means, towards its improvement; and who, by taste and authority, have been qualified to listen to living voices, with progressively meliorating influence upon them, have only wandered off with an unavailing ear, among the silent graves of language in the remote realms of antiquity. We all feel-who have the heart to feel-an august delight over the yet enduring works of the distant dead: There is scarcely a page of the poetic rythmus of the Greeks and the Romans, or a remaining trace of their plummet and chisel, that might not make me forget, through intense contemplation, the mere seclusion of a prison. But I could as soon admit, that the modern zeal in freighting our homeward ships with the fragments of their temples; and the covetousness of nations, for the very purloined possession of their statuary, ought to preclude the future use of the marble of our mountains, for the accomplishment of equal or transcending works of art, as that a just admiration of classic measure should prevent the endeavor to transfer to our own language, the admissible principles of Greek and Roman poetry. I have offered the last few pages of this section, as no more than digressive and desultory remarks on a subject, intimately connected with the time of the voice, and with the cultivation of an important but neglected Mode of speech. The English language has an unbounded prospect before it. The unequalled millions of a great continent, to whatever Forms of Government they may hereafter decline, must still hold community in the wide and wonderful diffusion of an identical speech: and we should not so far undervalue the emulative efforts of its future Scholars, as to suppose they will all merely vaunt in retrospective vanity, over what has been done, and not extend their views to other and deeper resources of their art. But, in thus looking forward to the establishment of English versification, on the basis of quantity, we must allow a limitation of the poet's abundance, for the substituted excellence of his few but finished lines. Our measure is now drawn from the two different sources of accent and quantity. To construct a rythmus by quantity alone, will require more rejections, and a wider search in composition; more copiousness in the command of words; greater readiness and accuracy of ear, in measuring the relationships of time; and longer, much longer labor for a shorter work. I am here speaking of the great results of the pen. Of these, as of all enduring human productions, labor, associated with time, must be the assistant means; and must deservedly divide the merit of the achievement, with the wisdom that invoked their aid. Let him who could patiently devote a life, to laying-up store of 'goodly thoughts' for Paradise Lost, unravel the idler's fable about that 'inspiration,' of the so-called immortal works of man. Let them, who to the soul of genius have joined the strong body of laborious care, say, wherein consists the true life and the embalming of fame: let them touch the sleeve of early and voluminous authorship, and whisper one of the useful secrets, for accomplishing more that may wisely instruct and endure, and less that with ambitious haste, may merely teach itself to fail,— and perish. SECTION XII. Of the Intonation at Pauses. THE term Pause, in elocution, is applied to an occasional silence in discourse, greater than the momentary rest between syllables. Pauses are used for the more conspicuous display of sense and sentiment, by separating certain words or aggregates of words from each other. The philosophy of grammar, consistently with those two great Categories, Matter and Motion, has reduced all the words of universal language to two corresponding classes; the Substantive, denoting Things that exist; and the Verb, denoting the various conditions of their Actions: all the other Parts of Speech being only specifications of the attributes of these things; and the predication of their actions, with regard to time, place, degree, manner, and all their possible relationships. Now pauses separate by sections, the aggregates of words which severally describe these existences and agencies, with their relationships: and while the continuity of utterance, within these inclusive sections gives unity to the impression on the ear, the mind remains undistracted, through its temporary restriction to a single subject of attention. The division of discourse, by means of this occasional rest, prevents the feebleness or confusion of impression, resulting from an unbroken movement of speech, no less remarkably than the skilful disposition of color, and light, and space, significantly distinguish the pictured objects and figures of the canvas, from the unmeaning positions and actions of a chaos and a crowd. The sections of discourse, thus separated by pauses, vary in extent from a single word, to a full member of a sentence. There are indeed, some purposes of expression which require a slight pause even between syllables. It was shown that for the full opening of the radical, it must be preceded by an occlusion of the voice. Now the accented syllable of the word at-tack being an immutable quantity, can receive a marked emphatic distinction, only by an abrupt explosion of the radical, after a momentary pause. The times of the several pauses of discourse vary in duration, from the slight inter-syllabic rest, to the full separation of successive paragraphs: the degrees being accommodated to the requisitions of the greater or less connection of the sense, and to the peculiar demands of sentiment. All the parts of a connected discourse, should both in subject and in structure bear some relation to each other. But these relations being severally nearer and more remote, grammatical Points were invented to mark their varying degrees. The common points, however, very indefinitely effect their purposes, in the art of reading. They are described in books of elementary instruction, principally with reference to the time of pausing; and are addressed to the eye, as indications of grammatical structure. It is true, the symbols of interrogation, and exclamation are said to denote peculiarity of 'tone.' But as there is, in these cases, no designation of the nature or degrees of the vocal movements, the extreme generality of the statement affords neither preceptive nor practical guide to the ear. The full efficacy of Points should consist in directing the appropriate intonation at pauses, no less than in marking their durations: and a just definition of the term Punctuation would perhaps, be as properly founded on variations and distinctions, produced by the phrases of melody, as on a difference in the time of rest. Before Mr. Walker, no writer, as far as I can ascertain, had formally taught the necessity of regarding the inflections of the voice, in the history of pauses. It is of much importance in speech, with regard to mere variety of sound, as well as to sense and expression, to apply the proper intonation at pauses. The phrases of melody have here a positive meaning, and often mark a continuation or a completion of the sense, when the style and the temporal rest alone, would not to an auditor, be decisive of its nature. the purposes of pausing being various, an appropriate intonation must, by its changes, prevent the monotony, so common with most readers, at the grammatical divisions of discourse. But The effect of pause, in relation to a separation of time, will be illustrated in the next section, on Grouping: and I now describe the successions of pitch, at the different places of rest. The triad of the cadence denotes a completion of the preceding sense, and is therefore inadmissible, except at a proper grammatical period. But it does not therefore follow,-it must be always applied at the close of a preceding sense; for in those forms of composition called loose sentences, and inverted periods, there are members with this complete and insulated meaning, to which, however, an additional and related clause, may be subjoined, that consequently do not admit the downward closing phrase. The rising tritone indicates the most immediate connection between parts of a sentence, separated by the time of the pause. The ditone carries on the sense in the next degree. The phrase of the monotone denotes a diminished relationship between divided members: the falling ditone still less: and the downward tritone with rising concretes, produces the fullest suspension of sense, without positively limiting its further continuation. Now as the triad of the cadence, produces a maximum of distinction among the parts of discourse, and utterly terminates a sentence, a comparison of its downward intonation with the respective characters of the other phrases, may explain the causes of the varying indication of each, by showing the degrees of their departure from the form and direction of this terminative phrase. The degrees of connection between the members of a sentence are so various, and the acceptation of them by readers may be so different, that I do not here pretend to assign the species of phrase to every kind of rhetorical pause. From present knowledge on this subject, I would say generally, the intonation at some pauses may be varied, without exceptionably affecting either the sense or expression: but there are cases in which the species of phrase, from its exclusive adaptation to the character of the pause, is absolutely unalterable. The foregoing remarks on the use of the phrases of melody, have not been made in allusion to common grammatical punctuation. Writers on elocution have long since ascribed the faults of readers, in part, to the vague nature of these points, and to the distracting effect of the caprice of editors in using them, In the notation of the following lines, the phrases of melody are applied with reference, both to my own acceptation of the sense of the author, however erroneous that may be, and to its distinct and appropriate vocal representation. I have presumed to differ, in the second and in the fifth line, from the punctuation of the London edition of Todd's Milton, from which the passage is taken. So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among innumerable false, unmoved, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; Nor number, nor example, with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, |