agency of numbers, are considered as rebellion against the Kingly-spirit of Popularity, and the Majorative-Despotism of its opinion: Yet upon this very conviction I offered the work to the public; hoping by the diffusion of its principles, to bring it into that old and only path of truth, which begins with a few, and ends with the many; and thus, in due season, to suit the country to it.

With here and there an exception, the scoffers at this work have been those eternal enemies to all disturbing originality, the Placemen of Learning. Supposing however that, through the influence of knowledge made light and popular and cheap, the Arts are not now so far downward as to create despair of successful efforts by a new one, before their entire decay and future revival; I would say to many of those who hold the places and draw the profits of science, that if they will but continue to sheathe their opposition in their feigned contempt, the first humble advocates of this work may, by a gradual rise to those places and profits, see their own enlarged designs of instruction, in the course of half a century, completed.

A

There are now several teachers of the system throughout the United States. Dr. Barber, an English physician, who had devoted himself to the study of elocution, and who came to Philadelphia about the period of its publication, was the first to adopt its principles, and to defend them against the double influence of doubt and sneer, by an explanatory and illustrative course of lectures. Yale College, at New Haven, was early favorable to the system. But the University of Cambridge, by appointing Dr. Barber to its department of Elocution, was the first chartered institution of science that gave an influential and responsible approbation of the work.

As this work furnishes general principles for an Art heretofore directed by individual instinct or caprice: all who would teach that art by principles founded in nature, must sooner or later adopt it. Will the influential instructors of PhiladelIf this city were not the place of my birth and residence, I would take upon me to answer - No.

phia be the last?

The objections first made to 'the Philosophy of the Human

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Voice,' were against its utility; now the cry among the learned is, that it is too difficult. Too difficult! Why, all new things are difficult; and if the scholastic pretender knows not this, let the annals of the trades instruct him. Just one century has elapsed since that common material of furniture-mahogany, was first known in England. It is recorded that Dr. Gibbons, an eminent physician of that period, had a brother, a West India captain, who took over to London some planks of this wood as ballast. The Doctor was then building a house; and his brother thought they might be of service to him. But the carpenters finding the wood too hard for their tools, it was laid aside for a time, as useless. Soon after, a candle-box being wanted in his family, Dr. Gibbons requested his cabinet-maker to use some of this plank which lay in his garden. The cabinetmaker also complained that it was too hard. The Doctor told him, he must get stronger tools. When however by successful means, the box was made, the Doctor ordered a bureau of the same material; the color and polish of which were so remarkable, that he invited all his friends to view it. Among them was the Duchess of Buckingham, who being struck with its beauty, obtained some of the wood; and a like piece of furniture was immediately made for Her Grace. Under this influence the fame of mahogany was at once established; its manufacture was then found to be in nowise difficult; and its employment for both use and ornament has since become universal.

The master-builders of science, literature, and eloquence, declared the Philosophy of the Human Voice,' to be too hard for their studious energies; and threw it aside as useless. But a few humble cabinet-makers of learning having, somehow or other, got stronger tools, have already made the box; are under way with the bureau; and are only waiting for the authoritative influence of some leader of oratorical fashion,-to produce a general belief in the simple 'truism, that—IF WE WISH TO READ ✔ WELL, WE MUST FIRST LEARN HOW.

Philadelphia, June 26, 1833.

INTRODUCTION.

THE analysis of the human voice, contained in the following essay, was undertaken a few years ago, exclusively as a subject of physiological inquiry. Upon ascertaining some interesting facts in the uses of speech, I was induced to pursue the investigation; and subsequently to attempt a methodical description of the various vocal phenomena, with a view to bring the subject within the limits of science, and thereby to assist the purposes of oratorical instruction.

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By every scheme of the cyclopedia, the subject of the voice is allotted to the physiologist; yet upon its most important function, speech and its expression, he has strangely neglected his part, by borrowing the small substance of his knowledge from the fancies of rhetoricians, and the inter-meddling authority of grammarians. It is time at last for physiology, of right and seriously, to take up its task.

In entering on this inquiry, I resolved to defer an express reference to the productions of former writers, until the habit of discrimination should be so far confirmed, as to obviate the danger of adopting unquestioned errors, which the strongest effort of independence often finds it so difficult to avoid. Even a faint recollection of school instruction was not without its forbidding interference, with my first endeavor to discover, by the ear alone, the hidden processes of speech.

After obtaining an outline of the work of nature in the voice, sufficient to enable me to avail myself of the useful truth of other observers, and to guard against their mistakes, I consulted all accessible treatises on the subject, particularly the

European compilations of the day, the authors of which have opportunities for learned research not enjoyed in this country. Finding, on a fair comparison, that the following description of the voice represents its nature more extensively and definitely than any received system, I am induced to offer it to the public. Many errors may be found in it; but if the general history, and the analytic development be not a copy from nature, and do not prompt others to carry the inquiry further, and into practical detail, I shall forever regret the time wasted in the publication.

It becomes me however, to remark, that as this work has not been made-up from the quoted, or controverted, or accommodated opinions of authors, I shall totally disregard any decision upon its merits, that is not the result of a scrutinizing comparison with nature herself.

The art of speaking-well, has, in most civilized countries, been a cherished mark of distinction between the elevated and the humble conditions of life: and has been immediately connected with some of the greater purposes of justice, patriotism, instruction, and taste. It may therefore appear extraordinary, that the world, with all its works of philosophy, should have been satisfied with an instinctive exercise of the art, and with occasional examples of its supposed perfection, without an endeavor to found an analytic system of instruction, productive of multiplied instances of success. Due reflection however, will convince us, that even this extended purpose of the art of speaking, has been one cause of the neglect. It has been a popular art; and works for popularity are too often the common-place product of a common-place ambition. The renowned of the bar, the senate, the pulpit, and the stage, applauded into self-confidence, by the undiscerning multitude that surrounds. them, cannot acknowledge the necessity of improvement: for the rewards that await the art of gratifying the general ear, are in no less a degree encouraging to the faults of the voice, than the approving judgment of the million is subversive of the rigid discipline of the mind.

Physiologists have described and classed the organic positions