OF READY-MADE SPEECHES, CONTAINING EXAMPLES ON THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS: LOYALTY, BISHOP AND CLERGY OF THE DIOCESE, THE ARMY, NAVY, AND THE VOLUNTEERS, POLITICAL, FORENSIC, AND ELECTIONEERING, RAILWAYS, THE DRAMA, FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, LOCAL DOMESTIC, WEDDINGS, CHRISTENINGS AND BIRTHDAYS, CONVIVIAL, RACE AND REGATTA DINNERS, OPENING OF INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITIONS AND WORKING MEN'S CLUBS, THE EARLY CLOSING MOVEMENT, &c. &c. With Appropriate Quotations, Toasts and Sentiments, &c. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech. BEN JONSON. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may, know how ye ought to answer every man. PREFACE. THE following circumstance gave rise to the publication of this collection of “Ready-made Speeches." While pursuing my avocation of a provincial bookseller, a French gentleman entering my shop addressed me thus, "Sir, I want a little English speaker book." I placed in his hands a copy of "Enfield's Speaker," whereupon he said, "No! no! no! Sir, that is not what I want: I want the little book of English Speeches." I observed that Enfield's was one of the most popular "Speakers," but that I had Mavor's, Knowles's, Brewer's, and a variety of others of a similar character, to which he replied, "No! no! no excuse me, I want the book of English Speeches already made to hand, because for example, I have to go because I am invited to the English wedding to morrow,—that is, the next day after that, to the wedding of my friend the English lady that spent a great portion of |