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fool-wealthy Ignoramus, with his bluff command; and in soul as well as in voice, from the coarse and vicious vulgarity of that hitherto unknown species, in progressive creation, the American Rowdy.*

I do not say, the man who has no vanish in his voice, is fit for stratagems and spoils:' But I do believe, that if Shakspeare

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* With this Rowdy,- who practically personifies a compliment to our astonishing advancement in Morality, Refinement, Legislative Energy, Law, and in Statesman-Supervision,- the rudeness of the stressful concrete, is a natural gift. Gipsies and thieves of the Old World, have a conventional slang, for misleading the fearless search of justice. But the surpassing Rowdy of the New, knowing himself to be above the law, boldly writes his threatning titles on our walls, and openly proclaims the watch-word of his conspiring Crew. Among these words, so called from some conceit or other, are Boy, and Sir. Now both of these allow a delicate execution of the vanish. This however is not suited to the Rowdy's character: and nature, true to her signs of the good and the bad, directs him, by another instinct, to give these words, the coarse intonation of the thorough stress. This coming to the mouths of the populace, they have made an awkward imitation of the thorough, by taking up the words with something like the compound stress. And this, leading to a division of the words into two syllables, has given us the vulgar slang of the streets, as we every where hear it, in Bo-hoi and Sir-ee.

The full, and the hair-stroke lines of the graceful old copper-plate letter, and some of the deformities of modern type, afford symbols for these different states of the concrete. A love of variety among conventual Scribes once perverted and distorted the Roman alphabet almost beyond recognition. The same effort to overwhelm taste with novelty, is now in progress by the Sign-painter, and the Printer of placards. Among a thousand awkward oddities of the Typefounder, we can find something just to our purpose. The well-finished form of Roman capitals, and punctuation, with their full, and their vanishing lines, contrast remarkably, as in the following diagram, with their rowdy-looking counterparts; designed under that Widely-Destructive Principle, in Popular Taste, of 'Something New.' Perhaps it may be a fancy; but the Roman c

O, C;S. O, C; S.

reminds me of the equable concrete; and its rowdy modern improvement, of the thorough stress. In short, the contrast suggests to us, the difference between that graceful and celebrated Line by Apelles, and the rudeness of a crooked billet.

had chosen to look as far into speech, as he did into thought, sentiment, and language; he would have seen that nature has, in the human voice, her especial sign of the Boorish and Unruly, as well as of the Unmusical soul; and would, in some of his own fine analytic metaphors, if not by explanatory science, long ago have described it.

In closing this section, we may once more contrast the intonation of his rude temper, who asks for nothing, but who with violence would seize on every thing, by comparing it with the craving voice of the Hypocrite and the Sycophant, insinuating their several ways to authority and favor. The Rowdy more true to his own nature, uses the heavy stress, to alarm the unwary, and is then ready to break through all opposition. While the subtilty of the others, without a warning rattle to the unconscious dupe, abuses the kind and honorable purpose of the social vanish, by its servile excess, and its puling application to every variety of sense and feeling.

SECTION XL.

Of the Loud Concrete.

By the Loud Concrete, I mean that stress which distinguishes a given syllable from adjacent ones; the parts of the concrete still retaining the comparative structure of the radical and vanish. It is, in short, what was called the natural concrete, magnified, if we may so speak, by emphatic stress. It is not distinguishable on a very short quantity; the radical stress being, there, the proper form of force.

As far as I perceive, it has no peculiar character of expres sion. But as a function of the voice, it will be referred to, in a future section, on accent.

All the forms of stress, thus enumerated, may be applied to the tremor of the simple intervals, and of the wave: thereby giving a more marked expression to the gaiety of laughter, the plaintiveness of crying and speech; to tremulous emphasis, and to interrogation.

SECTION XLI.

Of the Time of the Concrete.

THE radical and vanishing movement was represented as having an equable continuation of time throughout its progress; and thereby distinguished from the radical and prolonged vanish, in Song.

The purposes of expression sometimes demand a change of this equability of the concrete, into a quicker utterance of its beginning, or middle, or end. This condition of time is closely connected with an application of the different forms of stress: for it is difficult to give stress without running into quickness of time; and as difficult to give quickness to time without marking the rapid part of the concrete with stress. The relation of these functions is most conspicuous in the radical stress; for its sudden burst is necessarily followed by a momentary quickness of utterance. The median and the vanishing stress, when strongly emphatic, likewise carry with them a rapid run of time for there is in these cases, an endeavor, however fruitless, to effect, on an unbroken concrete, the explosive nature of the radical. These fitful gusts of breath through the radical, median, and vanishing places, may be employed, like the stress itself which respectively accompanies them, on all the intervals of the scale, and at those points of the wave where the stress is

applied. There may also be a compound quick time of the concrete, attendant on the compound stress, in the prolonged movements of speech. But perhaps this is only a refinement in observation.

On the whole, regarding the time of the concrete separately from stress, it is not of any practical importance, in expression. It was my purpose to give a history of speech. This quickness was perceived; and it is therefore transiently noticed.

SECTION XLII.

Of the Aspiration.

WE have thus far learned, how the five modes of vocal sound, Quality, Time, Pitch, Abruptness, and Force, together with the absence of all impression in the Pause, do by their separate and their mingled influences produce the varied effects of speech already described.

The works of nature are infinite patterns of permutation; and the function now to be considered, will show additional means for diversifying the effect of those signs of expression, heretofore described. The subject of this section does properly belong to the head of quality of voice. But since it has received a place and name among the alphabetic elements, and has peculiar properties, it has here a separate notice. I shall therefore endeavor to show that the element denoted by the letter h, or, as it is called, the Aspiration, has eminent powers of force and expression.

By calling ha mere breathing, some authors imagine they insure the right to reject this element from the alphabet. Let it be said in truth, that aspiration, as a separate and unemphatic element, is feeble, and has not the tunable and flexile vocality

of the tonics. But while harrow and arrow shall owe the difference in their meanings respectively to the presence and absence of the element, that mere breathing will fulfill the purpose of articulation, though it may not conform to the exact definition of it. Notwithstanding, the defects of the aspiration cannot be denied, under the cold measurement of orthoëpy, it is still pre-eminently entitled to notice, as a powerful agent in oratorical expression.

The element h is slightly susceptible of pitch and abruptness; while it freely admits of prolonged quantity. In this form, it furnishes the expressive interjection of Sighing. It admits, to a certain degree, the variations of force; and under the calls of emphasis, is remarkably displayed on the median stress. In uncompounded words it is generally found at their beginning; where its force may be more effectually exerted; especially in words having universally an energetic meaning, as havoc, horror and huzza. It is combined with most of the interjections, in all languages.

Besides the above mentioned instances of its expression, where common orthography has given it a literal place, it is in certain cases of emphasis, engrafted on the several tonics and subtonics. For though aspiration, as we have seen, does with its literal symbol, serve the purpose of a distinct constituent of words; yet it may even without the symbol, be severally united with elements having a vocality, without destroying their individual characters. The pure quality of the tonic is indeed impaired by the union; for the perfection of a tonic element was negatively defined, by declaring its freedom from aspiration: but compensation for the loss of purity is made by other advantages of the combination.

There is some unknown mechanism of speech, by which the strenuous pronunciation of a tonic element becomes semiaspirated. If the word horrible be deprived of its aspirate, it will be impossible to give the fragment orrible, in prolonged and energetic exclamation, without restoring in a great degree, the abstracted element. The question, how far this unavoidable combination operated to introduce the aspirated element, for the

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