The Vestibule of Eloquence Author:John Thelwall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ORATION, ON THE INFLUENCE Animated Elocution IN AWAKENING MARTIAL ENTHUSIASM: WITH THE EULOGIES Epaminondas and Alfred, AND AN APOS... more »TROPHE TO THE HEROIC SHADE Ol NELSON. ORATION, be. ON the subject of the present disquisition, it could scarcely have been necessary to address an ancient audience. The most venerated nations of antiquity, were sufficiently impressed with the importance of Elocutionary Accomplishment, and its influence upon every thing that is connected with the Intellect, the Glory and the Power of States. Every part of their history,—every record of their habits, their customs and their institutions, evinces their attention to the cultivation of this Science. Among the Grecian States, every thing may be said to have been Elocutionary. Poems and Histories .were written—not only that they might become the amusements of the studious and retired, but that the strains ofinstruct ion of sentiment and pathos, mightbe conveyed, in their proper tones, to congregated auditors ; and the rich melody of a finely cultivated rythmus, might be rendered obvious to the popular ear. The speculations of the Philosopher, and the sublime institutions of the Moralist, were not consecrated to the silent gaze of the unsocialized recluse ; but were poured, in strains of vital eloquence, from the bosom of the Tutor, amidst a throng of emulous Pupils,—as they flocked around him, in the Porch, or in the Grove, and imbibed, at once, his wisdom and his animation.—Even Laws themselves, were promulgated,—and the obligations of social concord, and the sacred zeal of patriotism, disseminated—by the assistance of the Elocutionist:—who, partly from necessity, and partly from a conviction of the animating influence of oral instruction, bec...« less