To instruct our youth in the arts of reading and writing, there are many seminaries established every-where throughout this realm; and, accordingly, all of a liberal education are well versed in them. But who in these countries ever heard of a master for the improvement of articulation, for teaching the due proportion of sound and quantity of syllables in English, and for pointing out to his pupils, by precept and example, the right use of accents, emphases, and tones, when they read aloud, or speak in public? If this has never yet been done, surely it is a great omission, when we reflect of how much more importance the one art is than the other; how much more nice and subtle in its nature, which renders it more difficult to be acquired, and consequently demands more the benefit of instruction. Accordingly, the bad fruits of this neglect are every day perceived. Each man's experience will tell him, how few public readers, or speakers, he has heard acquit themselves well; and even of those few, those very few, who have acquired any name in that way, it would be found, upon a critical inquiry, that they have, for the most part, but a comparative excellence; and that their superiority over others arises from pre-eminence in the natural faculties of speech, and an happier construction of the organs, rather than any skill, or mastery, in the art of elocution. It is thus that, in countries where music is learned by the ear only, they who have the nicest ear, and most tuneable voices, will pass for the best singers, and, of course, be accounted excellent. But, when they come to be compared with those of another country, regularly trained in the art of music, it will soon be perceived, what amazing advantages such culture has given to the latter singers over the former; not only in point of musical skill, and variety of tones, but also in the vast improvement made in the singing instrument itself, with respect to all its powers of sweetness, strength, volubility, or expression, which have been gradually brought forward to their utmost perfection. Could some of the orators of old arise from the dead, and be confronted with the best of these times, perhaps the difference would be still more striking.
There cannot be a more flagrant proof of the preference given to the inferior species of language, over that of the nobler kind; nor, at the same time, one which will afford a more glaring instance of the uncontrolable power of fashion, however absurdly founded, than when we reflect, that it is reckoned a great disgrace for a gentleman to spell ill, though not to speak or read ill: and yet, if we were to weigh these defects in the true balance, and consider them only with respect to the bad consequences which follow from each, the former will appear to be scarce an object worthy of our attention, and the latter ought to excite universal indignation.
A gentleman writes a letter to his friend, or upon business (the chief use which gentlemen in general make of writing); there are many words in it mis-spelt; this is a great scandal, and lessens him in the eyes of those who read it: and yet, where is the mighty matter in this! The unusual manner of placing letters in words, gives no pain to the organs of sight; the reader can soon correct any error; or, if he should be puzzled, he can take time to examine and make out the sense by the context; and then the end of the letter is answered.
On the other hand, a man shall rise up in a public assembly, and, without the least mark of shame, deliver a discourse to many hundred auditors, in such disagreeable tones, and unharmonious cadences, as to disgust every ear; and with such improper and false use of emphasis, as to conceal or pervert the sense and all this without fear of any consequential disgrace, "quia defendit numerus." When we consider that this is often done on the most aweful occasions, in the very service of the Most High! at times when words, delivered with due force and energy, might be productive of the noblest consequences to society, afford the highest delight to the auditory, and give honour and dignity to the person of the speaker, may we not justly cry out, O custom! thou art properly called second nature, with respect to the immensity of thy power; but thou usurpest her place, thou art her tyrant, thou tramplest her under foot, and with thy scepter of iron, thou swayest the powers of reason and truth at thy will!
Indeed, nothing but such an uncontrolable power, could possibly have made a civilized and enlightened people continue, for such a length of time, in a course so opposite to all the rules of common sense. For upon farther examination it will appear, that even the written language, to which they solely apply, can never reach the perfection whereof it is capable, nor answer its noblest purposes, without the previous cultivation of that which is spoken.
When it is considered that articulate sounds or words are the types of ideas, and that written characters are the types of articulate sounds or words, it is evident that all the qualities of the latter must be circumscribed by the former, as the type cannot exceed its archetype. Accordingly we find, that the charms of style, in the writers of all ages and countries, have arisen from the beauty of the language spoken in those countries; and the beauty of language arose not from chance, but culture; for it is not time, but care, that will bring a language to perfection. If time alone would do, those of the most barbarous nations in the world, ought to be superior to those of the most civilized, as they are infinitely more ancient. It was to the constant pains and labour, the study and application successively given by the choicest wits, and men of brightest parts in each age, to the improvement and establishment of their native tongues, that we owe those two glorious languages of Greece and Rome, which have justly been the wonder of the world, and which will last to the end of time. And is it not owing to the excellence of their languages, that the noble works of their writers have been preserved? Had Demosthenes written his orations in such a language as High Dutch, or Virgil his poems in such a one as Irish or Welsh, their names would not long have outlived themselves.
That the state of all the more elegant and beautiful compositions, and the effects which they are capable of producing, must chiefly depend upon the art of speaking, may be clearly deduced from considering the nature and ends of such writings.
By the art of writing, sentiments can be communicated, either through the eye only, or through the eye and ear together, to individuals; or through the ear only to numbers; the first of these, by silent reading, the other two, by reading aloud. In the first instance, ideas of things are excited by written words, as the symbols of words spoken; and by association, the idea of the sounds also which accompany those words. Now at the best, supposing the ideas of the properest sounds, were always to be associated by the silent reader, the effect of any composition must be much weaker than if it were spoken, as far as ideas fall short of realities. But if, through ignorance in the art of speaking, or through vicious habits, he annexes the ideas of wrong sounds and tones to the words, it is impossible he can perceive the true force and beauty of the composition, so far at least as they depend upon sound and tone.
To trace this custom, therefore, to its original, may not only be a matter of curiosity, but, by shewing the weakness of its foundation, tempt us to abolish it, and substitute a nobler one in its room.
When our system of education was first established on the revival of literature, by means of the introduction of the languages of Greece and Rome, men's thoughts were wholly turned to books, and consequently to written language. The English, then poor and barbarous, was soon supplanted by the richer, and more polished Latin. The service of the church was in Latin, the laws in Latin. The religious controversies which embroiled all Europe, after the writings of Luther and Calvin had appeared, were all carried on in Latin. Men of the brightest parts throughout Europe, were necessarily engaged in the closest application to that language, which became the universal vehicle of knowlege, in all works of genius and learning. No was its use confined to writing only, but it was also adopted into speech amongst the polite; it revived, in a manner, from its tomb, and once more became a living tongue. Not, indeed, in its original beauty and strength; it might rather be considered as the ghost of the old Roman, haunting different countries in different shapes. For as the true pronunciation of a dead language could not be known, each nation gave to it the sounds which belonged to their own; and consequently it differed as much in point of sound in the several countries where it was spoken, as the native tongues differed from each other in that respect. But as they all agreed in one uniform manner of writing it, for which they had models before them, in the works of the ancients, we need not wonder that the chief attention was given to the written language, in preference to that which was spoken, as they had sure rules to guide them in the one, and none at all in the other. Latin words, upon paper, were universally intelligible to all nations, as they all agreed in the orthography, or true manner of writing them, though they were far from agreeing with respect to the orthoepy, or true manner of pronouncing them; in which the difference was so great, that the people of one country could scarce understand Latin, or know it to be the same language, when pronounced by those of another.