Слике страница
PDF
ePub

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 yourself on Cassius;

For Cassius is aweary of the world;

Hated by one he loves, brav'd by his brother,
Checked by a bondsman, all his faults observ'd,
Set in a note-book, learn'd and conn'd 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, O 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 66 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.

3.

(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.

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!

6.

O sailor boy! sailor boy! never again

Shall home, love, or kindred, thy wishes repay,
Unblessed, and unhonored, down deep in the main,
Full many a score fathom, thy frame shall decay.

MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE.

ON this subject we can do nothing better than lay before the student an extract from Mr. Walker's excellent "Rhetorical Grammar."

"As the voice naturally slides into a higher tone, when we want to speak louder, but not so easily into a lower tone, when we want to speak more softly, the first care of every reader and speaker ought to be, to acquire the power of lowering the voice when it is too high. Experience shows us that we can raise our voice at pleasure, to any pitch it is capable of; but the same experience tells us, that it requires infinite art and practice to bring the voice to a lower key, when it is once raised too high. It ought, therefore, to be a first principle with all public readers and speakers, rather to begin under the common level of the voice, than above it.

"Every one, therefore, who would acquire a variety of tone, in public reading or speaking, must avoid, as the greatest evil, a loud and vociferous beginning; and, for this purpose, it would be prudent in a reader or speaker, to adapt his voice as if only to be heard by the person nearest to him. If his voice has natural strength, and the subject any thing impassioned in it, a higher and louder tone will insensibly steal on him, and his greatest address must be directed to keep it within bounds. For this purpose, it will be frequently necessary for him to recall his voice, as it were, from the extremities of his auditory, and direct it to those who are nearest to him.

"If, in the course of reading, the voice should slide into a higher tone, and this tone too often recur, care must be taken to throw in a variety, by beginning subsequent sentences in a lower tone, and (if the subject will admit of it) in a monotone; for the monotone is the most efficacious means of bringing the voice from high to low, and of altering it when it has been too long in the same key."

With regard to those changes of tone which are required by

the character of the sentiment uttered, such as a sudden transition from high to low, or the contrary, plaintiveness or expressiveness of voice, a slow or quick delivery, and other things of a like nature, rules seem to be unnecessary, and even to impede improvement.

What is the best

QUESTIONS.-What, with regard to the voice, is an important object of every speaker's attention? What key ought he most diligently to improve? What is meant by the natural pitch? How may this be cultivated? What difficulty is there in doing this? method of obviating this difficulty? How may the lower tones of the voice be strengthened? How may high tones of voice be acquired? Is it easier to raise the voice, or to lower it? In what tone ought a speaker to commence? What is especially to be avoided in the beginning? In what way may the voice, if too high, be brought down?

VI. GESTURE.

It is not designed, in this book, to give a minute system of rules and instructions on the subject of Gesture. That would be a difficult task without the assistance of plates; and even with their aid, any directions must be very imperfect, without the example and illustrations of the living teacher, as the speaking model. It will be sufficient to give some general hints by means of which the student may form rules, or pursue a discipline for himself.

Gesture is that part of the speaker's manner, which pertains to his attitude, to the use and carriage of his person, and the movement of his limbs in delivery.

Every person, in beginning to speak, feels the natural embarrassment resulting from his new position. The novelty of the situation destroys his self-possession, and, with the loss of that, he becomes awkward, his arms and hands hang clumsily, and now, for the first time, seem to him worse than superfluous members. This embarrassment will be overcome gradually, as the speaker becomes familiar with his position; and it is sometimes overcome at once, by a powerful exercise of the attention npon the matter of the speech. When that fills and possesses the mind, the orator insensibly takes the attitude which is becoming, and, at least, easy and natural, if not graceful.

« ПретходнаНастави »