nions in private life, and may enable you to be highly useful and influential in public; the peculiar nature both of our general and state governments rendering every man, who possesses in any degree the confidence of the people, either on account of his integrity or abilities, eligible to a seat in the legislative assembly, where the fascinating, the irresistible influence of chaste and animated oratory is most conspicuously displayed. The pen of the historian has recorded its efficacy in every age of the world, and in every state of society. Among various other instances, I will, for a moment, direct your attention to that of the incomparable Demosthenes, who was not more remarkable for the power of his elocution than for the difficulties he encountered and overcame, before he attained that celebrity which immortalized him in the annals of oratory; exhibiting at once the magic influence of rhetorical skill, and the equally wonderful operation of perseverance and exertion. Place now before your imagination, my. young friends, the image of the Grecian orator in his earlier years, struggling against apparently insuperable natural defects in his articulation, in consequence of which he was hissed from the rostrum by the delicate and fastidious taste of an Athenian audience-view him, instead of sinking into apathy and despair, wandering along the shore of the boisterous Archipelago, and endeavouring to outbellow the ocean "with all its roaring multitude of waves," in order to give compass and strength to his pronunciation, and familiarize him to the tumult of a popular assembly— -see him then buried in a subterranean cell invoking the inspiration of Apollo by the glimmering light of the midnight lamp, and placing pebbles in his mouth to retard the velocity of his elocution-behold him, with a naked sword suspended over his shoulder to correct an ungraceful movement which had become habitual, and retiring from that scene of discipline with a wounded, bleeding body-contemplate him, finally, returning to the very Areopagus, from which he had been indignantly expelled, but, in which he now triumphantly exhibited the most brilliant trophies of his victorious eloquence, rousing his countrymen from their inglorious indolence, and with the vivid lightning of his eye, and commanding energy of his voice, fulminating over all Greece, and causing the throne of Macedon to tremble before him, whether occupied by the victorious Philip, or his no less intrepid successor, Alexander the Great. His was "that pathetic eloquence, that moulds THOMSON. invincible power In these memorable incidents, my young friends, you behold the and assiduous application. Eloquence may be styled the handmaid of of Genius, and the sure reward of unwearied industry Genius-often eliciting that splendor, and awakening that animation which would otherwise have remained dormant and neglected. Immortality, though endowed with superhuman power, slept, as it Even Shakspeare, whose name is now enrolled in the volume of were, in the tomb of the Capulets, till the potent spell of Garrick's elocution burst the marble jaws of his sepulchre, dissolved, as with Promethean torch, his iron trance, and exhibited his matchless genius to the senses of an admiring world, in all its native mightiness and mabeen constantly produced in the history of mankind. The calm suggesBy the magic powers of Eloquence the most astonishing effects have tions of Wisdom, the dictates of Prudence, the machinations of Artifice, which has been instantaneously performed by the effusions of a fervid and the exertions of open Force, have often failed to accomplish that tory. Nations have been guided-armies have been inspired with courage-and empires have been subverted, by the all-subduing influence An ordinary, unimpassioned utterance may be said to resemble water in a quiescent, fluid state; an animated, nervous elocution, the same of exerting an elastic, all-commanding force, that can bear down every element volatilized by heat, which, under that modification, is capable obstacle in its progress; can "rend the knarled oak;" shiver the adamantine rock; and even if pent in the centre of yon burning orb of day, would burst from its glowing prison, and scatter the glittering fragments of that resplendent luminary in wild disorder through the plane of a bold, energetic Elocution. tary system. The accomplished orator, like the enraptured poet, may be said to possess the keys of the human heart. "This can unlock the gates of Joy, "Of horror that, and thrilling fears, "Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.” GRAY. Lastly-In order to bring into useful action, and give to these acof genuine Taste and correct Criticism. "Taste is that faculty of the human mind, by which we are enabled to perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature and of art." By a studious attention to the best authors, and a frequent intercourse with literary men, you will gradually be qualified justly to appreciate the merits, and accurately to ascertain the errors or deficiencies, of any author or object which may be subjected to your observation. Thus will you view the beauties which are calculated to gratify an intelligent mind with a degree of enthusiasm and refinement which the illiterate and unpolished are incapable either of exciting or of cherishing; and thus will your capacities of intellectual enjoyment be expanded and invigorated, and consequently the purest and most independent principles of human happiness subjected to your command. (To be concluded in our next.) FOR THE PORT FOLIO. VALEDICTORY ORATION, Delivered at the late Commencement in the Philadelphia Academy, by Mr. JAMES P. MORRIS. HAVING gone through the usual course of education in this seminary of learning, having passed the ordeal trials of private and public examination, I am now in full and joyful expectation of receiving those parchment honours which are to certify the success of my studies, and prove to a believing world, that my labour hath not been in vain. But I have been informed, that before my temples can be crowned with literary laurels, it is expected that I should address you, ladies and gentlemen, in an elegant speech on this grand occasion. Unreasonable as this demand seemed to me, being long accustomed to the passive obedience and nonresistance of a school, I earnestly endeavoured to comply with it. I had recourse to books, to solitary walks, to ardent invocations, and to all the usual provocatives to good writing. I chose for my subject the dignity and advantage of a complete English education, and the excellent mode of attaining it in the Philadelphia Academy. I began with a warm apostrophe to this building, in manner and form following-O ye sacred walls! ye venerable stools and benches! and thou, expanded arch, that hast often echoed the sweet effusions of those aspiring youths who have in times VOL. II. N past been nurtured within your hallowed precincts-hear! O hear! one of your latest sons testify the ardour with which he feels himself inspired,- -on escaping from your gloomy confines. Thus far all was well-but what to say next was the difficulty. While I was making every effort to proceed, an unlucky line of a distressed poet, who was composing new year's verses, popped into my head, viz. "What can I say, that han't been said before?" This ridiculous question, quenched all my enthusiasm in a moment, nothing could be more unfortunate: I certainly proposed, ladies and gentlemen, to have made a very eloquent speech, exemplifying all the possible ornaments of language, expressed in the most grammatical and logical form: but my good intention having been thus unhappily frustrated, I must e'en endeavour to express my sentiments in plain English; yet, although I am under the necessity to change the intended style of my speech, I shall not abandon the subject I had chosen,* for I have been here taught, that perseverance is a cardinal virtue in the character of a scholar, and that the life of a student is a life of perpetual warfare. I have been daily told, You must consider your lesson as an enemy you have to encounter. If you conquer it, you will forever command its services and be rewarded with honour and reputation; but if it defeats you, ignorance and disgrace will assuredly be your portion. From the influence of this principle, therefore, having grappled, I am resolved to hold fast my subject, be the issue what it may: the chance I know is against me, as I am not accustomed to extempore speaking; but my confidence in the literality, indulgence, and benevolence of this polite audience, seems to inspire me with invincible courage. So much for my exordium, which is one sixth part of my oration, and I think tolerably well executed. To begin then the detail of our instruction here. As soon as a youngster can read trisyllables with any degree of facility, a Grammar is put into his hands, and he is required to commit a portion of it to memory every night, grammar being the very foundation of language; and justly so termed, its rules being as hard, as rough, and as unpolished, as the stones which constitute the walls of a Through all the mazes of this grammar, the sounds of the letters, the proper division of syllables, the properties of the different parts of speech, the rules of syntax, and the puzzling perplexities of prosody, he is obliged to wade, groping for some time in utter dark cellar. * For the greater part of this introductory portion of the address the writer is indebted to the works of the late Francis Hopkinson, Esq. being the exordium of an oration written by that gentleman for one of the graduates of Vide Hopkinson's Works, Vol. 1, the University. ness, and learning by rote a complicated system of rules, the propriety or application of which it is impossible for him to see at the time he is learning them; but, when he begins to parse, then the beauty, the symmetry, the connexion of the before incomprehensible whole, begin to appear: like the genial rays of a meridian sun, after a dark and gloomy thunder-storm, (and such often occur within the walls of this building) the light of knowledge beams with the most invigorating radiance upon his hitherto torpid faculties; he feels himself in possession of a new character, and brings not only all the written, but the colloquial language he meets with, to the test of his grammatical skill. Often indeed have I, while silently sitting at my father's fireside, pitied the ignorance of otherwise very respectable characters, for the torrents of ungrammatical jargon which they poured out; nay, I have more than once detected members of Congress tripping, and what was still more astonishing and distressing to me, I have even sometimes heard grammatical errors from the fair mouths of the ladies. The next branch to which our attention was called, was that of Composition, by which we were instructed how to connect sentences together so as to form a good style, accommodated to the nature of the subject to be discussed. We were taught the peculiarities of the concise and diffuse, the nervous and the feeble, the vehement and the plain, the neat, the graceful, the florid, the simple and affected style, together with all ornaments of figurative language, from the trope to the allegory, from the cold discussion of a philosophic theory, to the animated, glittering, and glowing rhapsody of an eastern tale, a town meeting address, or, ladies, a passionate love-letter. the Having thus enjoyed the opportunity of rendering ourselves masters of written language, we were called upon to study Elocution, or the art of reading or reciting with justness, energy, propriety, and ease, either our own sentiments or those of others, whether communicated in prose or verse, with the peculiarities attached to each species of oratory for the pulpit, the senate, or the bar Wew were next introduced to an acquaintance with Natural History, or the properties and various classification of the objects which surround us, in the three kingdoms of nature: the mineral, vegetable, and animal; the composition of fossils and minerals; the construction of trees and plants; and the form and faculties of living creatures, from the majestic rotundity of the mighty mammoth, to the delicate organization of prairie dogs. Geography, or a knowledge of "this great globe which we inhabit” followed next; by which the relative situation of countries, their boundaries, their rivers, mountains, &c. are precisely ascertained; so that we can now read a newspaper with peculiar delight, as we can travel |