ns; at proper intervals, as to seem the
subject operating on the speaker, and not the speaker on the subject.
This, it will be confessed, is a great desideratum; and an attempt to do
this, is the principal object of the present publication.

The difficulty of describing action by words, will be allowed by every
one; and if we were never to give any instructions but such as should
completely answer our wishes, this difficulty would be a good reason for
not attempting to give any description of it. But there are many degrees
between conveying a precise idea of a thing, and no idea at all.
Besides, in this part of delivery, instruction may be conveyed by the
eye; and this organ is a much more rapid vehicle of knowledge than the
ear. This vehicle is addressed on the present, occasion, and plates,
representing the attitudes which are described, are annexed to the
several descriptions, which it is not doubted will greatly facilitate
the reader's conception.

The first plate represents the attitude in which a boy should always
place himself when he begins to speak. He should rest the whole weight
of his body on the right leg; the other, just touching the ground, at
the distance at which it would naturally fall, if lifted up to shew that
the body does not bear upon it. The knees should be strait and braced,
and the body, though perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining
as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The
right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight
and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the
flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between
both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by
supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms,
as in plate the first, where the arm in its true position forms the
diagonal of such an imaginary figure. So that, if lines were drawn at
right angles from the shoulder, extending downwards, forwards, and
sideways, the arm will form a& angle of forty-five degrees every way.

When the pupil has pronounced one sentence in the position thus
described, the hand, as if lifeless, must drop down to the side, the
very moment the last accepted word is pronounced; and the body, without
altering the place of the feet, poise itself on the left leg, while the
left hand rises itself into exactly the same position as the right
was before, and continues