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we speak: or it is that deep grave undertone which is sometimes used in the solemn parts of a public discourse.

The middle one, we should adopt in public; because it is a point from which we may have the broadest scope to rise and fall as the case may require; and in this key the organs of the voice are stronger and more pliable from constant use; and we can also with greater ease to ourselves, speak louder or softer, in accordance with the space we have to fill, or the sentiments we wish to enforce; and we can the better shift it to the highest, or lowest, or any intermediate pitch we choose. It may be well to interpose a caution here, lest high be considered the same as loud, or low the same as soft. We can speak louder and softer, and still continue the same pitch or key; but we cannot speak higher or lower without shifting the key.

Quantity, it has already been observed, is the term applied to the utterance of long and short syllables; as paper, caper, letter, better. When applied to language, long quantity is an increased swell and fulness of the words; and is of course a slower movement: short quantity is just the reverse: or the one consists of a full and slow, the other, a short and quick utterance.

Long quantity is used in dignified and deliberate discourse to express reverence and awe, doubt, grief or despondence, or where great precision is required.

Short quantity is used to express gayety, sprightliness, eager argument, impatience, confidence and courage; or to separate as in parenthetic clauses, the less important from the more important parts of a discourse.

Rate of utterance is so similar to quantity, as just

explained, that I think any farther notice of it is un

necessary.

The following extract from the parable of "The Prodigal Son," if read properly, will show in some degree what is meant by long and short quantity.

"And the son said unto him; (lq) Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

(sq) "But the father said unto his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring forth the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

The Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, and most parts of the Bible afford good examples of long quantity. (lq) "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

(lq) "Then Jesus answering, said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me."

The other modifications which are of any importance to notice here, are plaintiveness, tremor, increase, decrease, explosive force, suppressed force; and the qualities of the voice, called the orotund, the smooth, the harsh, the aspirated, the guttural, and the pectoral. What they are may be sufficiently inferred from their

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names; they need little else than suitable examples of illustration to make them clearly understood; and their initials furnish the best annotations.

The orotund is derived from the phrase, "ore rotundo," with a round mouth; or with a full, clear and distinct articulation. Pectoral is from pectus the chest: in the utterance of deep emotion, we draw or heave the voice from the bottom of the chest. Guttural is from guttur, the throat: aspirated is from aspiro, to breathe forcibly; and tremor is the same in Latin as in English, and means a trembling or shaking. For using all these modifications of the voice properly, no certain reliance can be placed upon any thing but the proper feeling and good sense of the scholar. Some of them belong almost exclusively to the drama; and the employment of them any where else, except in a faint degree, would be thought

rather theatrical.

Let any one read the following words of Joseph to his brethren, in tones as soft and tender as the scene was affecting, and he will give a good illustration of plaintiveness. "I am Joseph: does my father yet live ? " Or let him read, with the true touch of nature, Eve's lament in Milton's Paradise Lost:

"O unexpected stroke, worse than of death!

Must I then leave thee, Paradise ?"

Or the last line from the Sailor Boy's Dream, carrying up the three first divisions high and soft with increasing movement, and bringing down the three last low and soft with decreasing, and he will give a tolerably good illustration of plaintiveness, increase and decrease:

"O | sailor boy, sailor boy! peace | to thy soul." Or the lines from Wordsworth's Shepherd Girl, with a shake, or tremulous movement on lovely and pair, and he will somewhat illustrate the tremor; the rest will afford a fair example of short quantity :

"'Twas little Barbary Lethwaite, a child of beauty rare; I watched them with delight: they were a (t)lovely (t)pair."

Or the following line from Marullus's speech, with a shake, and full swell of voice, and he will illustrate the tremor and long quantity:

"(t)O, you (t)hard (t)hearts, you (t)cruel men of

Rome !"

Or let him read the stanza from the Destruction of Sennacherib's Host, with voice depressed almost to a whisper, and nearly guttural and monotonous, but full, and heaved up from the lowest part of the chest, and he will illustrate in some degree the aspirate :

"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still."

Speak the two lines from "Marmion taking leave of Douglas," high and loud, with short, quick, percussive force, much like the exploding of crackers, or the crack of a pistol, and you will show a very good example of explosive force, and high and loud :

"Up drawbridge, grooms !-what, warder, ho!
Let the portcullis fall."

The short quick utterance of an order, as, Up, Out!— Away! illustrates explosive force: so does the first syllable of a long word when the accent is on the first; as dés-picable, éx-piatory, lég-islature.

The manner of reading all the preceding examples will be better understood by turning to the pieces whence they are extracted.

LESSON XIV.

POETRY.-HOW TO READ AND SPEAK IT WELL

The sense, in every instance, is to be taken as the only guide to expression; and that mode which brings out the sense the most clearly and forcibly, and affords at the same time the highest gratification to the ear, must be decidedly the best.

To this settled rule, poetry forms no exception. All the appliances therefore of pause, "division,” inflection, emphasis and quantity, which would naturally be employed to exhibit the meaning in prose, must, with some slight modifications, be used to express the same in poetry. And this can generally be done with all needful regard to the metre and the rhyme. Even in cases where the meaning so closely unites different lines, as not to suffer a point between them, and the grouped division is formed of words taken from each; the ending of the line can be sufficiently indicated by dwelling a little upon the last syllable of it, as denoted by the half bar,