But if a treble emphasis implied will often, for the sake of harmony, neglect such an emphasis as produces the greatest force, there is a much greater necessity for this sacrifice to sound where every part of the treble emphasis is expressed. Thus, in the following lines:

He raised a mòrtal to the skies.
She drew an ángel dòwn.

If, for the sake of showing that Timotheus did not only raise a mortal very high, but even to the skies; if, I say, for the sake of intimating this sense, we lay the emphasis with the falling inflection on skies, we shall ruin the harmony of the couplet: The same may be observed if we lay the same emphasis on angel; for though this would intimate that St. Cecilia did not draw down a common being, but even an angel, yet this intimation would make no amends for the quaintness and discord this inflection would occasion; but if these lines had been so constructed as to admit of the emphasis with the falling inflection on these words, perhaps we should not have found either sense or harmony the worse for it.

Hé to the skies a mortal raised,
An angel she drew down.

Thus we perceive there are some things clear and decided, others ambiguous and indeterminate: The best decision in the latter case is, to observe the pronunciation of the best readers and speakers, and to mark it by the inflections which are here made use of. A notation of this kind, will enable us to collect examples of different modes of pronunciation, and to form an opinion from examples of the best authority: by this means we shall be able to give some stability to those sounds which have hitherto been thought too fleeting and evanescent for retrospection.

General Emphasis.

HITHERTO emphasis has been considered as appropriated to a particular word in a sentence, the peculiar sense of which demanded an increase of force, and an inflection correspondent to that sense; we shall now endeavour to throw some light upon that emphatick force, which, when the composition is very animated, and approaches to a close, we often lay upon several words in succession: This successive emphatick force does not, like the former, suggest any particular meaning excluded by it, and therefore may not improperly be called a general emphasis. This emphasis is not so much regulated by the sense of the author as by the taste and feelings of the reader, and therefore does not admit of any certain rule; but as it is very strong and energetick when it is happily applied, it may not be useless to endeavour to give such rules as will naturally arise from a few examples.

When Lucius, in Cato, seems to have exhausted every topick in favour of giving up a hopeless war and submitting to Cæsar, he concludes with this emphatick period:

What men could do,

Is done already : Heav'n and earth will witness,
I'f Ròme must fall, that we are innocent.

The common manner of pronouncing this last line is, to lay an emphasis with the rising inflection on the word must, which is certainly a very just one, and may be called the particular emphasis; but if we were to place an emphasis on each of the four words, if Ròme mùst fáll; that is, the emphasis with the rising inflection on if, that with the falling on Rome and must. and the rising on fall

if these emphases, I say, are pronounced with a distinct pause after each, it is inconceivable the force that will be given to these few words.

In the same manner, when Demosthenes is describing the former helpless state of Athens, he

says,

There was a time, then, my fellow-citizens, when the Lacedemonians were sovereign masters both by sea and land; when their troops and forts surrounded the entire circuit of Attica; when they possessed Euboea, Tanagra, the whole Boeotian district, Megara, Ægina, Cleone, and the other islands; while this state had not one ship, not one wall.

The general mode of pronouncing the last member of this sentence is, to lay an emphasis on the last word, wall: This is unquestionably proper; but if we lay an emphasis on the three last words, that is, the falling on not, the rising on one, and the falling on wall, and pause very distinctly between each, we shall be at no loss to decide on the superiority of this general emphasis. We have another instance of the force of this general emphasis, in that beautiful climax of Zanga, in the tragedy of the Revenge :

That's truly great! what think you 'twas set up
The Greek and Roman name in such a lustre,
But doing right in stern despite of nature,
Shutting their ears to all her little cries,
When great, august, and godlike justice call'd.
At Aulis one pour'd out a daughter's life,
And gain'd more glory than by all his wars;
Another slew a sister in just rage;

A third, the theme of all succeeding time,
Gave to the cruel axe a darling son:
Nay more, for justice some devote themselves,
As he at Carthage, an immortal name!
Yet there is one step left above them all,
Above their history, above their fable;
A wife, bride, mistress, unenjoyed,

Do that, and tread upon the Greek and

Roman glory. Activ. Scene last.

In pronouncing this passage, we shall find the generality of readers content themselves with laying an emphasis upon the word one in the thirteenth line, and pronounce the two succeeding words step and left without any particular force; but if we give emphatick force to each of these three words, and at the same time pause considerably after every word, we shall find the whole line glow with meaning and energy for though pronouncing the word one with the emphasis and rising inflection, and the succeeding words step and left with the same inflection, without emphasis, would undoubtedly bring out the author's sense; yet pronouncing one and step both with emphasis and the falling inflection, seems to snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, and fall in with the enthusiasm of the poet. The emphasis with the falling inflection and increasing force, on the four successive words wife, bride, mistress, unenjoyed, in the last line but one, crowns the whole climax with suitable force and harmony.

But though general emphasis may, at first sight, seem to be an exception to the general rule, yet, upon a nearer inspection, it will be found strictly conformable to it. Emphasis has been defined to be another word for opposition or contradistinction; now where, it may be asked, is the opposition or contradistinction to the words if and Rome and fall in the sentence,

Heav'n and earth will witness,

If Rome must fall, that we are innocent?

It may be answered, that the mind, in endeavouring to express things strongly, seems to have recourse to a redundancy of sound as well as of words; the adjective own and the substantive self are superfluous words, if we regard only their mere grammatical import. For the sentences, this book is mine, and I wrote it, literally signify as much as this book

is my own, and I wrote it myself; but the latter sentences may be said to be emphatical, and the former not. To the same end our language has adopted an auxiliary verb, to express action or passion with emphasis, in a shorter way than perhaps in any other tongue. Thus, when Othello says to Desde

mona

Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee

it is equivalent to saying, I actually and really love thee, in contradistinction to the appearance of love, which so often supplies the place of the reality: and this seems to lead us to the latent antithesis of the general emphasis, which is, the appearance, as distinguished from the reality or the similitude, from the identity; and therefore, though the words if, Rome, and fall, taken separately, have no direct antithetick ideas, yet, when united together by successive emphases, they imply a reality and identity of situation in opposition to every possible contrary situation, which contrary situation becomes the real antithetick object of the emphatick words, and thus brings the general emphasis under the same definition as particular emphasis, and shows that both are but other words for opposition, contradistinction, or

contrast.

From this view of emphasis, we may perceive the propriety of laying a stress upon some of the most insignificant words when the language is impassioned, in order to create a general force, which sufficiently justifies the seeming impropriety. Thus, in the following sentence-The very man whom he had loaded with favours was the first to accuse him-a stress upon the word man will give considerable force to the sentence-the very man, &c. If to the stress on this word we give one to the word very, the force will be considerably increased-the very