and heart to be impressed by each successive conception. What actor ever received greater impressions from his interlocutor than Webster did from the scenes depicted by his imagination?

AN aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet-the first sound slumbers of the night hold him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment; with noiseless foot, he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer; and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!

It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished! The deed is done! He retreats, — retraces his steps to the window, passes through as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder; no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and he is safe! Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself, feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself; it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer carries soon comes to possess him. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its work

The guilty

or, rather, it

ings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master; it betrays his discretion; it breaks down his courage; it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed; it will be confessed. There is no refuge from confession but in suicide, and suicide is confession.

Daniel Webster.

XLVII. MODES OF HISTRIONIC EXPRESSION.

ACTING and speaking are not the only modes of vocal delivery. Between these two extremes there have been many forms in nearly every age. Among the earliest of all public entertainments was the recitation of the epic, the lyric, and other poems at the Ionic feasts; and even the recitation from his histories by Herodotus, as some think, at the Olympian games, at any rate in Athens.

During the present century, there has been a great revival of public reading as a means of entertainment. It has gradually assumed many forms as practised by different artists. Charlotte Cushman, for example, whose readings can never be forgotten by those who heard them, especially her farewell course in the Boston Music Hall, which followed her farewell to the stage, nearly always read from a book, seated at a little table. Occasionally, she gave recitations or impersonation from Macbeth or her favorite plays; but these were rare. Her intensity, her great versatility and suggestiveness, the mobility of her face and flexibility of her voice, enabled her to suggest the deepest subtleties of the highest literature with perfect ease and repose. Many have followed in her steps. Professor Robert R. Raymond was one of the most illustrious readers of Shakespeare. Though reading from his book as closely as Charlotte Cushman, he stood, and rendered his characters with the whole body,—in many cases with the extreme pantomimic representation of acting. His greatest success was in the humorous parts of Shakespeare, which have possibly never received better interpretation.

One of the oldest forms of vocal rendering is recitation from memory. The reciter takes the attitude of the speaker, and everything is, in fact, given from the point of view of the orator.

This form has been practised in all the schools and colleges, and has been called declamation. It is chiefly a recitation from the orators, a custom which we know came down to us from the Greeks, and with us has been gradually extended to include, as it did with the Greeks, the recitation of every form of poetry, and also of general literature.

Recently, there has grown up also another form of vocal rendering which is called impersonation. The impersonator either sits or stands, or does both; he uses his chair, his hat, coat, gloves, desk, or table occasionally as properties, acting each character with the fidelity of the stage. Frequently there is an exaggeration beyond what would appear on the stage of certain pantomimic bearings or vocal modulations, for the purpose of accentuating the opposition of characters to each other, which, of course, can only be done at moments, not by continuity, as in stage representation.

The monologue differs from impersonation in that the reader takes but one character, the story being constructed so as to suggest other characters indirectly by the speech of one. This has not been often practised except in France, where the leading actors with few exceptions have studied monologues and rendered them. Ten or twelve volumes in one series of monologues have been published during the past fifteen years. The two Coquelins are the chief representatives of this form of histrionic expression.

Each of these forms has had its advocates. Some have gone so far as to think that impersonations and monologues, or even recitations, are inartistic; that only public reading is true art. Others, however, advocate recitations, some, impersonations; but it must be borne in mind that all forms have their place. Each is adapted to certain occasions and to certain forms and grades of literary art. Any one of them may be lifted to an artistic plane, and most of them may be degraded to the lowest plane of farce. The principle is not the mode of the art, but the art principles that are embodied; everything must be consistent and harmonious. Even stage accentuations and exaggerations may be allowed for the purpose of a fuller interpretation; but such exaggerations must be simple and in harmony with the literary spirit of the selections rendered.

A reader like Charlotte Cushman must be more suggestive; and hence when there is the power of suggestion, as was the case with her, the greatest tragical works in the highest literature can be presented, which the impersonator hesitates to undertake. If, however, he understood the broader principles of art, and the highest possible control of voice and body, and was willing to be delicate and suggestive, the very noblest poetry could be rendered even as an impersonation, and especially as a monologue. The ordinary reader never renders such poems as Browning's "Saul," because neither his imagination nor feeling are sufficiently cultivated to appreciate them, nor his voice and vocal expression sufficiently trained to render them. At present, impersonation usually is confined to the plane of comedy, on account of its extreme representative character, and the taste of audiences. It lends itself very easily to the more popular forms of humorous representations.

XLVIII. ASSIMILATION AND HUMOR.

- an

THERE are many discussions of the ludicrous, but none are adequate. The sense of the ridiculous is a kind of instinct, example of unconscious reasoning." Some have taken great pains to explain that even judgment is the fundamental requisite of wit and humor; but the act of humorous perception is more or less a spontaneous, even an unconscious, process; it is, at any rate, immediate. The rendering of humor is important for the development of vocal expression. It secures free play in the action of the mind; it shows us the necessity of abandon, and of trusting in instinct.

The rendering of humor requires instinct, naturalness and simplicity, flexibility and elasticity of the voice, and that mercurial temperament which is the fundamental cause of flexibility and versatility in expression. True humor, especially, requires assimilation. It is always associated with the power to see things from various points of view, and with that joyous element in our nature which brings ease and freedom of action in the use of the voice, stimulates the circulation, quickens the breathing, opens the throat, and establishes right conditions of tone. It gives us

also breadth of sympathy and keenness of sensibility. A sense of the incongruous prevents us from making blunders, and indirectly develops a sense of harmony and taste.

The rendering of noble humor also develops the power to read pathos. It is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and one who has no sense of the ridiculous is pretty sure to take the step. The study of humor makes us conscious of the step, and so prevents us from taking it, and removes the fear of being ridiculous, which is one of the common causes of lack of power to express deep feeling.

There are special cases for which the study of humor is very necessary, as in the case of clergymen, or of any one who by his profession is tempted towards a special line of emotion. A clergyman is apt to take life so seriously, that his voice and vocal expression assume a cadence which becomes a mannerism. To prevent this, he needs to practise a great variety of emotions, so as to develop the gamut of vocal modulations and a vocabulary of This natural languages.

In the next place, the study of humor develops sympathy, or, at least, this is true of the higher kinds. There are, of course, kinds of wit which are cynical and sarcastic and to be avoided. 'The noblest humor is associated with the highest literature, and the reductio ad absurdum is one of the most effective means of progress in every age.

THE ORIGIN OF ROAST PIG.

MANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meal raw. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather boiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. What was of much