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EXAMPLE.

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill:
But of the two less dangerous is th' offence,
To tire our patience than mislead our sense;
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

;

Pope's Essay on Crit.

In the first couplet of this passage, the word ill, which agrees to both the emphatick words writing and judging, is pronounced feebly with the falling inflection, after a strong pronunciation of the same inflection on judging. In the next couplet, tire and patience, mislead, and sense, form a double emphasis, and come under the general rule; but in the next couplet, the words wrong and amiss, being only different expressions for the same idea, are to be considered as an intermediate member to the two emphatick words censure and write, and pronounced feebly with the same inflections as the words they follow.*

From what has been said on this article, it appears of how much importance to reading and

* In the first edition of this work I had not sufficiently considered the nature of unaccented words, and, therefore, gave them the very vague and indefinite appellations I met with in other authors, namely obscure, and feeble; a farther prosecution of the subject in the Rhetorical Grammar enabled me to ascertain the real force of these unaccented words, and to class them with the unaccented syllables of accented words. Thus a clear and definite idea was substituted for an indeterminate and obscure one : And I could, with confidence, tell my pupil that the sentence,

"I do not, so much request, as demand your attention,"

was pronounced like three words; I do not, like a word of three syllables, with the accent on the second; so much request, like a word of four syllables, with the accent on the last and as demand your attention like a word of seven syllables, with the accent on the third. See p.193.

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speaking is a judicious distribution of emphasis; and if what has been observed be true, it is evident how useful, and even necessary it must be, in teaching, to adopt something like the method of marking them here pointed out. Methods of this kind are usually rejected, because at first they are found rather to embarrass than assist the reader ;. but this will be found to be the case in every art where improvement arises chiefly from habit: The principles of musick would embarrass and puzzle a performer who had learned only from the ear, but nothing but a knowledge of these principles could convey to him the difficult passages of a composer, and enable him to acquire them without the assistance of a teacher. Reading, indeed, may be considered as a species of musick; the organs of utterance are the instruments, but the mind itself is the performer; and, therefore, to pursue the similitude, though the mind may have a full conception of the sense of an author, and be able to judge nicely of the execution of others, yet if it has not imbibed the habit of performing on its own instrument, no expression will be produced. There is a certain mechanical dexterity to be acquired before the beautiful conceptions we possess can be communicated to others. This mechanism is an essential part of all the fine arts. Nothing but habitual practice will give the musician his neatness of execution, the painter his force of colouring, and even the poet the happiest choice and arrangement of his words and thoughts. How, then, can we expect that a luminous and elegant expression in reading and speaking can be acquired without a similar attention to habitual practice? This is the golden key to every excellence, but can be purchased only by labour, unremitting labour, and perse

verance.

Harmonick Inflection.

BESIDES that variety which necessarily arises from an attention to the foregoing rules, that is, from annexing certain inflections to sentences of a particular import or structure, there is still another source of variety, in those parts of a sentence where the sense is not at all concerned, and where the variety is merely to please the ear. It is certain, that if the sense of a sentence be strongly conveyed, it will seldom be inharmoniously pronounced; but it is as certain, there are many members of sentences which may be differently pronounced without affecting the sense, but which cannot be differently pronounced without greatly affecting their variety and harmony. Thus in the following sentence:

As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the dialplate, but did not perceive it moving; and it appears that the grass has grown, though nobody ever sáw it grow so the advances we make in knowledge, as they consist of such minute steps, are only perceivable by the distance.

In this sentence, provided we do not drop the voice before the end, the sense of the sentence is not at all concerned in any of the inflections, except that on grow in the middle, which must necessarily be the rising, and that on distance at the end, which must be the falling inflection: if these inflections are preserved on these words, the rest may take their chance, and the sense will be scarcely affected; but the dullest ear must perceive an infinite advantage to the harmony in placing the falling inflection on grown in the first part of the sentence, and on knowledge in the last and so natural is this pronunciation, that there are few readers so bad as not to place these inflections on these words without any other guide than the ear.

This part of pronunciation, therefore, though of little importance to the sense, is of the utmost importance to the harmony of a sentence. Every writer on the subject has left it entirely to the ear; and, indeed, so nice are the principles on which harmony and variety in pronunciation depend, that it is no wonder any analysis of it has been shifted off, and classed among those things for which it is utterly impossible to give rules. But, as we have often observed, though the varieties of voice, in other respects, are almost infinite, all these varieties are still reducible to two radical and essential differences, the upward and downward slide or inflection; and therefore, though the high and low, the loud and soft, the the quick and slow, the forcible and feeble, admit of almost infinite degrees, every one of these differences and degrees must either adopt the rising or falling inflection of voice; and these inflections being more essential to the sense and harmony than any, or all the other differences, we have, in the distinction of the voice into the rising and falling inflection, a key to part of the harmony and variety so much admired, and, it may be added, a very essential part. If, therefore, no rules could be given to the application of these inflections to the purposes of harmony and variety, the practicability of marking upon paper those which are actually made use of by good readers and speakers, would be of the utmost importance to elocution; but in this, as well as in other cases, an attempt will be made to mark out some rules, which it is hoped will not be entirely useless,

Preliminary Observations.

WHEN similar members of sentences do not run into such a series, as brings them into the enumerative form; the voice, both to relieve the ear, and im

press the sense, falls naturally into a succession of inflections, which is something similar to that used in the series, and at once gives force and variety : these inflections sometimes take place at the beginning of a sentence, where the members are similar; but most commonly near the end, when the sentence is concluding with several similar members, which, without this inflection on some particular words, would disgust the ear by a succession of similar sounds. This inflection from the obvious use of it, we may call the Harmonick Inflection.

Difficult, and, perhaps, impossible as it is to describe sounds upon paper to those who are wholly unacquainted with them, the task is not quite so arduous when we address those who have a general idea of what we attempt to convey. If the nature of the rising and falling inflections has been sufficiently conceived, the use of them in this particular will be easily pointed out. The harmonick inflection then is, using the rising and falling inflection of the voice upon successive words, principally to please the ear, and break a continued chain of similar pauses: for the rising inflection of the voice has nothing emphatical in it, nor the falling any thing concluding. As this latter inflection, and the small pause that accompanies it, often takes place on words that are immediately connected in sense with what follows, it seems barely a resting place for the voice and ear, and such an enforcing of the sense as naturally arises from a more deliberate pronunciation of the words. That the voice may be in the falling inflection without marking a conclusion in the sense, and even while it excites expectation of something to follow, is evident from the pronunciation of the first member of a series; but this falling inflection of the voice is essentially different from that which we commonly use when we conclude a sentence; for, in the former case, as has been already observed, the voice is pal

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