RED. J. BETTS,
_Clerk of the Southern District of New-York._

AN ESSAY ON ELOCUTION,

DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND PRIVATE LEARNERS

BY SAMUEL KIRKHAM.

This work is mainly designed as a Reading-Book for Schools. In the first
part of it, the _principles_ of reading are developed and explained in a
scientific and _practical_ manner, and so familiarly illustrated in
their application to practical examples as to enable even the juvenile
mind very readily to comprehend their nature and character, their design
and use, and thus to acquire that high degree of excellence, both, in
reading and speaking, which all desire, but to which few attain.

The last part of the work, contains _Selections_ from the greatest
master-pieces of rhetorical and poetical composition, both ancient and
modern. Many of these selections are taken from the most elegant and
classical American authors--writers whose noble productions have already
shed an unfading lustre, and stamped immortality upon the literature of
our country.--In the select part of the work, _rhetorical marks_ are
also employed to point out the application of the principles laid down
in the first part.--The very favorable reception of the work by the
public, and its astonishingly rapid introduction into schools, since its
first publication in 1833, excites in the author the most sanguine hopes
in regard to its future success.

NOTICES.

After a careful perusal of this work, we are decidedly of opinion, that
it is the only _successful_ attempt of the kind. The rules are copious,
and the author's explanations and illustrations _are happily adapted to
the comprehension of learners_. No school should be without this book,
and it ought to find a place in the library of every gentleman who
values the attainment of a just and forcible elocution.--_Pittsburgh
Mer. April,_ 1834.

Mr. Kirkham has given rules for inflections and emphasis, and has
followed them by illustrative examples, and these by remarks upon the
inflection which he has adopted, and the reasons for his preference of
one inflection to another--a most admirable plan for such a work.
Copious examples occur in which all the various inflections and the
shades of emphasis are distinguished with great accuracy and clearness.
The catechetical appendages of each chapter, give the work new value in
a school, and the selections made for the exercise of scholars, evince
good taste and judgment. _U.S. Gazette, Philadel