266 THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 



with the audience. Still more often failure is due to bad 

 arrangement of the matter which the lecturer has under- 

 taken to deliver. The remedy for this last fault is 

 obvious, namely, a course of training in the reading of 

 standard works. Some may perhaps think I am recom- 

 mending an old-fashioned book, when I name " Blair's 

 Lectures on Rhetoric," as a very valuable aid to the writer 

 and speaker. I would advise all beginners to write their 

 lectures and go over the matter again and again, before 

 trusting themselves on the platform ; and in constructing 

 the fabric of their discourse, let them remember that the 

 sentences should be as a rule shorter than if the words were 

 merely intended for the eye of a reader. A sentence con- 

 sisting of several lines without any full stop, although it 

 may pass in ordinary composition, is very tiresome to listen 

 to ; a most attentive audience will, by the time the verbose 

 paragraph ends, forget its opening, and the sense be 

 consequently lost. Again, in composing a lecture which 

 is illustrated by lantern pictures, care must be taken to so 

 arrange it that the pictures come in naturally, and are not 

 dragged in willy-nilly, as if they were in stock and must be 

 shown at any price. The views should be the best of their 

 kind, but must be altogether subservient to the text. If a 

 part of the subject is of such a nature that it may be likely* 

 to prove tedious to an audience, and audiences differ 

 amazingly in their receptive faculties, that part should 

 either be compressed, or it may be lightened by a good anec- 

 dote, or even by some illustration which will raise a laugh. 

 Such pictures introduced with circumspection are most 

 useful ; but the power of employing them should be used 



