The Original Rhythmical Grammar of the English Language

This arrangement, which the organs of speech must necessarily fall into, and the impressions made upon the ear by these impulses of the voice, is not peculiar to the syllables just mentioned, or to any syllables, whatever their order may be, but is inseparable from all articulated language. And this natural order of the voice running from heavy to light syllables, constitutes the true cadence of spoken language, afterwards to be explained.

1. Let the scholar be exercised in writing out dissyllables of and such as wonder, marble,

&c. until he be familiar with syllabic emphasis. 2. Let him write out, for the same purpose, dissyllables of and as compose, design, prefer,

&c. and also words of three syllables, such as, consecrate, numerous, humanize :-develope, gigantic, remorseless :--serenade, intercede, ambuscade.

These trisyllables will render him familiar with organic emphasis, and point out the degrees of the light syllables, which are materially affected by the position of the syllable, and the consonants of which it is composed.

3. Let him write out exercises of four syllables, the first having the syllabic emphasis.

All words of four syllables, with the first having the syllabic emphasis, must, when properly pronounced, have the organic emphasis upon the third syllable; though this third syllable is not so strong as the first, yet it is sufficiently so to mark the rhythm of verse. Indeed, all words of four syllables, except such as have the syllabic emphasis on the second syllable, are, in the language of music, and in the cadential pronunciation of verse, nothing more than duplicates of words of two syllables; that is, they regularly fall into the alternate impulses of

:: and

from the physical structure of the organs of speech, as already explained.

In these words, he must mark both the syllabic and organic emphasis: as, signalizing, similarly, scru

pulousness, scurrilously, &c.

4. Words of four syllables, with the syllabic emphasis on the second; as, facilitate, omnipotence, triumphantly, &c.

5. Words of four syllables, with the syllabic emphasis on the third; as acquiescing, transforma

tion.

6. Words of five syllables and upwards are best adapted to make the scholar familiar with organic emphasis: as,

transitoriness, tyrannically, Constantinople; incom

These, and any number of syllables, must, from the very nature of the organs of speech, be pronounced in cadences, that is, a heavy and a light, or a heavy and two light; the lightest being only a different degree of the light.

Hence it is evident, though not much known, that the laws of musical, and therefore of metrical proportions, however varied they may be in their modes, are universal in their application. They obtain in all languages, however barbarous or refined, and extend through every branch of elocution. Hence it is, that prose has its rhythm as well as verse; that expression so much depends on the music of the voice, and that

the finest strains of eloquence, delivered without attention to these laws, fall short of their effects.

I know it has been said that there is no necessity for marking all the different degrees of force given to syllables; that if the principal syllabic emphasis be marked, namely, what is commonly, though very improperly called the accented syllable, all the others must of consequence be right. When we are fully acquainted with the manner in which the organs of speech perform the important office of articulation,-when our ears are sufficiently refined to perceive the nature and beauty of cadential utterance, when the music of language, as well as the music of song shall be universally taught, -this opinion will be entirely exploded.

I think there can be no articulated language without accent, emphasis, and quantity. And any language, if any such there be, which wants the power of diversifying the application of each of these accidents in all its words, on particular occasions, must be so far deficient in the elegance, force, and aptitude of its expressions.

If this be true, how are the diversities of the applications of these accidents of spoken language, which are constantly occurring, to be accurately communicated, but by written symbols, which render visible their peculiar changes.

The Greeks called the heavy and light syllables Thesis and Arsis. They turned this accident of language, i.e. emphasis, to wonderful advantage; but not having used any marks or symbols for these expressions, the knowledge of them perished with their spoken language; and this I believe, is the grand cause, why accent, quantity, and emphasis have been confounded together, as one and the same thing, by the commentators, prosodians and grammarians of the middle and latter ages.

CHAP. VI.

Cadence, Meter, and Rhythm.

ALL speech, prose as well as verse, naturally falls under emphatical divisions which are called cadences.

A cadence, then, is a portion of sound beginning heavy and ending light.

Our breathing, the beating of our pulse, and our movement in walking, make the division of time, by pulsation and remission, both natural and familiar to us.

Inhaling the breath is the heavy, emitting it is the light; the stroke or throb of the pulse, is the heavy or pulsation, and the stop or remission immediately following is the light; the placing the foot on the ground is the heavy, and the raising it, in the act of walking, is the light.

Every heavy syllable, and its corresponding light one, are called a common cadence.

It is hoped that these definitions of a cadence will be easily understood, the parts that compose them being so familiar to every one.

From the description of the heavy and the light syllables, given in the preceding chapter, the change of the position of the organs to accomplish these, and the consequent alternation of pulsation and remission, it must follow, that the same law must apply to speech as to our breathing, the beating of our pulse, and our movement in walking, in so far as respects time, alternation, pulsation and remission.

This natural order of pulsation and remission, or heavy and light, must be kept distinctly in view, as it goes directly to overturn that absurd, though long established system, of measuring spoken language by artificial prosody, which is subversive of all the music which nature has established in cadential utterance, and which she always follows, not only in the sounds, but in the regular musical proportions. Those, therefore, who tell us, that there is no distinction between the order of heavy and light, and light and heavy, but that either may be placed first, at the pleasure of the speaker, betray the grossest ignorance of the formation of spoken language.

As common cadences are made up of a heavy and a light syllable, so triple cadences are made up of a heavy and two light syllables.

The walk of a sound man, which is heavy and light alternately, is in common cadences: the walk of a lame man, which is made up of a heavy, and, at least, two light syllables, is in triple cadences.

The leading distinction, then, between common and triple cadence, is the inequality of the pulsations, or the heavy and the light syllables: the common cadence being heavy and light alternately, the triple being one heavy and two light alternate ly. The bars that separate the cadences marked thus.

Examples of Cadences of :: and :
The cadences are divided by bars.
While the stormy | tempests | blow;"

While the battle rages] long and] loud,-" |