A Handbook on Clerical Elocution. By the Rev. A. Burton.
(Skeffington and Son. is. net.)—Mr. Burton has much good advice to give, advice which is certainly needed, and may possibly be of use. Good reading is a gift. One child, for instance, in a family may have it, and that without instruction. Yet in this, as in other things, teaching does something. Readers who are neither good nor bad may have an impulse in the right direction given to them. But there is nothing to which the aphorism maxima ars celare artem more emphatically applies. A reader who makes it apparent that he has been taught elocution is a most distressing person. One passage somewhat shakes our con- fidence in Mr. Burton's taste. He would have the " ed " of the weak preterite in verbs pronounced separately. " Some words we invariably treat thus, as hallowed, blessed. Why not all, if we are to be consistent ?" Consistency in English pronunciation is obviously impossible. As to "hallowed," it is more commonly pronounced as a dissyllable. With regard to the general principle, it may be sufficient to remark that a practice which is intolerable in verse can hardly add dignity or force to prose. What would Mr. Burton think of a hymn which contained such a line as "Their names inscribed are in heaven" ? He tells us to read "the things contained in this book " ; but what would he say to " passion still, Restrained by the master will " ?
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