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OF

EXTEMPORE SPEAKING.

HINTS

FOR

THE PULPIT, THE SENATE, AND THE BAR.

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VICAR-GENERAL AND PROFESSOR AT THE SORBONNE, ETC. ETC.

WITH ADDITIONS

BY A

MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK BAR.

NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET.

MDCCCLIX.

ENTERED According to Act of Congress, in the year 1959, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of

New York.

W. H. TINON, Stereotyper.

J. J. REED, Printer.

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Tappan Pres. Assor

1-13-1933

PREFACE.

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THE following Work, by the eloquent M. BAUTAIN, has no counterpart or rival in the English language, so prolific of treatises upon Rhetoric, and the separate portions of the arts of composition and delivery. All those parts of oratory, however necessary to public speaking, or conducive to success in its performance, yet leave comparatively aside the precise business of off-hand extemporising. If we mistake not, the subject will be found to be handled with masterly ability by the author of this volume, who, keeping his end ever in view, and exemplifying in the treatment of his matter that clarté-so distinctively French, and which Quintilian says is the first quality

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of style-subordinates everything to the one grand purpose of extemporisation.

The treatise not only supplies a desideratum in the literature of the language, but it ministers to a need peculiarly existing under our representative system of popular government. It is true, and felt to be so,-that remark of an acute observer of American institutions and manners, that "In no country whatever is a genius for writing or speaking a more useful or commanding endowment than in this." To render the work more aptly suited to the precise requirements among ourselves, three chapters are added by the American Editor, which it is hoped will serve to smooth the way for the unpractised, or unassisted student of delivery. Cicero says in his treatise De Oratore, "There is requisite to the orator the acuteness of the logician, the subtilty of the philosopher, the skilful harmony, almost, of the poet, the memory of a juriconsult, the tragedian's voice, and the gesture of the most finished actors." But he speaks of the highest, for he adds immediately that

"nothing is more rare among men than a perfect orator." The gradations, as in all arts, are infinite, but a certain degree, is within the reach of most men, and many in their efforts to advance, will become indebted, consciously or unconsciously, to this admirable little work of M. Bautain.

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