efforts in a peculiar mode of speech, christened
by the patients themselves "the rule," as it
is one from which, while under the professor's
influence, or that of his family, the patients
are not allowed to deviate. This rule implies
a peculiar, monotonous, drawling mode of
speech, in which all the syllables have equal
time, so that the volition can more easily
direct itself to the preserving a continued
stream of sound in the rhyma glottidis.
After this lucid explanation, afflicted
conversationalists can use their own judgment as to
applying to the oracular and poetical M.D.,
whose "name is identified with the successful
treatment of stammering," and whose "treatise
is the first attempt yet made to scientifically
explain the proximate cause of
stammering, and unveil its system or mode of
cure."

For the Romance of Stammering, I must
refer the reader to an autobiography full of
startling events—and extraordinary words and
phrases—written by a gentleman who turns
out to be no less a personage than "Lord
Decidious, for such is your title," inherited,
with a slight variation, from his uncle, Lord
Deciduis,—who is now about to enter parliament,
where, he considerately remarks, he
must take care, having been once unable to
speak at all, not to speak too much. His
lordship trusts that the reader will pardon
him for using in this place a "nom de litéraire,"
which literary name he adorns by
allusions to a lady, whose feelings he spares
by calling her Zantippi; by telling us that
the dry-rot is the work of an insect artificer;
by recording that, when a little schoolboy,
he had the purest tenor voice ever heard
(precocious child!); by softening down a
general in a rage into an irascible old
gentleman; by the really good joke of
the boy at school, who having let a piece
of BBB black lead pencil slip down his
throat, immediately swallowed his lump of
india-rubber to rub it out; by the favourable
letter of introduction given him by His
Grace, the Bishop of Blank; and by his
critical notice of "a little peculiarity about
these works on stammering (including that
just alluded to), namely, that their writers
are more successful in demolishing rival
theories than in establishing their own."

Lord D. dedicates his volume to Chevy
Chase, Esq., M.R.S.L., "author of a treatise
on the Cure of Stammering," &c., &c., which
is doubtless free from the defects complained
of in the other treatises. It was natural that
the memoir-writer should affix the name of
his friend, Chase, to the fly-leaf before his
Preface, since that invaluable friend figures,
together with the other dramatis personæ, in
the final scene in his book, where he regains
his lost heroine, recovers his title and estates,
transports the villanous abstractor of his
father's will, magnanimously allows his
repentant stepmother to live unpunished by
the arm of the law, "pensioned by me in a
country town," on a sufficient income to give
a cup of tea to the captain bold of Halifax,
who also lives in country quarters; and re-
acquires fluent speech under the tuition of Mr.
Chase, Author of a Treatise, &c., reviewed in
the Morning Post as follows (advertisement):
"We are happy to notice," &c.

If Lord D.'s libretto were set to music as a
tragi-comic opera, with orchestral
accompaniments for a full brass band, including
the poet's own private trumpeter, the words
of the final bravura (for the purest of tenor
voices on this occasion, instead of for the
prima donna, as usual), would be textually
these. I quote the original lyric, and do not
improvise, but only select.

(Andante cantabile.) Words are no longer
rugged rocks over which I am to fall prostrate.
To my own wonder and delight, I hear my own
voice emerging, like some poor prisoner, from
its long confinement. (Crescendo.) I get
through Gray's Elegy with scarcely a pause.
(Fortissimo.) The means, too, by which I
have attained to this result, are so simple—
like the Copernican system of Astronomy—
that its beautiful simplicity at once
proclaims its truth; so does this system of
vocalisation proclaim itself as natural and
true by its very antagonism to complexity
and art.

(Allegro vivace; tempo di Polka.) Charmed
with myself, after the first lesson, and treading
as if upon air, I sought my home. The
streets wore to me a different aspect; the
light had a different colour. I was delighted
when a bewildered provincial stopped me,
and asked me the way to Oxford Street. I
told him, in quite a prolix manner, so pleased
was I to hear myself talk. I felt an impulse
to call out in the street, "Does any one stammer
here?" (Short solo of own private
trumpeter, to allow the singer to take breath.) I
went into several shops, and bought things I
did not want, in order to show how easily I
could ask for them. It is true that there
were some words and some letters, that I
required further aid from Mr. Chase, in the
due pronunciation of; but still, the difference
from what I had been to what I then was,
was immense. I had crossed an unfathomable
gulf, and left stammering on the other
side. I wanted to call on every one I knew,
and longed to meet acquaintances in the
street. (Affetuoso e dolce.) And through all,
and amid all, I thought of Alicia, and how I
would pour into her gentle heart the story of
my long-cherished affection (ad libitum), of
my long-cherished affection (brass band,
tutti), of my long, my long, my long affection.
(Prestissimo.) But heaven has blessed me;
bless me! Chase and Alicia, Alicia and
Chase, both, both, both are here.

The curtain drops to soothing music, after
a dioramic effort of scenery, wherein Lord
D.'s baronial hall melts away into the
delicious marine establishment to which Mr.
Chase transfers his inmate-pupils during the