said, to be in any one key, nor to have any fixed place for a key-note; for it may be terminated by a triad of the cadence, at any place of the scale. The constituents of the monotone are the only fragments of melody, to which the doctrine of key could be applied, for they would all have the same cadencial close. When a cadence is made on any of the other phrases, the triad which descends to a close from one of its constituents, must differ from the triad desending from another.

Such being the fruitless purpose of attempting to designate the key of a single phrase, how much more indefinitely must a particular key be affirmed of a current melody composed of a continually varying succession of phrases. The true place of key can be affirmed only of the first constituent of the cadence itself, because the succession of its last two, and the place of its closing concrete, with regard to the first, are unalterably fixed. Looking on the first constituent of the triad as determining the idea of key, when applied to speech, a particular key may be appropriated to each degree of the whole compass, except the lower two; and consequently the key, if it can so be called, of a current melody must perpetually change.

The peculiar series of tone and semitone, in the scales of music; the necessity for rules of modulation, to govern the change from one series to another; together with the purposes of Concerting, and of Harmonic composition, led to the definite nomenclature and arrangement of musical keys. But a melodial progression by the speaking scale, formed exclusively of whole tones, and the unaccompanied, or strictly solo-vocal office of speech, do not require the use of Key: and the designations of its range and form of melody, perhaps call for no nearer precision than that of a classification into the upper, middle, and lower pitch of the voice. There is therefore no Key in Speech.

From this view of the speaking voice, it may be understood, why in the notation of its melody I have used only the staff of the musical tablature, without reference to its cliffs or its signanatures. Cliffs are used in music for the purposes of Concerting; by determining with precision the proper places of pitch, for

several voices or instruments, when moving in accompaniment. They are therefore useless to the singleness of speech. The melody of Narrative does not require the System of Key, and the Signature of Flats and Sharps, which are necessary in the musical scale, from the position of its semitones. The naked lines and spaces of the Staff, denoting the proximate succession of a tone, afford the proper and sufficient means for illustrating the inexpressive intonation of speech.

The term modulation is used, in music, to signify the transitions of melody, and of harmonic composition, from one key to another. A consideration of the propriety of using this term to signify similar changes in the melody of speech, is involved in the question, of the propriety of applying the musical term key to the mere variations of pitch in the speaking voice and we have seen the almost universal difference between the regular system of keys in music, and the melodial method of speech.

The preceding remarks, on the musical and speaking scales, were intended to exhibit the relationships between their respective functions: but it appears from comparison, there is no systematic analogy to justify the transfer of the term key,and modulation, which is merely the practical use of Key,— from music to speech. The transfer was, however, long ago made, and the terms are still continued, under a total ignorance of the nature of the speaking scale. When the truth of the analysis, set forth in this section, shall be admitted, it will be obligatory on all those who derive pleasure or benefit from accuracy of knowledge, to distinguish, by appropriate names, those ideas which negligence may have suffered to pass as identical. If the musical terms, key, and modulation, had not received an unmeaning admission into the nomenclature of the speaking voice, the description of its melody would not, in these last pages, have been complicated with a record of the waste work of investigation, which the inquirer is ready to expunge and forget, when he has made his simple statement of truth. And had the hitherto untried subject of melody been relieved from the blinding consequences of that erroneous nomenclature, the unargued and unbiased history of its changes could have been thus more briefly described: The melody of the speaking voice,

may be led, ascending and descending, through its whole compass, by a succession, exclusively of whole tones and may from any point, be brought to the satisfactory close of a full period of discourse, by the descent of three radicals through conjoint degrees, with a downward concrete on the last.

If I have not here followed the preferred brevity, nor omitted the detail which produced the conclusion, that the doctrine of key and modulation is not applicable to speech; it was, because I certainly anticipated the inquiries,-a habit of erroneous nomenclature would suggest; and because I chose, perhaps advantageously, to introduce into the recorded investigation, some further or varied remarks on the melody of speech.

In reviewing the subject just closed, I fear the described phenomena of the voice may not be immediately recognized, nor the system of their combination definitely comprehended. The difficulties in this case may proceed, not only from the inaptitude of the mind to embrace newly offered subjects of knowledge, but likewise from the connected system of such subjects, being dimly arrayed before the very sense which was able to discover their insulated truths. The art of observation is but a matter of apprenticeship and practice; and it is the time of employ no less than the manner, that contributes to the enduring excellence of a master. Thoughts, not impressed by the deep sealing of time, nor familiarized by the close acquaintance of habit, are feeble or deluding agents in the arduous task of comparison and arrangement: for it will be found that the author who first institutes, or who comprehensively renovates a science, rarely adds the clearest economy of system to his work. To look widely, yet closely, is the paradox of the powers of heaven: and he who can span the broad compass of a science, while he touches its divisions and points, is partially raised above the bounded prospects of humanity, by this humble tendency towards omniscience. To him is due that rich compliment by the contemplative Greek; who knowing upon what transcendent faculty to place the crown of intellectual glory, declared, that he who can Arrange and Define well, might be fit company for the Gods.

SECTION IX.

Of the Quality or Kind of Voice.

QUALITY or Kind is one of the five Modes of speech. Its principal forms are the Whispering, the Natural, the Falsette, and the Orotund Voices, together with those embraced by the common nomenclature of harsh, hoarse, rough, smooth, full, thin, and musical. Quality is, as it were the material of speech; and many of its forms are employed for the purpose of expres sion.

There are certain conditions of the mind instinctively associated with appropriate forms of quality. The whisper as an articulation, denotes the intention of secrecy: the falsette is used for the emphatic scream of terror, pain and surprise: and the orotund voice alone gives satisfactory expression to the feeling of dignity and deliberation. The natural voice is accommodated to the moderate or lively sentiments of colloquial dialogue, and familiar reading. It is not necessary to particularize here, the sentiments, calling respectively for a harsh, full, rude or courteous quality. The history of their specific appropriation, in the art of reading, may be learned from books.

Regarding these forms of quality as distributed among mankind, some voices are restricted to the harsh, or to the meager. Few persons have by nature, a pure orotund. Some speak altogther in falsette; and women are apt to use it in careless pronunciation. Most voices however, may by diligent cultivation, be improved in quality.

This mode of the voice is not to be regarded solely in the simple and insulated light, here represented. It is susceptible of combination with force, time, pitch, and abruptness. In short, Quality must necessarily be united with some of the forms and varieties of the other modes. It must be either strong or weak; its time must be long or short; its emission will be

abrupt or gradual; and it must be of some definite radical or concrete pitch. Certain forms of quality are however, exclusively congenial with particular conditions of these other modes: thus smoothness will more generally affect the moderate degrees of force. Similar congenialities may be discovered by the slighest reflection.

It would be easy to select from authors and from familiar discourse, phrases or sentences, requiring respectively, the forms of quality here enumerated. But I designed originally, to limit the pages of this work, consistently with the purpose of definite description: aiming to make known the hitherto unrecorded phenomena of speech, rather than to add to the present excess of compilation. No diagram can represent these qualities of sound and every attempt to make them plainer than they are under their metaphorical designation, would be without

success.

SECTION X.

Of Abruptness of Speech.

On the first publication of this work, I anticipated objections to the classification of Abruptness, separately from Force. I now in the fourth edition, add this section, to state some of the grounds of that classification. I had not proceeded twenty pages, in the first desultory record of my observations on the voice, before the fulness of the radical opening was perceived to be a fact of very general occurrence in speech. On observing further, its cause was traced to a certain occlusion of the breath; and this was found to be an important and peculiar agent in the production of accent, emphasis, and syllabication. Finding, it could not be very precisely arranged under the