372 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 



Societies for the cultivation of this new science are now establisheil in many of 

 the largest towns in most of the continental kingdoms, in America and in this 

 country, but much, it appears, is yet to be done before the study may be considered 

 complete. 



The lectures already before the public on this science have always had relation to 

 craniology alone. The merit is therefore due to Mr. Turley not to have followed 

 the beaten track of his predecessors, who always began with the human brain and 

 its functions, but to have commenced by comparative anatomy (the simpler view), 

 and to have led his auditors up to the human brain, the most complicated structure. 

 He seems to have clearly established some important points much disputed by the 

 anti-phrenologists, viz. — that the brain is an assemblage of parts, anatomically 

 speaking, and an xmit only in its collective operation, — that we are all endowed 

 with a knowledge of physiognomy, and that we instinctively (as it is said) judge 

 of people by their heads ; but with regard to the present phrenological division of 

 the h«ad into faculties, the lecturer has not yet proceeded sufficiently far to warrant 

 our affirmative opinion of its correctness. 



The subject is one of considerable interest, if we may judge from the intense 

 anxiety manifested to hear the lecture. Indeed it is not to be wondered at that in 

 this era the thirst after a knowledge of the powers of mind should be so predominant 

 —that people who reflect on the wonderful machinery of their bodies with a grateful 

 feeling to their Maker for superior endowments, should seek this source of amuse- 

 ment and instruction. 



This lecture does not require the aid of encomium — it will speak sufficiently for 

 itself— neither will it be necessary to describe the high gratification which it appeared 

 to impart to a more than usually crowded auditory. The vote of thanks was moved, 

 in the accustomed way, by Mr. Thomas Burlingham, and seconded by Mr. E. L. 

 Williams ; when the lecturer, in expressing his thanks for the honour done him, 

 took occasion to point out the utility of Scientific Institutions, and to offer his best 

 services in their support. 



LECTURES ON ORATORY AND SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS, 

 BY R. J. BALL, B.A. 



With the reputation of an accomplished elocutionist, derived from metropoli- 

 tan criticism, and, during the past month, from the reports of the proceedings 

 of the Cheltenham Literary and Philosophical Institution, Mr. Ball commenced, 

 at the Athenaeum, on Monday the 17th of November, a course of lectures 

 on Oratory and Shakspeare's Plays. Consistently with the objects of our 

 publication, we will present our readers with an analysis of each of the lectures 

 that have been hitherto delivered ; so far at least as we can do so without 

 injuring the interests of the lecturer by publishing a detailed report of the 

 matter which he communicated, in language distinguished by clearness of 

 arrangement, energy of expression, and eloquence of style. 



Mr. Ball's first lecture was on the Eloquence of the Senate. He commenced 

 with a characteristic sketch of the qualities, moral and intellectual, that may 

 be discovered by the philosopher who examines, with the calm scrutiny of an 

 uninfluenced spectator, the state of opposite parties in each House of Legisla- 

 ture, and the motives, personal as well as political, of the individual members 

 of each party. ** In both Houses of Parliament," said the lecturer, " we may 

 behold ability and impotence ; brilliant imagination, unimpassioned thought ; 

 patriotism the most exalted, self-interest the most base ; the vilest venality, 

 the noblest independence ; the understanding that expands itself over a wide 

 and glorious field of all that is great, all that is holy ; and the intellect that lies 

 pent up in the narrow space of ignorant assumption, which even its own 

 confidence cannot enlarge. ** I speak not," continued the lecturer, " of edifices 

 erected by the hand of man, which, however remarkable for strength, however 

 attractive by beauty, however dignified by time, it requires but a bolt from 

 heaven to shatter from the dome to the very base, or a conflagration such as 



