Imatges de pàgina
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begun to leave the passages to a man's heart thus thoughtlessly unguarded; when kind and caressing looks of every object without, that can flatter his senses, have conspired with the enemy within to betray him, and put him off his defénce; when music likewise hath lent her aid, and tried her power upon the passions; when the voice of singing men, and the voice of singing women, with the sound of the viol and the lute, have, broke in upon his soul, and, in some tender notes, have touched the secret springs of rápture; that moment, let us dissect and look into his heart: see how vàin, how weak,* how empty a thing it is." +

Exception. Description, when characterized by great force, requires the falling slide in poetry, as well as in prose; thus,

"Now storming fùry rose,

And clamour, such as heard in heaven till now
Was never; arms on armour clashing brayed
Horrible discord; and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots ràged: dire was the noise
Of conflict; ".

RULE IV. Harmony and completeness of cadence, require the rising inflection at the close of the penul

* See Note 1 to Rule IV. on the falling inflection.

The above example, it will be perceived, might be classed under the commencing series, and, if divested of poetic character, might be read with a prevailing downward slide. This circumstance may suggest the general rule of reading poetic series with the rising slide on every member, except the penultimate of a commencing series, and the last of a concluding one; the falling slide being required in the former, as a preparation for a distinct and prominent rising slide on the last member, and in the latter for the cadence of the sentence.

The reason why the prevalence of a rising slide should charac terize poetic description, is to be found, perhaps, in the milder and softer character of that inflection, compared to the falling slide, which is always the expression of force. The calm and gentle emotions of poetic description, in general, will therefore be most appropriately given by the former.

[See, as a contrast to this inflection, the Exceptions to Rule III. on the rising inflection.]

timate clause of a sentence, so as to admit of a full descent at the period.

Example. "In epic poetry the English have only to boast of Spencer and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learning to have been perfect poéts; and yet both of them are liable to many censures."

Exception. Abrupt and forcible language dispenses with this rule of harmony, and admits the falling inflection at a penultimate clause; thus,

“Uzziel! half these draw off, and coast the south With strictest watch; these other wheel the north; Our circuit meets full wèst.”

So also in concise and disconnected forms of expression:

"But the knowledge of nature is only half the business of a poet: he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life."

GENERAL RULE ON PARENTHESIS.

The words included in a parenthesis, or between two dashes used as a parenthesis, and any phrase corresponding in effect to a parenthesis, are read with the same inflection as the clause immediately preceding them.

Note. A lower and less forcible tone, and a more rapid utterance, than in the other parts of a sentence, together with a degree of monotony, are required in the reading of a parenthesis. The form of parenthe sis implies something thrown in as an interruption of the main thought in a sentence. Hence its suppressed and hurried tone; the voice seeming to hasten over it slightly, as if impatient to resume the principal object. The same remark applies, with more or less force, to all intervening phrases, whether in the exact form of parenthesis, or not.

Examples.

"Uprightness is a habit, and, like all other habits, gains strength by time and exercise. If then we éxercise upright principles, (and we cannot have them, unless we éxercise them,) they must be perpetually

on the increase."

"Now I will come unto you, when I pass through Macedònia, (for I dò pass through Macedonia;) and it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you."

"And this," said he,-putting the remains of a crust into his wallet,-"and this should have been thy portion," said he, "hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me.'

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Exceptions occur when a parenthesis closes with an emphatic word; thus, "If you, Eschines, in particular, were thus persuaded; (and it was no partial affection for me that prompted you to give me up the hopes, the applause, the honours, which attended the course I then advised, but the superior force of truth, and your utter inability to point out any more eligible course;) if this was the case, I say, is it not highly cruel and unjust to arraign those measures now, when you could not then propose any better?"

RULE ON THE CIRCUMFLEX.

The tone of irony, of equivocal meaning, or of peculiar significance, requires the circumflex. The falling circumflex, in such cases, takes the usual place of the simple falling inflection, and the rising circumflex that of the simple rising inflection; the object of this peculiar double turn of voice, being to give a double value to the force of emphasis, and the effect of the slide.

Irony:

Examples.

"Oh! you're well mêt !

The hoarded plague o' the gods requite your love!" Equivocal meaning, or pun : "Upon this, the

weights, who had never been accused of light conduct, used all their influence in urging the pendulum to proceed."

Peculiar significance: "Mark you his absolute shall?
-They chose their magistrate :

And such a one as he, who puts his shâll,
His popular shâll, against a graver bench
Than ever frown'd in Greece!"

"Let any man resolve to do right now, leaving then to do as it can; and if he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he would never do wrong."

RULE ON THE MONOTONE.

The tones of sublime or grand description, of reverence and awe, of horror and amazement, require the monotone.

Examples.

Sublime description:"his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and the excess
Of glory obscur'd; as when the sun new rīsén
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams, ōr from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."

Reverence: "And chiefly thou, Ō Spirit! that dōst prefer,

Before all temples, the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou knowest:"-

Awe: "The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain

While I gāze upward to thee.-It would seem

As though Gōd pour'd thee from his hollow hand,
And spake in that loud võice which seem'd to him
Who dwelt in Patmos, för his Saviour's sake,
The sound of many waters, and had bīd
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch his centuries in the eternal rock,"

Horror: "I had a dream which was not all a dream:
The bright sun was extinguish'd; and thē stārs
Did wänder darkling in the ēternal space,
Rayless and pathless; and the icy earth

Swũng blind and blackening in the mōonless āir;”Amazement :"What may this mean,

That thou dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?"*

ERRORS IN INFLECTION.

The common errors in inflection, are the following: 1st, too frequent repetition of the rising inflection; thus,

"As we perceive the shadow to have moved, but did not perceive its moving; so our advances in leárning, consisting of insensible stéps, are only perceivable by the distance."

The puerile and feeble tone thus given to the above sentence,, will be corrected by substituting the falling inflection on the words 'moved' and 'learning,' which produces a natural and spirited variety of expression.

2. The opposite error is not uncommon-that of using too often the falling inflection, which gives reading a formal and laboured tone; thus,

"As we perceive the shadow to have moved, but did not perceive its moving; so the advances we make in learning, consisting of insensible stèps, are only perceivable by the distance."

The heavy effect of this reading will be removed by using the rising inflection at 'moving' and 'steps.'

* The principle of the monotone seems to be founded on the conviction that no mere vocal distinction, or turn of sound, is adequate to express the highest conceptions or the profoundest emotions of the soul. The monotone indicates, as it were, the temporary inability of the voice for its usual function. This very circumstance, however, as it ultimately associates sublimity or unwonted excitement, with the utterance of one reiterated note, gives the monotone a peculiar and indescribable power.

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