pòrtment, a strict regard to jùstice, and a high sense of honour, were the characteristics of chivalry.*

Note 3. Exceptions to all the applications of Rule I. on the rising inflection, occur in cases of peculiar force or emphasis. In such instances, the falling inflection supersedes the rising; as the former is the invariable indication of energetic expression, and the rule of force displaces every other, in the utterance of thought.

Examples.

Earnest interrogation: "He now appears before a jury of his country for redress. Will you deny him this redress."

Interrogation of emphasis: "Do you think that your conditions will be accepted? Can you even imagine they will be listened to ?"

Peculiar distinction in contrast: "If we have no regard for our own character, we ought to have some regard for that of others."

Emphatic expression in condition and supposition: "If you did, I care not."

Energetic expression, although marked by the forms of connexion and continuance of meaning:

"Such, where ye find, seize fàst, and hither bring.” Introductory and incomplete expression, when emphatic: "Destitute of every shadow of excuse, he shrunk abashed at the reproof." "Every day he lived, he would have repurchased the bounty of the

* The falling inflection seems, notwithstanding the incomplete sense of a commencing series, to belong appropriately to all the members but the last, on the principle of enumeration, which, from its approach to completeness at every stage, naturally inclines to the falling inflection, as we may ascertain by referring to the customary tone of serious and attentive counting or reckoning. This inflection, however, is of minor consequence, and, unless in emphatic language, may be superseded by the rising, without any other defect, than a comparative want of force and harmony. It is the closing inflection of the series which is essential to meaning, and indicates to the ear, whether the sense is complete or incomplete, and whether the series is a commencing or a concluding one. [See Concluding Remarks on Inflection.]

crown, and ten times mòre, if ten times more he had received."

The last member of a commencing series, if emphatic "His hopes, his happiness, his very life, hung upon the next word from those lips."

Expressions of surprise, when emphatic: "It does not seem possible, even after the testimony of our senses."

Forcible address: "Mr. Chairmàn, I call on your interference to put a stop to this uproar."

Request, petition, intreaty, apostrophe: "Be husband to me, Heàvens!"

Note 4. The rising inflection gives place to the falling, in the tone of an interrogatory sentence which extends to unusual length, or concludes a long paragraph or an entire piece; thus,

"The Brigantines, even under a female leader, had force enough to burn the enemy's settlements, to storm their camps, and if success had not introduced negligence and inactivity, would have been able entirely to throw off the yoke; and shall not we, untouched, unsubdued, and struggling not for the acquisition, but the continuance of liberty, declare, at the very first onset, what kind of men Caledonia has reserved for her defence?"

RULE II. The tones of pathos,-of tenderness and of grief,-usually incline to the rising inflection.

For examples turn to Note 2d, Rule IV. on the falling inflection.

Exception. The exclamations of excessive grief take the appropriate falling inflection of force; thus, "Oh! my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom!"

RULE III. Poetic and beautiful description,whether in the form of verse or of prose,—has the rising inflection.

For examples see as above, and add the following: "When the gay and smiling aspect of things, has

begun to leave the passages to a man's heart thus thoughtlessly unguarded; when kind and caressing looks of every object without, that can flatter his senses, have conspired with the enemy within to betray him, and put him off his defénce; when music likewise hath lent her aid, and tried her power upon the pássions; when the voice of singing men, and the voice of singing women, with the sound of the viol and the lute, have broke in upon his soul, and, in some tender notes, have touched the secret springs of rápture; that moment, let us dissect and look into his heart: see how vàin, how weak, how empty a thing it is." +

Exception. Description, when characterized by great force, requires the falling slide in poetry, as well as in prose; thus,

"Now storming fùry rose,

And clamour, such as heard in heaven till now
Was never; arms on armour clashing brayed
Horrible discord; and the madding wheels

Of brazen chariots ràged: dire was the noise
Of conflict;"

RULE IV. Harmony and completeness of cadence, require the rising inflection at the close of the penul

* See Note 1 to Rule IV. on the falling inflection.

The above example, it will be perceived, might be classed under the commencing series, and, if divested of poetic character, might be read with a prevailing downward slide. This circumstance may suggest the general rule of reading poetic series with the rising slide on every member, except the penultimate of a commencing series, and the last of a concluding one; the falling slide being required in the former, as a preparation for a distinct and prominent rising slide on the last member, and in the latter for the cadence of the sentence.

The reason why the prevalence of a rising slide should charac terize poetic description, is to be found, perhaps, in the milder and softer character of that inflection, compared to the falling slide, which is always the expression of force. The calm and gentle emotions of poetic description, in general, will therefore be most appropriately given by the former.

[See, as a contrast to this inflection, the Exceptions to Rule III. on the rising inflection.]

timate clause of a sentence, so as to admit of a full descent at the period.

Example. "In epic poetry the English have only to boast of Spencer and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning to have been perfect poéts; and yet both of them are liable to many cen

sures.

Exception. Abrupt and forcible language dispenses with this rule of harmony, and admits the falling inflection at a penultimate clause; thus,

“Uzziel! half these draw off, and coast the south With strictest watch; these other wheel the north; Our circuit meets full wèst."

So also in concise and disconnected forms of expression:

"But the knowledge of nature is only half the business of a poet: he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life."

GENERAL RULE ON PARENTHESIS.

The words included in a parenthesis, or between two dashes used as a parenthesis, and any phrase corresponding in effect to a parenthesis, are read with the same inflection as the clause immediately preceding them.

Note. A lower and less forcible tone, and a more rapid utterance, than in the other parts of a sentence, together with a degree of monotony, are required in the reading of a parenthesis. The form of parenthesis implies something thrown in as an interruption of the main thought in a sentence. Hence its suppressed and hurried tone; the voice seeming to hasten over it slightly, as if impatient to resume the principal object. The same remark applies, with more or less force, to all intervening phrases, whether in the exact form of parenthesis, or not.

Examples.

"Uprightness is a habit, and, like all other habits, gains strength by time and exercise. If then we éxercise upright principles, (and we cannot have them, unless we éxercise them,) they must be perpetually on the increase."

"Now I will come unto you, when I pass through Macedònia, (for I dò pass through Macedonia;) and it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you."

"And this," said he,-putting the remains of a crust into his wallet,- "and this should have been thy portion," said he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me."

Exceptions occur when a parenthesis closes with an emphatic word; thus, "If you, Eschines, in particular, were thus persuaded; (and it was no partial affection for me that prompted you to give me up the hopes, the applause, the honours, which attended the course I then advised, but the superior force of truth, and your utter inability to point out any more eligible course;) if this was the case, I say, is it not highly cruel and unjust to arraign those measures now, when you could not then propose any better?"

RULE ON THE CIRCUMFLEX.

The tone of irony, of equivocal meaning, or of peculiar significance, requires the circumflex. The falling circumflex, in such cases, takes the usual place of the simple falling inflection, and the rising circumflex that of the simple rising inflection; the object of this peculiar double turn of voice, being to give a double value to the force of emphasis, and the effect of the slide.

Irony:

Examples.

"Oh! you're well mêt !

The hoarded plague o' the gods requite your love!" Equivocal meaning, or pun: meaning, or pun: "Upon this, the