So seemed the sire, when first upon the road,

The shining spoil his wily partner showed.

QUESTIONS.-What is the difference between the inflection proper in prose and in verse? What is the principal difficulty in reading poetry correctly? How may this difficulty be overcome? If there should be doubt as to the proper inflection, how may the inflection be determined? If the poetical accent or emphasis conflicts with the common and authorized pronunciation, which should yield? How may the difficulty sometimes be compromised? Illustrate this by examples. What pauses are peculiar to poetry? What caution should be observed with regard to the cesura? How should a simile be read in poetry?

V. THE VOICE.

STRENGTH AND COMPASS.

THE first object of every speaker's attention, is to have a smooth, even, full tone of voice. If nature has not given him such a voice, he must endeavor, as much as possible, to acquire it; nor ought he to despair; for such is the force of exercise upon the organs of speech, that constant practice will strengthen the voice in any key to which we accustom it. That key, therefore, which is most natural, and which we have the greatest occasion to use, should be the key we ought the most diligently to improve.

Every one has a certain pitch of voice in which he can speak most easily to himself and most agreeably to others; this may be called the natural pitch; this is the pitch in which. we converse; and this must be the basis of every improvement we acquire from art and exercise. In order, therefore, to strengthen this middle tone, we ought to read and speak in it, as loud as possible, without suffering the voice to rise into a higher key. This, however, is no easy operation. It is not very difficult to be loud in a high tone, but to be loud and forcible without raising the voice into a higher key, requires great practice and management.

The best method of acquiring this power of voice, is to practice reading and speaking some strong, animated passages, in a small room, and to persons placed at as small a

distance as possible; for, as we naturally raise our voice to a higher key, when we speak to people at a great distance, so we naturally lower our key, as those, to whom we speak, come nearer. When, therefore, we have no idea of being heard at a distance, the voice will not be so apt to rise into a higher key, when we wish to be forcible; and, consequently, exerting as much force as we are able, in a small room, and to people near us, will tend to swell and strengthen the voice, in the middle tone.-Rhetorical Grammar, p. 245.

LOW TONES OF VOICE,

May be acquired and strengthened, by practice on such pieces as naturally require a pitch a little below the natural or conversational tone; such, for example, as contain the expression of hatred, scorn, or reproach, as well as those of a very grave and solemn character. When the student can pronounce such pieces with ease and force, let him practice them on a little lower note, and so on, until the voice has been sufficiently cultivated in that direction.

1.

2.

3.

EXAMPLES.

O, proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fears:

This is the air-drawn dagger which you said
Led you to Duncan. Oh, these pains and starts
(Impostors to true fear) would well become
A woman's story, at a winter's fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all 's done,
You look but on a stool.

Thou slave! thou wretch! thou coward!

Thou little valiant, great in villainy!

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou fortune's champion, thou dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by,
To teach thee safety! Thou art perjured too,
And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,
A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and sweat,
Upon my party! thou cold-blooded slave.

Poison be their drink,

Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest meat they taste;

Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
Their sweetest prospects, murdering basilisks!
Their softest touch as smart as lizard's stings!
Their music, frightful as the serpent's hiss;
And boding screech-owls make the concert full.

4. God! thou art mighty! At thy footstool bound,
Lie, gazing to thee, Chance, and Life, and Death
Nor in the angel-circle flaming round,

5.

Nor in the million worlds that blaze beneath,
Is one that can withstand thy wrath's hot breath.
Woe, in thy frown: in thy smile, victory:
Hear my last prayer! I ask no mortal wreath;
Let but these eyes my rescued country see,
Then take my spirit, all omnipotent, to thee.

What eye

Has not been dazzled by thy majesty?

Where is the ear that has not heard thee speak?
Thou breathest! forest-oaks of centuries
Turn their uprooted trunks toward the skies!
Thou thunderest! adamantine mountains break,
Tremble, and totter, and apart are riven!

;

Thou lightenest! and the rocks inflame; thy power
Of fire, to their metallic bosom driven,

Melts and devours them; lo! they are no more;
They pass away like wax in the fierce flame,
Or the thick mists that frown upon the sun,
Which he but glances at, and they are gone.

HIGH TONES OF VOICE,

May be acquired by a process similar to that just described. Select such passages as require a high key, and read them with the utmost possible force. Then pitch the voice a little higher, at each successive reading, and so on until the end is accomplished. Speaking in the open air, at the very top of the voice, is an exercise admirably adapted to strengthen the voice and give it compass, and should be frequently practiced.

EXAMPLES.

1. What was the part of a faithful citizen? of a prudent, active, and honest minister? Was he not to secure Euboea, as our defense against all attacks by sea? Was he not to make Boeotia our

barrier on the mid-land side? the cities bordering on Peloponnesus our bulwark in that quarter? Was he not to attend with due precaution, to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected through all its progress, up to our own harbor? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded, by seasonable detachments at Tenedos? to exert himself in the assembly for this purpose? while with equal zeal he labored to gain others to our interest? Was he not to cut off the best and most important resources of our enemies, and to supply those in which our country was defective? And all this you gained by my counsels, and my administration.

2.

Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius;

For Cassius is aweary of the world;

Hated by one he loves, braved by his brother,
Checked like a bondsman, all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote,
To cast into his teeth.

3. O ye judge! it was not by human counsel, nor by any thing less than the immediate care of the immortal Gods, that this event has taken place. The very divinities themselves who beheld that monster fall, seemed to be moved and to have inflicted their vengeance upon him. I appeal to, I call to witness you, 0 ye hills and groves of Alba! you, the demolished Alban altars! ever accounted holy by the Romans, and coeval with our religion, but which Clodius, in his mad fury, having first cut down and leveled the most sacred groves, had sunk under heaps of common buildings; I appeal to you; I call you to witness, whether your altars, your divinities, your powers, which he had polluted with all kinds of wickedness, did not avenge themselves when this wretch was extirpated. And thou, oh holy Jupiter! from the hight of thy sacred mount, whose lakes, groves, and boundaries, he had so often contaminated with his detestable impurities; and you, the other deities, whom he had insulted, at length opened your eyes, to punish this enormous offender. By you, by you, and in your sight, was the slow, but the righteous and merited vengeance executed upon him.

FULLNESS AND ROTUNDITY OF VOICE.

By this term is meant that quality of voice, to which the Romans gave the name of "ore rotundo," because the sounds are formed with a "round, open mouth." It is exemplified in the hailing of a ship, "ship ahoy;" in the reply of

the sailor, when, in the roar of the storm, he answers his captain, "aye, aye; and in the command of the officer to his troops, when, amid the thunder of artillery, he gives the order, "march," or "halt."

This fullness or roundness of tone is secured, by dwelling on the vowel sound, and indefinitely protracting it. The mouth should be opened wide, the tongue kept down, and the aperture left as round, and as free for the voice as possible.

It is this artificial rotundity, which, in connection with a distinct articulation, enables the field orator, or one who speaks in a very large apartment, to send his voice to the most distant point. It is a certain degree of this quality, which distinguishes declamatory, or public speaking or reading, from private conversation, and no one can accomplish much, as a public speaker, without cultivating it. It must be carefully distinguished from the "high tone,' which is an elevation of pitch, and from "loudness," or "strength" of voice, both which qualities have been treated of, in the preceding article.

EXAMPLES.

[Let the pupil practice upon examples like the following, dwelling upon the sounds of the italicized vowels.]

1.

2.

(Loud and Full.)

O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave,
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save?

Where was thine arm, O vengeance? where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Zion and of God?

He said, he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him, when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll halloo-MORTIMER!
I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but MORTIMER, and give it him.

3.

Woe! woe! woe to the inhabitants of Jerusalem!

(Low, Soft, and Full.)

4.

5.

O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

O sailor boy! woe to thy dream of delight!