When the reader looks upon the changes I have made in the punctuation of these lines, I must beg him to bear in mind, that whether his decision is favorable to it or otherwise, it may still illustrate my idea of the power and place of the phrases. If this be accomplished, I shall not dispute about the free will of taste, in the particular use of these phrases. My object in this essay, is to explain the functions of the voice: not to contend with expositors and critics.

When I speak of the employment of a phrase of melody, at a pause of discourse, it must be understood that the phrase is to be applied to the last syllables preceding the pause. Nevertheless, for particular purposes of expression, the monotone may be continued on the succeeding syllable.

So spake the se -raph Abdiel, faith-ful found

A-mong the faith-less. Faith-ful on- -ly he.

A-mong in-nu- -me--ra

-ble false, un-moved,

Un-sha-ken, un- -se-duced, un- terri- -fied,

Το swerve

from truth, or change his con-stant mind,

Though sin--- -gle.

The first pause at Abdiel' is marked with a falling ditone, because the included member does not necessarily produce the expectation of additional meaning or qualification: and because this phrase does not absolutely dissolve the grammatical concord between the members which it separates. I have set the triad of the cadence at 'faithless,' not exclusively upon the right to assume the sense as here completed; but with a view to prepare for the eminent display of the sentiment contained in the remainder of the line. The editor has marked the pause with a comma, and thus made the three succeeding words a dependent clause. I have regarded this clause as an elliptical sentence; not only because I might be justified in so doing by a grammatical resolution of it, but more especially in order to promote the expressive effect of utterance. These words reiterate the previous attribution of faithfulness to Abdiel, with the further affirmation of his singleness in virtue. This definite and emphatic restriction of the individuality of the subject, is made with mingled sentiments of regret over the rebellious rejection of truth, and of exultation that Abdiel alone has the undivided merit of defending it. There is a touch of feeling in these sentiments, which even with all other due means for an appropriate utterance, can not be answerably displayed, except the phraseology of those sentiments is separated from that of preceding and succeeding thoughts, by the marked distinctions of the cadence. If the word faithless be read with what is called, in the schools, a suspension of the voice, which in their indefinite language means avoiding a fall— the spirit of the clause which follows will be perverted or lost. Milton's fine ear and his high passions qualified him to be a good reader; and though he may not have been one by practice, I would with difficulty believe that he thought the pas

sage we have been here considering, with the close sequence which is implied by the editor's comma and semicolon.

The next pause at 'false,' is preceded by the rising ditone. The structure of this member evidently creates expectancy, and the species of intonation indicates the continuation of the

sense.

Of the four succeeding pauses, each rests on a single word. The three first are noted with the monotone, to foretel the continued progression of the sense: the fourth, at 'terrified,' has the falling ditone, to denote a change, but not a close of thought. In ordering these four pauses, variety might be shown, without affecting the sense, by giving to the two last syllables of 'unshaken,' a rising phrase. The phrase at 'kept' is the rising ditone; for since 'love' and 'zeal' are equally, with 'loyalty,' the objectives of 'kept,' and these objects being disjoined by construction, no other phrase at 'kept,' would so closely cooperate with the full pause which I have set at 'zeal,' and thereby tend to impress on an auditor the true syntax of the sentence.

At zeal,' which is marked by the editor with a semicolon, I have applied a period, and a form of the cadence; for this close, by throwing back 'love' and 'zeal,' as objectives, prevents their bearing forward as nominatives to some expected verb; which might not be obviated by employing, at this place, one of the continuative phrases of melody with a semicolon. The use of a cadence in this place puts the true grammatical construction of the sentence altogether out of doubt with the auditor. One can account for the employment of a semicolon atzeal,' by presuming that the editor considered the following word 'nor' as a connective. It certainly begins a new sense; and in regard both to its place and its immediate repetition, may be looked upon as a poetical inversion and a redundancy of negative. The remaining part of the notation contains examples of the principles just elucidated, and therefore needs no explanation.

I have thus endeavoured to begin an effort towards supplying a blank in elocution, by giving a definite description of the modes of intonation, to be joined with the rests of the voice; and by illustrating the manner in which we may frame principles, to direct the use of the several phrases. Those who desire

U

knowledge of the structure of sentences, for the purpose of applying these principles, may consult books of rhetoric. Mr. Sheridan writes, with his usual ability, on the nature of pause, and gives numerous exemplifications of its proper use. But he makes no analysis of that intonation which he must have judiciously joined with it, in the accomplished practice of his voice. Mr. Walker has also given a masterly treatise on this subject, in his Rhetorical Grammar. He wisely saw the practical utility of uniting with the doctrine of the temporal purpose of pause, an enquiry into the applicable modes of intonation. In a philosophical view of the subject, his treatise contains no description of the functions of pitch, beyond the general distinctions into rise and fall, and turn, which had been made long before his time. Mr. Walker undertook the investigation of the nature of speech, without possessing a discriminating ear; without sufficient familiarity with the known distinctions of sound, and without seeming to keep in mind the means of philosophical inquiry. The example of the highest masters of science, had taught that all he could aim to accomplish by his research, would be, to observe the phenomena of the voice, and to class them with known facts in the history of sound. But the most precise nomenclature of the properties of sound, if not the most comprehensive history of them, is contained in the science of music and Mr. Walker appears to have had too feeble or too limited a perception of its clear and abundant discriminations, to produce a recognition of identity or analogy between the modes of the speaking voice and the familiar phenomena of musical sounds.

Even though we might despair that future inquiry will teach us the structural cause of the vanishing movement, and of the orotund and falsette voices: still it is certainly now within the ability of a disciplined and attentive ear, to discover whether sounds, supposed to be peculiar to the human voice, are similar to others that have been accurately measured and definitely named, in the classifications of music; and consequently whether they might be designated by the same nomenclature, as far as the terms of music are applicable to the phenomena of speech. Such a mode of investigation, with its satisfactory results, being the whole means and gains of a true and useful philosophy, we might as well believe that the Newtonian discoveries in

optics, could have been effected without a previous acquaintance with the laws of motion, the variety of colors, and the relations of magnitude and number,-as look for a development of the modes of the human voice, by him who is ignorant of the known distinctions of sound.

SECTION XII.

Of the Grouping of Speech.

I HAVE adopted a term from the art of painting, to designate the instrumentality of pauses, and of certain affections of the voice, in uniting the related ideas of discourse, and separating those which are unrelated to each other.

The inversions of style, the intersections of expletives and the wide separation of antecedents and relatives, which are allowed in poetry, may be made sufficiently perspicuous, through the circumspection of the mind, and the advancing span of the eye, in the deliberate perusal of a sentence. But in listening to the speech or reading of others, we can employ no scrutinizing hesitation: and though the memory may retrace, to a certain limit, the intricacies of construction, the best discernment can not always anticipate the sense of a succeeding member, nor the nature and position of its pause. The higher poetry, in the contriving spirit of its eloquence, gives many instances of extreme involution of style. A reader therefore, is frequently obliged to employ other means, for exhibiting the true relationship of words, besides that simple current of utterance, which may be sufficient for the clear syntax of a more natural idiom.

The means by which deviations from the simple construction of sentences may be rendered perspicuous in delivery, are,