because it is the smallest downward interval which has, in its place, the effect of a close. The nature of this cadence is such, that the ear allows a speaker either to pause or to proceed upon it.

The proper construction of the cadence is of the first importance in the melody of speech. The triad, by possessing the peculiar characteristic of a close, and occurring more rarely than the other phrases, does more emphatically affect the ear; whilst its position at the end of a sentence, subjects it to a critical examination, in the leisure of the consequent pause. It is well known to those who have observed learners, that the proper management of the descent of the voice in reading, is acquired with difficulty, and often not until long after the current melody is practicable without any obvious error. I have known offensive deviations from the true rule of the cadence, committed by actors of long practice and considerable skill, who would have guarded their utterance against the alleged faults, if their studies, instead of being compiled from imitation, had been directed by those principles, which well observed nature informs us should govern the high endeavours of speech.

In the first section of this essay, I endeavoured to explain the meaning of the word key, as significative of a certain arrangement of the elements of the musical scale; and I now proceed to inquire with what propriety the term is applied to the melodial ranges of the speaking voice.

The term key, as a generic appellation, means the proper succession of tones and semitones in the diatonic scale. It includes several species of a similar order of successions, carried on from each of the several places of the scale, as the beginning of those similar orders. It was shown that there are twelve keys, founded on the semitonic divisions: within each of which, an air or melody may be restrictively performed; with the regulated means, however, of conducting that melody from one to another through the whole twelve. But an agreeable melody may likewise be made upon a progression of the scale in which the places of the semitones differ from those of the progression, described in the first section. This gives rise to two different modes of the diatonic scale. In one a semitone lies between the third and fourth notes, and between the seventh

and the octave, as taught formerly; constituting the kind of succession called the Major scale or mode. In the other a semitone lies between the second and third notes, and the fifth and sixth in descending the scale, and between the second and third, and the seventh and eighth in ascending; forming the succession of the Minor mode. Now as there are twelve points of the scale from which a diatonic series may be arranged, so there may be twenty-four keys: twelve constructed by the Major mode and twelve by the Minor. A melody formed on the series of the latter has a plaintive expression, arising from the peculiar position of the semitones. But we shall see hereafter that the plaintiveness of speech is produced by an entirely different method of intonation.

The melody of Music, whether in the major or the minor scale, is made by progressions, both of skips and conjoint degrees, through the series of five tones and two semitones in any given key; and the song or movement, so constructed, is terminated with entire satisfaction to the ear, when brought to a close on the first point of the series, which is called the key

note.

The melody of plain narrative or unimpassioned Speech is made by progressions of conjoint degrees only; and its satisfactory close at a period of discourse, is effected by a descent of its radical pitch through three conjoint degrees, with a downward concrete from the last. The scale of the speaking voice has no interspersed semitones; nor is it limited, like that of music, to a peculiar arrangement of seven constituent intervals. If we suppose a person to possess the ability of speaking distinctly through a compass of ten diatonic degrees, included between the lowest pitch of articulate utterance and the highest point of the natural voice, the melody may, by the use of proper phrases, be carried through any wandering course of ascent and descent, within these boundaries. Let the speaker take the first syllable of a sentence, on the first place of this supposed range. A ditone will raise the melody to the second, and an additional concrete, on that second place, will make the phrase of the monotone. From this, a ditone will lead him upwards to the third place; and in like manner ascending, the melody may be carried to the tenth. Now from this utmost elevation, a falling ditone will bring him to the ninth: a mono

"

tone on this will prepare the voice for another ditone-descent to the eighth. Having by a similar progress reached the third place, the triad of the cadence, or a downward tritone with the falling concrete of its final constituent, will close the melody on the first.

In this scheme, I have conducted the melody formally up and down, in order to elucidate the means of changing the pitch, without the forbidden movement of several directly successive rising or falling concretes. But it is due to remark that the rising tritone may also be used in ascending; that the progress may be varied by using, at will, a longer monotone, and by deferring the rise or fall, through the occasional employment of a phrase of contrary movement. It is by avoiding an ascent and descent of more than three concretes in succession, that the desirable changes through acuteness and gravity In speech, may be effected in an easy and agreeable manner: for the beauty of melody consists, not only in skilfully varying the order of phrases, as they move onwards, but likewise in correctly managing the rise and fall through the whole compass of pitch. The following notation shows the progress of the voice, through a compass of nine diatonic degrees: the rule of the rise and fall being observed, and the melody being therein agreeably diversified.

Hea-ven weep, all earth a-mazed:

Do deeds to make

For no-thing canst thou to dam--na-tion

add,

The above notation is designed to exemplify exclusively the means for moving through the compass of the voice. If it were the place here to speak of the emphatic expression of this forcible passage, other modes of both the radical and concrete pitch would be used and explained. These points will be considered hereafter. At the two colon pauses, which in correct reading will not bear a full close, I have set the less conspicuous interruption of the feeble cadence.

From the foregoing account of the musical and speaking scales, it may be learned that though their respective constituent intervals and melodical progressions differ from each other, yet with reference to the philosophic sense of the word key, there is some discoverable, yet the slightest, similarity between them. For since in speech, the descent of three degrees of radical pitch with a downward vanish at the last, always produces a cadence, or effects something like the consummation of a key note in music,-it follows that in a voice, with a compass of ten diatonic degrees, as above supposed, every degree, except the two highest, may be the place of what we will here call a key note of speech: and consequently, that this voice might be said to have eight keys. But there is a difficulty in the specification of the keys of spoken melody, which can not be obviated. When a musical melody is said to be in a

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particular key, the expression designates exactly the position of its key-note. But the melody of speech can not be said, with precision, to be in any one key, except the assertion is made of the monotone, since the constituents of this phrase alone have the same key-note. 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 descending 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. Definitiveness of key may be affirmed of the cadence, because the succession of its radicals, and the place of its closing concrete, are unalterably fixed. Looking on the triad as determining the key, a particular key may be appropriated to each degree of the vocal compass; and consequently the key of a current melody must perpetually change. If therefore any reference is made to the key in speech, the proper designation should be, by the plural term, keys of the melody.

The peculiar structure of the musical scale; the necessity for rules to govern the changes from one key to another; the purposes of Concerting and of harmonical composition, led to the definite nomenclature and arrangement of musical keys. But should the doctrine of key be at all kept in view, in the art of speaking, the purely diatonic structure of the scale, and, if I dare so compound terms, the strictly solo-vocal office of speech, perhaps call for no nearer precision than a classification into the upper, middle and lower keys of the voice.

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 signatures. 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 speech being altogether diatonic, has no rule for constructing keys, arising out of the fixed places of the semitones, as in the musical scale. Consequently