The Art of Reading Aloud. By G. Vandenehff, M.A. (Sampson
Low and Co.)--The author seeks to teach his art by various and very sensible means, and seems especially happy in his use of some of the best-known and commonly understood terms of musical art to illustrate his subject. Indeed, he does more than that, for he borrows the terms in such a way as greatly to assist the learner. He thus avoids the multiplication of terms such as " abrupts," "indefinites," "equable-concrete," and tho like, which, though they express the teacher's method clearly to the pupil, yet, like all purely technical terms, need to be sparingly coined. Some of the remarks seem obvious, when one reads them, yet, for instance, we may question a great many intelligent persons without getting a clear state- ment of the fact (given on page GO) that no one letter of the alphabet is really a monotone.. On the whole, we believe that any one who goes through this well-condensed book according to the author's intention ought to have advanced considerably in this useful art. The only point on which we feel inclined to differ with the author is in the way he speaks of the orotund voice, as applicable to the Scriptures. It is true that on p. 188 he makes some excellent limitations to the general remark, but still there seems to be so much greater fear of error in the over-dignified style than in the over-natural, that we should like to see in another edition a reconsideration of these passages. Our Scriptures are too varied in the nature of their composition for any one kind of voice to predominate.
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