Von Raumer acutely observes:--"Mr. Faraday is not only a man of profound
chemical and physical science, (which all Europe knows), but a very
remarkable lecturer. He speaks with ease and freedom, but not with a
gossiping unequal tone, alternately inaudible and bawling, as some very
learned professors do; he delivers himself with clearness, precision,
and ability. Moreover, he speaks his language in a manner which
confirmed me in a secret suspicion I had, that a great number of
Englishmen speak it very badly. Why is it that French in the mouth of
Mdlle. Mars, German in that of Tieck, and English in that of Faraday,
seems a totally different language? Because they articulate what other
people swallow or chew. It is a shame that the power and harmony of
simple speech (I am not talking of eloquence, but of vowels and
consonants), that the tones and inflexions which God has given to the
human voice, should be so neglected and abused. And those who think they
do them full justice--preachers--generally give us only the long straw
of pretended connoisseurs, instead of the chopped straw of the
dilettanti."
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