many other particulars belonging to our rule, that we not unfrequently see the sense sacrificed to the whim of a particular creed, the truth of which, if ever questioned, has neither been ascertained nor proved. It is here, too, that we may occasionally see the blind leading the blind.

We have farther to remark, that it is in consistency with the principle of our rule, that nature inflects upward, what is called the penultimate member of a sentence. Notice the following:

Beloved! be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years', and a thousand years as one day.

We here have thousand years assuming the rising slide, because these words are modified by the succeedingbecause there is something to come, which, till it is uttered, cannot admit of the downward slide.

We are perhaps precluded from remarking, that the falling inflection not being regulated by points, may occur at any one of them. Look at this sentence, in which we meet with it at the semicolon:

We may lay it down as a maxim confirmed by universal experience, that every man dies as he lives; and it is by the general tenor of the life, that we are to be judged at the tribunal of God.

The falling inflection is as equally and as distinctly to be found at lives as at God. It would be easy to extend parts of sentences in this way almost ad infinitum. But such a mode of composition is not the characteristic of our best writers. The Elocutionist, however, has to do with all kinds of authors-with the vulgar and coarse, as well as the refined and the polished,-with the loose and the slovenly, no less than the correct and the connected,—the perspicuous and the clear, as well as the obscure and the unintelli

gible, the stiff, the formal, and the pedantic, which remind us of the easy, the graceful, and the natural; to which, let us also join the elegant, the eloquent, and the harmonious.

But the limited, we should rather say the erroneous view which Walker took of the cause of inflection, obliged him to have several rules, and as many exceptions, for the regulation of interrogations alone. According to him, it is not only necessary to know the part of speech-a knowledge which we have seen is not only not necessary, but which, if acted upon, must inevitably destroy the sense-the part of speech with which the interrogation begins, but also whether there be any ors in the sentence; and not only whether there be any ors, but whether these be con-junctive or dis-junctive; and not only whether there be any of these of such a character, but whether, exclusive of these, the interrogations imply agreement or disagreement, qualified, too, with a long list of paraphrases and minor observations, which, if unable to frighten, must puzzle and perplex any intellect His followers might indeed sit down and be thankful, if these were able to answer all purposes. But, alas! they have to bear in mind, that even all these rules and observations, modified as they may be by a thousand circumstances, are founded only on equivocation-that they rest but on the baseless fabric of a may or a generally. It is not, then, without reason, that Walker, aware of the frowning aspect of his system, encourages inquirers not to throw aside in disgust the study of this department of education, merely because it is burdened with rules and exceptions. And, for their consolation, he points them to the capricious subject, Grammar, which, in defiance of its numerous rules and exceptions, we still continue to study. Never, perhaps, was consolation more necessary, never,

perhaps, was a system better calculated to create and cherish disgust than his—yet he has forgotten to tell us that the principles on which these two departments depend are very different. There is, however, no part of his system of rules and exceptions more apt to excite this passion than that of interrogations, about which we have still to say a few words. His observations on them afford a striking picture of a mind on the rack to unravel the difficulties in which it has involved itself-of a mind, after having wandered from the road of rectitude, fearlessly and undauntedly groping its way in the dark-aye, too, companionless-a circumstance which sometimes unhinges a strong intellect, and throws, even over all the blandishments of Nature, the hue and the cast of melancholy and gloom.

The following example is given by Walker as an instance of interrogations placed in opposition, which, he says, is equivalent to his disjunctive or rule:

As for the particular occasion of these (charity) schools, there cannot any offer more worthy a generous mind. Would you do a handsome thing without return?-do it for an infant that is not sensible of the obligation? Would you do it for the public good?-do it for one who shall be an honest artificer? Would you do it for the sake of heaven ?-give it for one who shall be instructed in the worship of Him for whose sake you gave it?-SPECTATOR.

On this, he makes the following remarks:-" In this extract there is evidently an opposition in the interrogations which is equivalent to the disjunctive or; and if the ellipsis were supplied, which this opposition suggests, the sentence would run thus: If you would not do a handsome thing without return, would you do it for the public good? and if not for the public good, would you do it for the sake of

heaven? So that this exception may be said to come under Rule II. of this article."

A

We really think that though he had ransacked all the authors of the English language, he could not have found a more unfortunate example on which to build his exception and rule. For, we must notice that, like the chest in Goldsmith's Deserted Village, it contrives to pay a double debt,coming under Rule Second, while it is brought forward as an exception to his fourth interrogative rule

The chest contrived a double debt to pay,

4 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

-a sentence, the sense of which he has evidently mistaken. We have marked with the inflections, and pointed it, as it is given by him from the Spectator. And we have now to say, that it is not pointed as it should have been. There ought to be no mark of interrogation at all according to the vulgarly received notion. But if any plea can be urged in favour of a mark of interrogation at any one of those sentences, it can only be at return, good, heaven. It ought to be thus:

Would you do a handsome thing without return, do it for an infant that is not sensible of the obligation. Would you do it for the public good, do it for one who will be an honest artificer. Would you do it for the sake of heaven, give it for one who shall be instructed in the worship of Him for whose sake you gave iter i

2

Walker might have known that would is every day thus associated to sentences which we call the questioning part, but which, consulting the general ideas on this subject, is not a question. If you would do a handsome thing without

return, do it for an infant that is not sensible of the obliga tion. And we affirm that this is the meaning of the author. It is rather strange that Walker should have given place to the idea that, do it for an infant that is not sensible of the obligation, is a question. Make a positive command a question! What a glaring perversion of the sense!! We suppose he has consulted the points, and not the sense of the writer. To tally with his rules, he has marked return. with the rising, good and heaven with the falling inflection,

,

We have been told that in these sentences there is opposition of interrogations. We may now wonder where he finds either it or them. We cannot see that his disjunctive or rule has any existence in nature. We consider it and his other interrogative rules mere creatures of his own brain. We apply the same mode of reasoning here as we did to some of his other rules. If they are built upon a right foundation, whence all these exceptions. If applicable to one, they must be applicable to all similar sentences. They refute themselves.

The rule is "When interrogative sentences connected by the disjunctive or, succeed each other, the first ends with the rising, and the rest with the falling inflection.

The following sentences are given by him as examples :

Is

Shall we in your person crówn the author of the public calamities, or shall we destroy him? Eschines or the crown. the goodness, or wisdom of the Divine Being, more manifested in this his proceeding?-SPECTATOR.

1

But should these credulous infidels after all be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable, from believing it, what harm could ensue? Would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungóvernable? The rich more insolent, or the poor more disorderly ?-Would it make worse parents or children; husbands or wives; masters or sérvants; friends or