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AMERICAN SPEAKER:

A COLLECTION OF

ORATORICAL AND DRAMATICAL PIECES,

SOLILOQUIES AND DIALOGUES,

WITH

AN ORIGINAL INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

ON THE

ELEMENTS OF ELOCUTION:

DESIGNED

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, AND COLLEGES.

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AND FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES.

1859.

KE 24705

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

LITERED according to act of Congress, in the year 18,

II. W. DERBY & CO.,

་་

o the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Ohls

PREFACE:

I HAVE proposed to myself, in this work, to put a better book in the hands of the student of oratory, than has yet been given to the public. There are already some excellent manuals on the subject: but I say it without the least invidious design, and in accordance with most teachers of elocution with whom I have conversed, that they are found inadequate to the purpose of instruction and copious illustration.

Many of these are almost entirely taken up with the dissection of the subject by minute technical details and numerous rules; or, in the absence of all system and theory, they are a jumbled collection of illustrations, in which leanness and barrenness are very conspicuous.

The chief fault to be found with such books of elocution as I have met, is, that whereas the English language abounds with such a vast amount of the most fervid eloquence; with so many specimens of language wrought out with a concentration of thought and rhetorical power, that must strike fire from the coldest heart; with such high-wrought descriptions, and dramatic, passionate and powerful exhibitions of feeling; these books of oratory seem to have stumbled on very little of all these; and show up, for the most part, but "a beggarly account” of tame and dry pieces, with here and there a gem of pure water.

I have designed, therefore, the present work, with two points in view to have a system clear and complete, but briefly expressed, so as to give unity of method and symmetrical organism to the book, without repelling the student with too much technicality; and after this, to have a copious collection of illustrations, in which no point of rhetorical excellence should be omitted, and none of which should be unworthy of a high place in the estimation of the student of oratory and dramatic expression.

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