'The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall,
• The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry,
'The builder oak, sole king of forests all,
The aspine good for staves, the cypress funeral.

9

The laurel meed of mighty conquerors,

'And poets sage: the fir that weepeth still,
'The willow worn of forlorn paramours,
'The yew obedient to the bender's will,
"The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill;
"The myrrhe sweet, bleeding in the bitter wound,
The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill,

• The fruitful olive, and the plantane round,

'The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound.'

"I shall trouble you no more, but desire you to let me conclude with these verses, though I think they have already been quoted by you; they are directions to young ladies opprest with calumny. V. 6. 14. 'The best (said he) that I can you advise,

Is to avoid the occasion of the ill;

For when the cause whence evil doth arise

' Removed is, the effect surceaseth still.
'Abstain from pleasure, and restrain your will,
'Subdue desire, and bridle loose delight,

• Use scanted diet, and forbear your fill,
'Shun secrecy, and talk in open sight;

• So shall you soon repair your present evil plight."

T

No. 541.

THURSDAY, November 20, 1712.

BY MR. JOHN HUGHES.

Format enim, natura priùs nos intùs ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum ; juvat, aut impellit ad iram,
Aut ad humum mærore gravi deducit et angit :
Post effert animi motus interprete lingua.

HOR. Ars. Poet. v. 108.

For nature forms and softens us within,
And writes our fortune's changes in our face;
Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports,
And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul;
And these are all interpreted by speech.

ROSCOMMON.

My friend the Templar, whom I have so often

mentioned in these writings, having determined to lay aside his poetical studies, in order to a closer pursuit of the law, has put together, as a farewell essay, some thoughts concerning pronunciation and action, which he has given me leave to communicate to the public. They are chiefly collected from his favorite author, Cicero, who is known to have been an intimate friend of Roscius the actor, and a good judge of dramatic performances, as well as the most eloquent pleader of the time in which he lived.

Cicero concludes his celebrated books de Oratore, with some precepts for pronunciation and action, without which part he affirms that the best orator in the world can never succeed; and an indifferent one, who is master of this, shall gain much greater applause. What could make a stronger impression, says he, than those exclamations of Gracchus" Whither. VOL. IX.

H

shall I turn? Wretch that I am! to what place betake myself? Shall I go to the Capitol ?—Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's blood. Or shall I retire to my house? Yet there I behold my mother plunged in misery, weeping, and despairing!" These breaks and turns of passion, it seems, were so enforced by the eyes, voice, and gesture, of the speaker, that his very enemies could not refrain from tears. I insist, says Tully, upon this the rather, because our orators, who are as it were actors of the truth itself, have quitted this manner of speaking; and the players, who are but the imitators of truth, have taken

it up.

I shall therefore pursue the hint he has here given me, and for the service of the British stage, I shall copy some of the rules which this great Roman master has laid down; yet, without confining myself wholly to his thoughts or words; and to adapt this essay the more to the purpose for which I intended it, instead of the examples he has inserted in his discourse, out of the ancient tragedies, I shall make use of parallel passages out of the most celebrated of

qur own.

The design of art is to assist action as much as possible in the representation of nature; for the appearance of reality is that which moves us in all represen'tations, and these have always the greater force the nearer they approach to nature, and the less the show of imitation.

.

Nature herself has assigned to every motion of the soul its peculiar cast of the countenance, tone of voice, and manner of gesture: and the whole person, all the features of the face and tones of the voice, answer, like strings upon musical instruments, to the impressions made on them by the mind. Thus the sounds of the voice, according to the various touches which

raise them, form themselves into an acute or grave, quick or slow, loud or soft tone. These too may be subdivided into various kinds of tones; as the gentle, the rough, the contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, softened, or elevated. Every one of these may be employed with art and judgment; and all supply the actor, as colors do the painter, with an expressive variety.

Anger exerts its peculiar voice in an acute, raised, and hurrying sound. The passionate character of King Lear, as it is admirably drawn by S hakespeare, abounds with the strongest instances of this kind. " -Death! Confusion!

'Fiery! -what quality?—why, Gloster! Gloster !
'I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
'Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!
Fiery! the fiery Duke ?- &c.

Sorrow and complaint demand a voice quite different; flexible, slow, interrupted, and modulated in a mournful tone; as in that pathetical soliloquy of Cardinal Wolsey on his fall:

'Farewell-a long farewell to all my greatness,
'This is the state of man! to day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope: to-morrow blossoms,
'And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
'The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And when he thinks, good easy man,
full surely
'His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

'And then he falls as I do.'

We have likewise a fine example of this in the whole part of Andromache in the Distrest Mother, particularly in these lines:

'I'll go, and in the anguish of my heart
'Weep o'er my child-if he must die, my life
Is wrapt in his, I shall not long survive.
'Tis for his sake that I have suffer'd life,
'Groan'd in captivity, and outliv'd Hector.

"Yes, my Astyanax, we'll go together!

• Together to the realms of night we'll go ; There to thy ravish'd eyes thy sire I'll show,

And point him out among the shades below.'

Fear expresses itself in a low, hesitating, and abject sound. If the reader considers the following speech of Lady Macbeth, while her husband is about the murder of Duncan and his grooms, he will imagine her even affrighted with the sound of her own voice while she is speaking it.

Alas! I am afraid they have awak'd

' And 'tis not done; th' attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us-Hark!-I laid the daggers ready, 'He could not miss them. Had he not resembled My father as he slept I had done it.'

Courage assumes a louder tone, as in that speech of Don Sebastian:

Here satiate all your fury:

'Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me,

I have a soul, that like an ample shield,

Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

Pleasure dissolves into a luxurious, mild, tender, and joyous modulation; as in the following lines in Caius Marius:

Lavinia O there's music in the name,

That soft'ning me to infant tenderness,

Makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life!'

And perplexity is different from all these: grave, but not bemoaning, with an earnest uniform sound of voice; as in that celebrated speech of Hamlet : To be, or not to be?-That is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 'Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them-To die-to sleepNo more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation