Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2016 10:25:54 GMT
CHAP. XXI.
Of Rhetorism.
THere was also a Rhetorical Gesticulation, not much differing from Stage-action, but more careless, which Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, and most of the Stoicks have deem'd most necessary and commen∣dable in a Rhetorician, and an Orator; as teaching a graceful gesture of the Body, and composure of the Countenance: seeing that the vigour of the Eye, the sound of the Voice, accommodated to the significati∣on of Words and Sentences, together with a decent motion of the Body, and managment of the Coun∣tenance, adde much to the force and efficacy of Orati∣on. But this Histrionical-Rhetorical Gesticulation be∣gan at length to be little us'd, while Tiberius admo∣nishes Augustus, That he should speak with his Mouth, and not with his Fingers; and is now quite laid aside, unless it be among some Mimmick Friers, whom you •hall see now adays with a strange labour of the Voice making a thousand faces, looking with their Eyes like men distracted, throwing their Arms about, dancing with their Feet, lasciviously shaking their Loyns, with a thousand sundry sorts of wreathings, wrestings, turn∣ings this way and that way of the whole Body, pro∣claiming in their Pulpits their frothy Declamations to the People: mindful perhaps of that Answer of De∣•nosthenes, reported in Valerius Maximus, who being ask'd what was most efficacious in speaking, reply'd, Hy∣pocrisie and Counterfeiting: and being asked over and over again, still made the same Answer as before; testi∣•ying thereby, that the whole force of Perswasion lay
Page 66
therein. But that we may not digress too far from the Mathematicks, let us return to Geometry.
Of Rhetorism.
THere was also a Rhetorical Gesticulation, not much differing from Stage-action, but more careless, which Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Quintilian, and most of the Stoicks have deem'd most necessary and commen∣dable in a Rhetorician, and an Orator; as teaching a graceful gesture of the Body, and composure of the Countenance: seeing that the vigour of the Eye, the sound of the Voice, accommodated to the significati∣on of Words and Sentences, together with a decent motion of the Body, and managment of the Coun∣tenance, adde much to the force and efficacy of Orati∣on. But this Histrionical-Rhetorical Gesticulation be∣gan at length to be little us'd, while Tiberius admo∣nishes Augustus, That he should speak with his Mouth, and not with his Fingers; and is now quite laid aside, unless it be among some Mimmick Friers, whom you •hall see now adays with a strange labour of the Voice making a thousand faces, looking with their Eyes like men distracted, throwing their Arms about, dancing with their Feet, lasciviously shaking their Loyns, with a thousand sundry sorts of wreathings, wrestings, turn∣ings this way and that way of the whole Body, pro∣claiming in their Pulpits their frothy Declamations to the People: mindful perhaps of that Answer of De∣•nosthenes, reported in Valerius Maximus, who being ask'd what was most efficacious in speaking, reply'd, Hy∣pocrisie and Counterfeiting: and being asked over and over again, still made the same Answer as before; testi∣•ying thereby, that the whole force of Perswasion lay
Page 66
therein. But that we may not digress too far from the Mathematicks, let us return to Geometry.