and some seemed to have made considerable advances in the higher walks of impassioned eloquence."

We will not venture to assume that Mr. Ogilvie was the founder of an actually "new branch of education," and the father of American elocutionists. But since he figured as long ago as 1815, we may safely conclude that the old-fashioned elocutionists have been illustrating the splendors of "impassioned eloquence" for nearly a hundred years in this New World.

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Impassioned eloquence," both in writing and speech, was the glory of the period beginning with the close of the Second War of Independence. The school of "our eloquent ancestors" was the political press, the stump, and the revival pulpit.

Impassioned eloquence" by degrees passed from the domain of serious persuasion to the stage, the lyceum, and the academy. It became ornamental rather than useful. Fourth of July oratory retained a sort of quasi meaning for a long time, and even yet we occasionally see the spread eagle soar from a rustic platform and flap his broad wings in the high altitude of sublime noise.

Well do we remember the elocutionist of our school-days- his name was legion; we speak of the species, not of any particular specimens. He it was, wonderful-voiced, many-sounding man, who amazed our youthful ears by rending, not rendering, "Collins's Ode to the Passions," "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," and "Catiline's Defiance."

thinks I see him now in the act of clinching his fist at the imaginary Conscript Fathers and exclaiming,

"He dares not touch a hair of Catiline."

"Parrhasius" was in his fierce repertory, and who that once saw and heard could ever forget the unqualified delight that the lively artist took in commanding his attendant to

"Press down the poisoned links into his flesh,

And tear agape those healing wounds afresh!"

The impression upon small boys was ineradicable. Every urchin old enough to articulate was saying, in such sepulchral tones as he could simulate, –

"Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan !"

The recollection of one other "piece" of declamatory "impassioned eloquence" comes back like Banquo's ghost. 'Twas called "The Seminole's Defiance," a great favorite with the old-fashioned elocutionist, and with nervous boys. By the way, how curious the fact that it is not the big, rough, savage boy who affects the terrific style, but rather the pale and slender fellow. The "Seminole's Defiance" is ferocious from beginning to end, but the closing verse was the climax and the crucial test of the orator's art. It runs thus:

"I ne'er will ask for quarter,

I ne'er will be your slave,

But I'll swim the sea of slaughter

'Till I sink beneath its wave!"

Language cannot convey an adequate conception of the gesticular strokes with which our old teacher plunged into the "sea of slaughter," as though that crimson flood actually rolled before us; much less can words reproduce the exaggerated gurgle with which he sank beneath the wave.

The old-fashioned elocutionist rather disdained humor, regarding it as frivolous and undignified. Blood was his chosen element. Yet often he resorted to the other impassioned fluid — tears. tears. A throng of recollections clamor to be told, but we forbear. Suffice it to say our old friend's pathos was more harrowing than his tragedy. There was a sort of grim pleasure in listening to his murders and defiances and death-rattles, but his tender speeches gave unmitigated misery to the audience. Yet, paradoxical as it seems, the popular taste was such that we enjoyed the pain.

Perhaps the most remarkable quality of old-fashioned "impassioned eloquence was its parliamentary or senatorial element. The elocutionist considered it his bounden duty to instruct his audience in the principles and practice of parliamentary persuasion. As a rule, he preferred perorations rather than plain argument. Pitt, Burke, and Webster were the models he taught us to imitate, and the elocutionist gave brilliant examples of the style of those famous orators. Sometimes, also, he displayed samples of the art of Demosthenes or Cicero. Randolph, Calhoun, and Clay often appeared before

us in the person of our lecturer. Demosthenes, Cicero, and Burke were represented as very solemn and even pompous. Webster and Pitt rolled their R's, and emphasized all the big words, and flourished their arms with great energy, and so far forgot their dignity in moments of excitement as to beat their bosoms and to storm. When it came the turn of Randolph, or Clay, or Patrick Henry, to take the floor, "impassioned eloquence" found full vent. These worthy statesmen were regarded as naturally eloquent; they were fiery and untamed; they tore every passion to tatters; they ranted like mad men, and when, exhausted with vociferation and frantic exercise, Randolph or Clay dropped into his chair, the audience thundered round after round of applause.

The recollection of these "elocutionary entertainments" brings with it a sense of their irresistible absurdity. What could be more ludicrous? Imagine Burke in the British parliament, or Webster in Congress, looking, acting, and speaking as the old-fashioned elocutionist represented him! Had Clay or Calhoun behaved on any public occasion as the professional declaimer used to personate him, his friends would have consigned him to the nearest sanitarium.

In these latter days elocution is more rational. Teachers of vocal culture are striving to base their art on a natural foundation. The old-fashioned elocutionist can no longer please an enlightened audience. Perhaps the new-fashioned professor of oratory runs to another extreme of refined artificiality,

and has too much to say about the philosophy of expression and the subtilities of Delsarte. As the "blood-and-thunder" novel of yore has changed into the introspective tale of Howells and James, so the rant of the stage and the "spouting" of the "school exhibition" are supplanted by realistic acting and recitations in a quiet style.

"It's books." Such was the idiom of our district. The phrase was familiar to my ears in boyhood. Perhaps the expression has become obsolete; maybe it was narrowly provincial and "countryfied.” I do not know. But I distinctly recollect that, in the quiet precincts of old Ridgeville (an Ohio village fondly remembered as the scene of my first schoolgoing), we used to say "It's books." We meant by the words that the hours of study and recitation had begun; that playtime was over; that, to use another peculiar form of "English as she is spoke," school had "took up."

I recollect pedagogues who used to call in their pupils by rapping sharply with a ferule on the window-sash, and others who sent messengers to the playgrounds to tell us that it was books. The schoolmaster who first used a hand-bell to ring the children in from Riley's Woods was regarded as quite a magician; and we fancied that he must be very rich to possess a bell.

On the morning of the first opening of the city