No definite rule can be given with reference to the length of the rhetorical, or grammatical pauses. The correct taste of the reader or speaker must determine it. For the voice should sometimes be suspended much longer at the same pause in one situation than in another; as in the two following

EXAMPLES.

LONG PAUSE.

Pause a moment. I heard a footstep. Listen now. I heard it again; but it is going from us. It sounds fainter,—still fainter. It is gone.

SHORT PAUSE.

John, be quick. Get some water. Throw the powder overboard. "It can not be reached." Jump into the boat, then. Shove off. There goes the powder. Thank Heaven. We are safe.

QUESTIONS.—Are the Rhetorical, or Grammatical Pauses always of the same length? Give examples of a Long Pause. Of a Short Pause.

REMARK TO TEACHERS.

It is of the utmost importance, in order to secure an easy and elegant style of utterance in reading, to refer the pupil often to the more important principles involved in a just elocution. To this end, it will be found very advantageous, occasionally to review the rules and directions given in the preceding pages, and thus early accustom him to apply them in the subsequent reading lessons.

SANDERS' YOUNG LADIES' READER.

PART SECOND.

1

EXERCISES IN RHETORICAL READING.

EXERCISE I.

1. Raph'-a-El, who is generally considered the greatest painter of modern times, was born at Urbino, in Italy, on Good Friday, March 28th, 1483. He died at Rome, on the anniversary of his birthday, at the early age of thirty-seven years, having attained such proficiency in his art, and completed so great a number of splendid works, as to excite the wonder of the world.

THE SENSE OF BEAUTY.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

1. BEAUTY is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds in the numberless flowers of the spring. It waves in the branches of the trees and the green blades of grass. It haunts the depths of the earth and sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and setting sun, all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those men who are alive to it, can not lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side.

2. Now, this beauty is so precious, the enjoyments it gives are so refined and pure, so congenial with our tenderest and noblest feelings, and so akin to worship, that it is painful to

think of the multitude of men as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it, as if, instead of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment.

3. Suppose that I were to visit a cottage, and to see its walls lined with the choicest pictures of Raphael,' and every spare nook filled with statues of the most exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn that neither man, woman, nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should I feel their privation! how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice!

4. But every husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner Artist; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hùes, propórtions, and moral exprèssion! I have spoken only of the beauty of nature, but how much of this mysterious charm is found in the elegant arts, and especially in literature! The best books have most beauty.

5. The greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul, when arrayed in this, their natural and fit attire. Now, no man receives the true culture of a man, in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished; and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded.

6. Of all luxuries this is the cheapest and most at hand, and it seems to me to be most important to those conditions where coarse labor tends to give a grossness to the mind. From the diffusion of the sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for music in modern Germany, we learn that the people at large may partake of refined gratifications, which have hitherto been thought to be necessarily restricted to a few.

QUESTIONS.-1. What are inflections of the voice? See page 23. 2. What rule for the rising inflections on proportions, 4th paragraph? Ans. Rule VII, page 31.

EXERCISE II.

1. Ec'-STA-SY, (EC, out and STASIS, a placing, or standing,) is derived from a Greek word signifying, literally, the removal of a thing out of its place. When applied to the mind, it denoted, formerly, a displacing, or unsettling of its powers, that is, madness: thence it has come to indicate a sort of intoxication, or bewilderment of joy; rapturous delight, 2. Can'-o-Py, (from a Greek word, meaning a gnat-bar, or mosquitonet for a bed, and that from CONOPS, a gnat, in the same language,) signifies, primarily, a curtain, or covering to keep off gnats or mosquitoes from the face. It is applied to any shade or covering extended over the head; hence, the phrase, the canopy of heaven, from the curtain-like appearance of the heavens above.

THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.

RUFUS DAWES.

1. The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light,
And wheels her course in a joyous flight;
I know her track through the balmy air,
By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there;
She leaves the tops of the mountains green,
And gems the valley with crystal sheen.

2. At morn I know where she rested at night,

For the roses are gushing with dewy delight,
Then she mounts again, and round her flings
A shower of light from her crimson wings,
Till the spirit is drunk with the music on high,
That silently fills it with ecstasy.'

3. At noon she hies to a cool retreat,

Where bowering elms over waters meet;
She dimples the wave where the green leaves dip,
As it smilingly curls like a maiden's lip,
When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain,
From her lover, the hope that she loves again.

4. At eve she hangs o'er the western sky, (8) Dark clouds for a glorious canopy,'

And round the skirts of their deepen'd fold,
She paints a border of purple and gold,
Where the lingering sunbeams love to stay,
When their god in his glory has passed away.

5. She hovers around us at twilight hour,

When her presence is felt with the deepest power;
She silvers the landscape and crowds the stream
With shadows that flit like a fairy dream;

Then wheeling her flight through the gladdened air,
The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere.

EXERCISE III.

1. THE GERMAN OCEAN, or North Sea, is between Great Britain and the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Norway. It extends from the Straits of Dover to the most northern of the Shetland Islands: its length is 650 miles, and its greatest breadth about 400.

2. RE-CRIM-IN-A-TION, (from RE, again, CRIMEN, a crime, and the suffix ATION, the act of making,) signifies the act of making, or charging, crime again; that is, the act of retorting criminal accusations.

3. PROV'-I-DENCE is from PRO, before, VID, (Latin video,) to see, and the Suffix ENCE, which latter means the act, or state of. Hence, PROVIDENCE signifies, literally, the act of seeing, or seeing to, beforehand; foresight: forecast, and, when applied to the Divine Being, points to that attribute, whereby all things are known from the beginning, and carefully provided for.

4. CON-JUR'-ED, is made up of coN, together, JUR, (Latin juro,) io swear, and the suffix ED, which means did: the literal meaning of the whole being did swear together; that is, did join, or unite under the solemnity of an oath. The word was used in relation to plots and conspiracies, but it also had the kindred sense of urging, as with the solemnity of an oath, which is the signification in the following piece. With the accent on the first syllable, (con'-jure,) the word signifies to practice witchcraft, or enchantment.