Imatges de pàgina
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The intention of the exercises under the head of 'time', is, to enable the student to acquire a perfect command of his rate of utterance, with a view to the distinct communication of thought, and the appropriate expression of feeling. To effect this purpose, the various classes of exercise, from the slowest to the quickest in rate, should be frequently and carefully practised, in inverted order, as well as that in which they are arranged in the book.

EXERCISES ON FORCE OF UTTERANCE.

Whispering.

"All silent they went, for the time was approaching,
The moon the blue zenith already was touching;
No foot was abroad on the forest or hill,
No sound but the lullaby sung by the rill."

Subdued Force.

"There is no breeze upon the fern,
No ripple on the lake;

Upon her eyrie nods the erne,

The deer hath sought the brake;
The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still;
So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud,
Benledi's distant hill."

"There breathed no wind their crests to shake,
Or wave their flags abroad;
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er their road:
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;

Save heavy tread and armour's clang,
Their sullen march was dumb."

Moderate and Conversational Force.

"The Supreme Author of our being has made every thing that is beautiful in all other objects pleasant, or rather, has made so many objects appear beautiful, that he might render the whole creation more gay and delightful. He has given almost every thing about us the power of raising an agreeable idea in the imagination; so that it is impossible for us to behold his works with coldness or indifference, and to survey so many beauties without a secret satisfaction and complacency. We are everywhere entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions; we discover imaginary glories in the heavens, and in the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out upon the whole creation; but what a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish! In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion; and we walk about like the enchanted hero in a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows; and at the same time hears the warbling of birds, and the purling of streams: but, upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up; and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath, or in a solitary desert."

Declamatory Force.

1. "These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn, upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character."

2. "What's hallowed ground? 'tis that gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth.
Peace, Independence, Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round,-

3.

And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground."

"One great clime,

Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed,-a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand

Full of the magic of exploded science,-
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic !"

1.

Force of Emotion.

"On, ye brave,

Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!"

2. "Strike till the last armed foe expires,
Strike for your altars and your fires,
Strike for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!"

Shouting and Calling.

1st Example. "Liberty! freedom! Tyranny is dead: Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets!"

2. "Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells! King John, your king and England's, doth approach: Open your gates, and give the victors way!""

EXERCISES ON PITCH.

Low Notes.

"Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sod with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning."

Middle Notes.

"My thoughts, I must confess, are turned on peace;
Already have our quarrels filled the world
With widows and with orphans: Scythia mourns
Our guilty wars; and earth's remotest regions
Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Rome.

'Tis time to sheath the sword and spare mankind." "We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves,

But free the Commonwealth. When this end fails,
Arms have no further use. Our country's cause,
That drew our swords, now wrests them from our
hands,

And bids us not delight in Roman blood
Unprofitably shed.

What men could do,
Heaven and earth will witness,
If Rome must fall, that we are innocent."

Is done already.

High Notes.

"But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,--
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail !
Still would her touch the strain prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song:
And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close; And Hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair."

EXERCISES ON TIME.

Slowest Rate.

"Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye nor listening ear an object finds :
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,-
An awful pause,-prophetic of her end."

Slow.

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees, the envied kiss to share."
Moderate.

"If the relation of sleep to night, and, in some instances, its converse, be real, we cannot reflect without amazement, upon the extent to which it carries us. Day and night are things close to us: the change applies immediately to our sensations; of all the phenomena of nature, it is the most obvious, and the most familiar to our experience: but, in its cause, it belongs to the great motions which are passing in the heavens. Whilst the earth glides around her axle, she ministers to the alternate necessities of the animals dwelling upon her surface, at the same time that she obeys the influence of those attractions which regulate the order of many thousand worlds. The relation, therefore, of sleep to night, is the relation of the inhabitants of the earth to the rotation of their globe: probably it is more; it is a relation to the system of which that globe is a part; and still farther, to the congregation of systems, of which theirs is only one. If this account be

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