certainly have a great fuperiority over us. The article I mean is this; they have laid it down as a maxim, that children are to be taught to read in a perfect monotone; and this monotone is ever after used by them in reading works of all forts, whether in poetry or profe; and, from custom, is confidered by the French, as the only just manner of reading.

ly, can be more abfurd,

Nothing, certain

nothing more con

trary to common fenfe, nature, and tafte, than this mode of reading. Yet it is attended with one advantage, that public elocution is not infected by it, as it is by our method. The monotone is confined wholly to reading; but, in all public declamation, the speakers indulge themfelves in the free use of that variety, which M 2

is.

is natural to them; and their preachers, who deliver their difcourfes from memory, not notes, have an elocution more animated, more varied, more just than our's, and produce proportional effects upon their auditors. But this method of reading was a poor expedient to bring about a reformation in one of the articles of delivery: for it is probable, that the first motive towards eftablishing this principle in the art of reading, was to put an end to the different tones used by people of the different provinces, by making all read alike in one uniform tone. But this, with regard to the article of reading, was only substituting one evil, and perhaps a worse one, in the room of another; and with regard to the more important ufe of delivery, whether from memory, or extemporaneous, it produced no effect at all; as each, in that cafe, resumed his own habitual tone of

utterance.

utterance. They who were in a fituation of acquiring a propriety of speech in converfation, from being bred among those who spoke with purity, retained the same in public delivery; while they, whose utterance was vitiated, by being bred up among those, whose provincial tones, or other irregularities of fpeech, prevailed in private discourse, brought the fame faults with them into public alfo. Thus, in comparing the two different methods, used in England and France, in teaching the art of reading, we find that the former carries a taint in its root, which spreads through all the branches of elocution, withers the tree, and will never fuffer it to bear fruit: whereas the latter is perfectly inoffenfive, does neither harm nor good, and leaves nature and custom to take their courfe. Now this view of these two methods, may serve to point out a third to us; which, avoid