upon to defend himself from the malicious attacks of his opponent Æschines, says,—

As to those public works, so much the object of your ridicule, they, undoubtedly, demand a due share of honour and applause; but I rate them far beneath the great merit of my administration. It is not with stones nor bricks that I have fortified the city. It is not from works like these that I derive my reputation. Would you know my methods of fortifying? Examine, and you will find them in the arms, the towns, the territories, the harbours, I have secured; the navies, the troops, the armies I have raised.

The two negative members, It is not with stones nor bricks, It is not from works like these, may belong either to the questioning or the answering part of our rule. In the former light, they, as the first words are not emphatic, terminate in the upward slide. The answer is to be drawn from Demosthenes' following observations. Both states may be thus expressed. It is not with stones nor bricks that I have fortified the city, but with arms, by securing the towns and territories, by raising navies and troops. So far Walker has taken a right view of this passage and such negative sentences. But here he leaves us. He could not see what we have to affirm, that these same sentences when beheld in another sense must take the falling inflection-at all events he could not account for it. Should a person accost the Orator thus, Is it with stones or bricks that you have fortified the city?—or should some person say in his hearing, Demosthenes has fortified the city with stones or bricks; he would answer, It is not with stones nor bricks that I have fortified the city, or, I have not fortified the city only with stones and bricks,—giving city and bricks the falling inflection. This inflection of the negative member proceeds on the idea that, in what way soever

he has fortified the city, it is not his intention of telling immediately the way by which he has fortified the city, or of his intention, that he has not thought proper to give notice of it by using the rising slide. But as soon as this idea influences, or breaks in upon the mind of the Orator, or Speaker, so soon will these words, still existing in the answering state, become a question; and as the first word is not emphatic, the falling inflection is at an end. This falling slide, then, supposes that there is nothing to comethat there is nothing at the moment existing in the mind, or if existing, it does not exercise any control. The Orator does know, of course, that he has fortified the city with other things than bricks or stones; but still this idea is as it were for the moment excluded. In short the inflection seems admirably designed to put an end to farther quibbling -to farther explanations and reasoning. But when the opposite inflection is used, there is either notice given that we are about to speak, or if not about to speak, that there is yet something understood connected with the subject, to which the Orator wishes the hearer to give attention, or there is liberty granted that the hearer may express his sentiments. Notice the following example :

The region beyond the grave is not a solitary land. There your fathers are, and thither every other friend shall follow you in due season.

This sentence might be thus pointed. The region beyond the grave is not a solitary land; for there your fathers are. In this state, we are more disposed to read solitary land with the rising inflection. Land, terminating the questioning part, consequently warns the hearer, that beyond it there is something, which does not permit the

But lay aside this idea, the Let this idea exist, let it be of the mind, only let the

voice to fall till it is uttered. falling inflection must ensue. even completely in the eye Speaker, having in view a previous question, assertion, or something understood, be intent upon answering it without raising the expectation of the hearer to some other relative idea, the downward slide, whether belonging to a negative or an affirmative sentence, must be the consequence.

This

is one of the unalterable principles of the inflections of nature, over which no part of speech either has or can have any control;—and to which there is no conception.

By saying that, in pointing land with a semicolon, we are more disposed to read it with the upward slide, we are not to be understood as sanctioning the idea that points are by any means certain guides to the inflections. They may occasionally assist those who have some knowledge of the principles of inflection, but the sense must, in every sentence, be our directrix. On this subject, Printers, while not too often unanimous, frequently err; and Authors are likewise liable to the same objection. We mean, however, to say, that such a pointing, founded on a just knowledge of the sense, might, at first, and even at second sight, cause us to imagine that, between the two parts into which this sentence is obviously divided, there is a very close, perhaps an inseparable connection,-a connection which might authorize a good reader to think that the one is decidedly modified by the other; and that, in consequence of this modification, the former should adopt the rising, the latter the falling inflection.

We shall here give two examples of a rather lengthened kind. The one is taken from Cowper, the other from the

Edinburgh Review. Cowper, speaking of what constitutes

the dignity of man, says,—

It is not from his form; in which we trace
Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace,
That man, the master of this world, derives
His right to empire over all that lives'.
That form indeed, th' associate of a mind
Vast in its powers, etherial in its kind,
That form, the labour of Almighty skill,
Framed for the service of a free-born will,
Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control',

But borrows all its grandeur from the soul'.

The Hebraic character may certainly have been that in use in the celebrated cities founded by Ninus and Semiramis, whose structures attested the progress which the arts had made at the time they flourished'. But the matter must be considered as still doubtful'; and the affirmative does not appear to be confirmed by an inspection of the bricks recently brought to Europe from Babylon'.

The questioning parts of these extracts terminate at lives and flourished. Cowper's one is enlarged by dwelling on the idea belonging to form, which ends at control. It might be thus exhibited, It is not from his form that man derives his empire over all that lives', but from the grandeur of the soul'. Whether it might be better to join such sentences with points more nearly related is a question. Lives is marked with a period, and so is flourished. The other extract is what is called by Elocutionists a concessive sentence, but what we denominate the questioning state. It is needless to remark that the concessive rule is liable to the same objection as the negative rule. For nothing is more evident than the fact, that some concessive members terminate with the rising and some with the falling slide; for

which our rule at once accounts.

From our preceding

remarks in illustration of the rule, it will at once be obvi

ous how we should inflect the following and all similar sen

tences:-D

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

We have come to defend our country, not to betray it.
The duty of a soldier is to obey, not to direct his General.

Now we say that Cæsar, country, and obey, ought not to be read with the downward slide, which is done by those who read according to Walker's negative rule, unless it can be shown that these words bear no relation to the words that follow-unless it can be proved that the writer or speaker, having in view, or answering a past, without awakening a future idea, considers the words, I come to bury Cæsar, a sufficient and an unmodified answer. But bury and praise are inseparably connected; therefore the hypothesis is absurd—and, as an unavoidable consequence of this absurdity, the falling inflection, which, unless governed by emphasis, unexceptionably acts on the principle of comis inevitable.

plete sense,

It is needless to say that these sentences might have been thus expressed, I come not to praise Cæsar, but to bury him. We have come not to betray our country, but to defend it. This mode of expression, however, cannot alter the inflection. To think so, must be attributed to the influence of education or system, and not to the tuition of nature. It is in this particular that many of the followers of Walker have scandalously abused his negative rule and given and marked with the rising slide, sentences, to which his superior sense and discernment would, without a moment's consideration, have assigned the falling. It is in this, as in

D