306 



THE POPULAE EDUCATOR. 



in France. This monarch, suffering from intermittent fever, 

 was cured by an English empiric named Talbot, by means of a 

 secret remedy. This was no other than cinchona bark. Louis 

 XIV. purchased the secret for the sum of 48,000 livres, and 

 bestowed yearly a pension of 2,000 livres on the Englishman, 

 .besides giving him letters of nobility. Three years subsequently 

 the remedy was published ; it was a highly concentrated vinous 

 tincture of cinchona bark. Cinchona trees grow in the densest 

 forests of Peru. The task of discovering them, removing their 

 bark, and conveying the latter to the place of export, is trouble- 

 some, difficult, and dangerous. In these forests there are no 

 roads. Frightful precipices intersect the path of the cascarillero, 

 or bark-gatherer, across which it is difficult to pass, even whilst 

 unembarrassed by a load. So soon as the treasure of bark has 

 been secured, these difficulties and dangers proportionately 

 increase, so that the comparatively low price at which cinchona 

 bark may be procured is in itself a matter of surprise. 



READING AND ELOCUTION. XXIII. 



EXERCISES ON EXPRESSIVE TONE continued. 



THE next piece is designed as an exercise for cultivating the "oro- 

 tund quality," or full, round, and forcible voice, which belongs to 

 energetic and declamatory expression. A loud, clear, ringing 

 tone should prevail throughout the reading or recitation of such 

 pieces. 



X. OLD IRONSIDES. 



[oro.g.] Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 



Long has it waved on high ; 

 And many an eye has danced to see 



That banner in the sky ; 

 Beneath it rung the battle shout, 



And burst the cannon's roar ; 

 The meteor of the ocean air 



Shall sweep the clouds no more ! 



Her deck, once red with hero's bloofl, 



Where knelt the vanquished foe, 

 When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 



And waves were white below, 

 No more shall feel the victor's tread, 



Or know the conquered knee ; 

 The harpies of the shore shall pluck 



The eagle of the sea ! 



Oh ! better that her shattered hulk 



Should sink beneath the wave ; 

 Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 



And there should be her grave : 

 Nail to the mast her holy flag, 



Set every threadbare sail ; 

 And give her to the god of storms, 



The lightning and the gale ! Holmes. 



The following piece is designed for practice in the "slow" 

 utterance which characterises the tones of sublimity and awe. 

 The " rate" of voice is not altogether so slow as will be required 

 in some pieces ; yet it retains much of that effect which cannot 

 be given without slowness of movement and full pauses. The 

 note, in the style of this lesson, continues low, although not so 

 remarkably deep as in the preceding. The principal object of 

 practice, in this instance, is to secure that degree of "slowness " 

 which marks the tones of ivonder and astonishment. 



XI. NIAGAEA. 



Flow on for ever, in thy glorious robe 

 Of terror and of beauty ! Yea, flow on 

 Unfathomed and resistless ! God hath set 

 His rainbow on thy forehead : and the cloud 

 Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give 

 Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of Him 

 Eternally, bidding the lip of man 

 Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour 

 Incense of awe-struck praise. 



Ah ! who can dare 



To lift the insect-trump of earthly hope, 

 Or love or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime 

 Of thy tremendous hymn ? E'en Ocean shrinks 

 Back from thy brotherhood ; and all his waves 

 Retire abashed. For he doth sometimes seem 

 To sleep like a spent labourer, and recall 

 His wearied billows from their vexing play, 



And lull them to a cradle calm ; but thou 

 With everlasting, undecaying tide, 

 Doth rest not, night or day. The morning stars, 

 When first they sang o'er young creation's birth, 

 Heard thy deep anthem ; and those wrecking fires 

 That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve 

 This solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name 

 Graven as with a thousand diamond spears, 

 On thine unending volume. 



Ev'ry leaf, 



That lifts itself within thy wide domain, 

 Doth gather greenness from thy living spray, 

 Yet tremble at the baptism. Lo! yon birds 

 Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wing 

 Amid thy mist and foam. 'Tis meet for them 

 To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir 

 The snowy leaflets of thy vapour wreath, 

 For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud, 

 Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven, 

 Without reproof. But, as for us, it seems 

 Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak 

 Familiarly of thee. Methinks to tint 

 Thy glorious features with our pencil's point, 

 Or woo thee to a tablet of a song, 

 Were profanation. 



Thou dost make the soul 

 A wondering witness of thy majesty; 

 But as it presses with delirious joy 

 To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step, 

 And tame its rapture with the humbling view 

 Of its own nothingness ; bidding it stand 

 In the dread presence of the Invisible, 

 As if to answer to its God through thee. Sigourney. 



The following specimen of descriptive humour requires the 

 " lively movement " in its rate of utterance. The voice is, in 

 this instance, accelerated beyond the rate of serious communica- 

 tion in any form, although it does not possess the rapidity 

 which belongs to the excited style of lyric or dramatic poetry, 

 in the most vivid style of humorous expression. This lesson 

 combines, also, an exemplification of "moderate" force and 

 " middle " pitch. The object in view in the practice of such 

 exercises as this is to gain animation and briskness in utterance. 

 A lagging or drawling tone is utterly incompatible with humor- 

 ous delineation. Mere rapidity, however, will not succeed in 

 imparting liveliness to style : the utterance must be slow enough 

 to be distinct and spirited. 



XII. WOTJTEE VAN TWILLEE. 



The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from 

 a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away 

 their lives and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam, 

 and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and 

 propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of which, 

 next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition 

 of all ages, magistrates, and rulers. 



His surname, Twiller, is said to be a corruption of the original 

 Twijfler,* which, in English, means Doubter a name admirably de- 

 scriptive of his deliberative habits. For, though he was a man 

 shut up within himself, like an oyster, and of such a profoundly re- 

 flective turn, that he scarcely ever spoke except in monosyllables, yet 

 did he never make up his mind on any doubtful point. This was 

 clearly accounted for by his adherents, who affirmed that he always 

 conceived every object on so comprehensive a scale, that he had not 

 room in his head to turn it over, and examine both sides of it; so that 

 he always remained in doubt, merely in consequence of the astonish- 

 ing magnitude of his ideas ! 



There are two opposite ways by which some men get into notice 

 one by talking a vast deal and thinking a little, and the other by hold- 

 ing their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a 

 vapouring, superficial pretender acquires the reputation of a man of 

 quick parts ; by the other, many a vacant dunderpate, like the owl, 

 the stupidest of birds, comes to be complimented by a discerning 

 world with all the attributes of wisdom. This, by the way, is a mere 

 casual remark, which I would not for the universe have it thought I 

 apply to Governor Van Twiller. On the contrary, he was a very wise 

 Dutchman, for he never said a foolish thing ; and of such invincible 

 gravity, that he was never known to laugh, or even to smile, through 

 the course of a long and prosperous life. Certain, however, it is, 

 there never was a matter proposed, however simple, and on which 

 your common, narrow-minded mortals would rashly determine at the 

 first glance, but what the renowned Wouter put on a mighty mysterious, 

 vacant kind of look, shook his capacious head, and having smoked for 



Pronounced Twtefler. 



