The Speaker: Or, Miscellaneous Pieces, selected from the Best English Writers... To which is prefixed An Essay On Elocution. [Together with] -- Exercises in Elocution; Selected from Various Authors, and arranged under proper heads; intended as a Sequel to a work entit

London: Printed for Joseph Johnson; printed by W. Eyres, for J. Johnson, London, Warrington,, 1774, 1780. Second edition of this best-selling anthology on elocution, with a preface outlining his personal rules for eloquence. In its notice, the Monthly Review recognises Enfield's collection as "a valuable miscellany". In the Speaker, William Enfield (1741-1797), a utilitarian minister and lecturer at Warrington's dissenting academy in Lancashire, collects extracts from classical and contemporary authors, including Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Cato, to serve as models for young readers. Joseph Johnson published two editions of Enfield's Speaker in 1774: the second edition retains largely the same number and arrangement of extracts as the first, adding only Sterne's Story of Le Fever at the start of Book VI. Two volumes, octavo (200 x 122 mm). Contemporary tree calf, smooth spines with six compartments panelled and with floral decoration in gilt, red morocco label, covers bordered with single gilt fillet, marbled endpapers, edges sprinkled red. Engraved booklabel of William Leak (c.1796-1857) of the Poplars, Follifoot, on front pastedowns of both volumes. Gathering K bound after S (Exercises). Judicious restoration to spine ends, very light bumping and wear, slight browning and foxing to endpapers and outer leaves: a very attractive copy. Alston VI 376; ESTC. Monthly Review, or Literary Journal, vol. 52, 1775.