variety, and impressiveness of mere rythmus, and exclusive of some hyperbole and rhetorical ostentation, is not surpassed in the English language.

That both the accentual and the pausal sections may be graphically made, they are here presented under Mr. Steele's notation, as scored by Dr. Barber in his 'Exercises in Reading and Recitation:' omitting the symbols for the light and heavy

accent.

7 It is now,

of

sixteen or seventeen France, 7 then the | Dauphiness,

years 7 since I saw the queen 7 at Versailles: 7 7|7 and | surely | never | lighted on this | orb, 7 which she | hardly | seemed to touch, 77 a more delightful | vision. 7 7 7 7 7 I saw her just above the horizon, |7 7| decorating and cheering | 7 the elevated | sphere 7 she just began to move in: |77| glittering 7 like the morning | star; |77| full of | life, 7|7 and | splendor, 7 and | joy. |

Oh! | what a | revolution! |7 7|7 and what a | heart 7 | must I have, |7 to con template |7 with | out e❘ motion, that 77 elevation | 7 and that 7| fall. |

The agreeable effect of this rythmus may be traced to the following causes.

First. The alphabetic elements are varied throughout: and except the repetition of sound in teen and in the words lighted and delightful, cheering and sphere, they do not press upon each other.

Second. The words have from one to four syllables; and these are finely alternated with each other. The accentual sections vary from one to five syllables in extent.

Third. The Pausal sections consist of from two syllables to ten; and their different lengths are intermingled in sucession.

Fourth. The effect is still further varied, by an occasional coincidence of the temporal accent with that of stress: and the dignity and force of the phraseology is hightened, by the occurrence of these long syllabic quantities, at the several pauses: as in the words-years, Versailles, orb, horizon, sphere, move, star, joy, and fall.

Fifth. The order of the rythmus has just enough regularity to produce the smooth effect of verse, without allowing the reader to anticipate any subsequent measure.

The only exception to be made to the commendation of this extract, is produced by the consecutive accents at its termination. A spondaic cadence, where the accents or quantities are equal and full, if not designed for some extraordinary case of expression, or for variety in a series of short sentences, is always, to me at least, both awkward and unmanageable.

The instances of rythmus given above, are from prose-composition of elevated sentiment, and style. But the plainest phraseology may be brought under the influence of the same rules of accent, quantity, and pause. From the pen of a person of fine rythmic perception, even a letter of business, with its enumeration of particulars, may flow with graceful variety, and terminate with impressive satisfaction to the ear.

It is unnecessary to go into a further detail on the subject of rythmus. Much might be said in illustration of its powers and beauties, both as existing in the current of discourse and in the conspicuous place of the pause. But we leave this to the Rhetoricians.

SECTION LI.

Of the Faults of Readers.

It is a prevailing opinion, that persons who speak their own sentiments, in social intercourse, always speak properly and that transferring this natural manner, as it is called, to formal reading, must insure to it, this required natural propriety.

This idea has arisen from ignorance of the functions which constitute the beauties and deformities of speech. Without a knowledge of causes and effects, on these points, teachers have been obliged to refer to the spontaneous efforts of the voice, as the only assistant means of instruction. Setting aside here, the question, whether we dare to say, what the right or natural manner is, before we know the principles that make it so; we will admit that the natural manner, from our being accustomed to it, and having perhaps a sort of fellow feeling with its faults, is less exceptionable than the first attempts of the pupil in reading; still the faults of ordinary conversation are similar to those of reading, though they are less apparent. Perhaps the common opinion is grounded on a belief, that a just execution must necessarily follow a full understanding of the sense, and a true feeling of the sentiment of discourse; for these are supposed to accompany colloquial speech. No one indeed can read correctly, or with elegance, if he does not both understand and feel what he utters but these are not exclusively the means of success.

There must be knowledge, derived from peeping behind the curtain of actual vocal deformity still hanging before the just and beautiful laws of speech: and there must be an organic faculty, well prepared in the school of those laws, for the expression of thought and feeling. Were it certain that this pretended natural manner truly represents the design of nature, in her system of vocal expression, we would no more require an art of

elocution, than an Art of Breathing: and the whole world, in Reading and Speaking, as in the act of respiration, would have accomplished its purposes, with a like instinctive perfection. But far from such uniformity, there are wide and almost infinite differences, in what now pass for the proprieties, as well as in the acknowledged faults, of speech. The elocutionist's natural manner is not, therefore, the original ordination of nature. It would seem, that in the early and unknown history of progressive man, he must, from the perversity attendant on his ignorance, have learned to Act and to Govern viciously, before he had learned to act and to govern wisely and well. Man's whole executive purposes are directed by his thoughts and feelings; the same agents that direct his speech: and as far as history informs us, the just designs of nature, in his moral, his political, and his vocal condition, were found to be already crossed or perverted, when he first began to look into her laws, and to turn an eye of philosophic inquiry upon himself.

The self-prompted efforts of speech do indeed, exhibit in some instances, proprieties of emphasis and intonation; but these proprieties, like every purposed act without its rule, being but the occasional result of a narrow design, cannot have a generality necessary for a directive system of elocution; and will be very far from satisfactory to the ear of a refined and educated taste.

There may likewise be a wide difference, between the capability of a voice in its colloquial use, and of the same voice when exerted in a formal attempt to read. Mr. Rice, in his "Introduction to the Art of Reading," refers to persons, who had been known to speak with great energy and propriety, those very words, which, being taken down and shown to them in writing or print, they were unable, without great difficulty, and after repeated trials, to pronounce in the precise tone and manner in which they had previously uttered them. Supposing they did speak with propriety, which the art has never yet furnished the means of knowing: there seems, in such cases, to be no want of energy of mind or feeling, nor of flexibility in the voice. But when discourse, embracing sense and sentiment, is read, even by its author, the occupation of the eye distracts attention from the

meaning, or permits it to be fully recognized, only when shown upon a single point. If that meaning is to be gathered from several words, the necessary forerunning and retrospection of the eye, render the proper management of the voice impracticable to those who have not, by long exercise in the art of reading, acquired a facility in catching the sense of discourse, together with an almost involuntary habit of associating the proper form of vocal expression, with its corresponding thought and feeling.

But whatever may be the cause of the difficulty of reading well, faults of all degrees and kinds do prevail in the art. Having therefore prepared the way for a history of these faults, by describing what appear to be the precise and elegant uses of the constituents of speech, I shall endeavor to point out the most common deviations from the principles, on which I have presumed to found our system of Propriety and Taste.

He who undertakes to note the defects of an art, must carry with his censure, a knowledge of its perfections. Faults are, every where, but relative to merits: and in elocution, they are the misplacing only of those forms of expression which constitute its beauties: for some of the finest colors of the art are dipped from the very sources of its faults. He who declares his perception of blemishes in an art, and yet cannot at the same time define and enumerate its beauties, speaks without candor, or as the dupe of authority. Let us then try to perform these inseparable duties, by giving the outline of a just and elegant elocution, with a particular enumeration of its faults.

While investigating the phenomena, and regarding the uses of speech, I have always endeavored to keep in view the purest and most elevated designs of taste. It will be little more than recapitulation therefore to say, the faultless reader should possess, for various occasions, all the qualities of voice from the full laryngeal bass of the orotund, to the lighter and lipissuing sound of daily conversation. He should give distinctively that pronunciation of single elements and their aggregates, both as to quantity and accent, which accords with the