though ending with a note low on the musical scale, may yet require, in the playing of it, to be louder than any higher note in the passage."D'Orsey.

Though it may happen that every sentence in a paragraph terminates with a conclusive slide, yet these slides need not become monotonous; because as every sentence may vary in the commencing note, it may likewise vary in the concluding note. Due attention to this remark will prevent the recurrence of that sameness of tone at the end of every sentence which becomes so wearisome to the hearers.

Rule II.-Sentences which follow in the same train of thought are connected by the upward inflection: e.g.,

1. Cast thy bread upon the wáters; for thou shalt find it after many days.

2. Two are better than one: because they have a good reward for their labour.

3. My son, be wise and make thy heart glád; that I may answer him that reproveth me.

4. Feed me with food convénient-for-me; lest I be full and deny Thee, and say, who is the Lord?

Rule III.—A negative sentence or member of a sentence, opposed to an affirmative sentence or member of a sentence, expressed or implied, generally ends with the upward inflection: e.g.,

1. The region beyond the grave is not a sólitary-land. There your fathers are, and thither shall every other friend follow you.

2. The fated flash not always falls upon the head of guilt.

Rule IV.-A question beginning with a verb commonly ends with the upward inflection : e.g., 1. Is the weather fávourable?

2. Would you make your homage most agréeably? would you render your services most accéptable? Offer unto God thanksgiving.

Rule V-A question asked by means of a pronoun or adverb, commonly ends with the downward inflection: e.g.,

1. Which is the letter? where is the man?

6

Rule VI.-When interrogative sentences are connected by the disjunctive or,' expressed or implied, the questions that precede the or' end with the upward inflection, and those that follow, with the downward: e.g.,

1. Are you toiling for fáme, or labouring to heap up a fortune?

2. Do the perfections of the Almighty lie dórmant? Does he possess them as if he possessed them nót? Are they not rather in continual èxercise?

Rule VII.-Interrogative sentences, joined by the subdisjunctive or,' end with the upward inflection: e.g.,

"Is a candle brought to be put under a búshel, or under a béd ?”

Rule VIII.-Supplicatory sentences usually terminate with the upward inflection; e.g.,

Píty me! hear my supplicátions.

Rule IX. The downward inflection is used to give distinctness and force in the enumeration of particulars: e.g.,

The description of this allegory (of Sin and Death, in the Second Book of "Paradise Lost") is likewise very strong, and full of sublime ideas the figure of Death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace of Sàtan, his advancing to the combat, the cry at his birth-are circumstances too noble to be passed over in silence, and extremely suitable to the king of terrors.-Addison.

Rule X.-The upward inflection is commonly used at the end of the penultimate member of a sentence, or succession of sentences, to prepare for the conclusion: e.g.,

Watch ye, stand fast in the fàith, quit you like mén, be stròng.

INTERVENING CLAUSES.

Intervening clauses are of two sorts; one is called the modifying clause, and the other the parenthesis.

A modifying clause qualifies or affects the meaning of the sentence: e.g.,

"A man, conspicuous in a high station, who multiplies hopes that he may multiply dependents, may be considered as a beast of prey."

Rule XI.-Modifying clauses, adverbial phrases, words or phrases in opposition, the case absolute, are separated by short pauses, and, the reader having availed himself, if requisite, of the advantage of taking breath, are commenced in a lower voice than the preceding part of the sentence; the voice must afterwards rise gradually to the end of the clause, phrase, or case absolute.

THE PARENTHESIS.

A parenthesis is a member which does not affect the construction of the sentence within which it is inserted.

Rule XII.-A parenthesis requires to be pronounced with a depression of voice, and somewhat faster than the rest of the sentence, with a pause before and after it: e.g.,

1.

-If there's a power above us(And that there is, all nature cries aloud. Through all her works)—he must delight in virtue.

2. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law) that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? (Romans vii. 1.)

3. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: (for they feared

the people lest they should have been stoned :) and when they had brought them, they set them before the council. (Acts v. 26, 27.)

Rule XIII.-A cadence at the end of a paragraph is formed by beginning the concluding sentence in a lower voice, and sometimes with a more deliberate utterance, than have been adopted in the preceding sentences, and by introducing an harmonious alternation of inflections, gradually lowering :

Ex.-The immortality of the soul is the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes, and sècret jóys, that can arise in the héart' of a réasonable creature.

Many readers so much admire an arrangement of double pairs of inflections in reversed order (especially '``'), that they introduce it into almost every sentence, and always at the end, thus adopting finally the upward slide, which implies that the meaning is incomplete. Thus the last part of the preceding example would be read

thus:

-that can arise in the heart of a reasonable créature.'

The regular recurrence of such a style of reading becomes extremely wearisome to the hearers.

The want of a cadence is observable in the