pression of speech; some of its most effective elements, as will be shown hereafter, being made on syllables which admit of this indefinite prolongation.

I do not desire the reader to receive the foregoing classification, as one that should exclusively govern his view of the syllables of our language. The investigation of the causes of expression very soon suggested to me the necessity of other distinctions of quantity than those of long and short; which, after a millennium and more, of pretending observations, we continue to transcribe from the record of the meagre analysis of Greek and Latin prosody. The phenomena of expression directed the divisions here made; and the propriety of them, on this ground, may perhaps be hereafter acknowledged. However short of universality this proposed system may reach, even its limited arrangement will be necessary for the explanation of future parts of this essay; and whatever may be thought of its sufficiency, I must still believe it is high time. for the superannuated sages of classical literature to throw aside the Greek and Roman spectacles, in their prosodial researches ; and to try if time, with his new lights, may not have wrought upon them, one of those renovations of sense, which have now and then resuscitated the torpid perceptions of extreme longevity.

The power of giving indefinite prolongation to syllables, for the purpose of expression, is not commonly possessed by speakers. It is true, the daily exercise of the voice is not destitute of forcible expression; but daily discourse is generally that of mere narration or description; and its sentiments, those of active argument, or of contending interests, both of which employ, for the most part, the short time of syllables, and the quick course of utterance. Still the assertion that a long quantity is not easily practicable, may seem to the reader, incomprehensible or false since all who are able to sing, protract their notes to an indefinite length; and there is no person who does not utter interjections and cries in the same manner. But the mode of prolongation to which I here allude, is that of the equable concrete of speech. Three modes of the radical and vanishing movement were formerly described as respectively used in speaking, and in song, and recitative. Without having regard to the nature and uses of these three functions, it is not

easy to restrict them to their appropriate places. A reader who has not from practice, a facility in executing the prolonged quantity of speech, will be liable, in extending his syllables, to fall into the protracted radical or vanish of song. When persons of imperfect ear, and without a singing voice, by accident observe, remember, and endeavour to imitate the melodial succession of an air, they are apt to utter many of its notes, in the equable concrete of speech. Protracted cries, and interjections which are only more moderate cries, are always made either by the note of song, or by a mode of pitch, to be called hereafter the Wave, or by movements through the higher intervals of the scale: and though these intervals and the wave are both proper to speech, yet the prolonged voice in such cases is the forced effect of passion, which not operating to this high degree, on the ordinary occasions of reading and speech, the cause is not habitual, and the practice not confirmed.

The foregoing notice of the exclusion of the peculiar intonations of song and recitative from speech, furnishes one reason why those persons who possess high accomplishments as singers, are nevertheless indifferent readers or common place actors. I shall in a proper place, endeavour to show other reasons for the general want of interchangeable facility, in the exercise of the arts of song and speech. That to which I now allude, and which arises from the different structures of the radical and vanish in the two cases is not the least influential. The endowed singer may have at command all the means of expression which are used in song. But these are not transferable to the equable concrete of speech; and while he is able to clothe every sentiment of the composer, his attempts at recitation, strip off or tear to pieces, every feeling of the poet.

But to return from this account of the nature of the concrete, to the consideration of the uses of its varied quantity. The immutable, mutable and indefinite times of syllables, have their appropriate mode of fulfilling the purposes of expression. But the opportunity which the indefinite time affords for producing some of its higher effects, must be regarded as of the very first importance in the exercise of speech. This subject will be illustrated in future parts of this essay. Readers who are ignorant of the principles of quantity, are yet aware of the necessity of a slow movement, for the expression of cer

tain sentiments. They therefore endeavour to supply the deficiency of their power over the long concrete, by slight pauses between words, and even between syllables. But nature and good taste allow no compensation of this sort: they require much of the time which characterizes deliberate utterance, to be spent on the syllable itself, and reject every other mode as offensive monotony or as affectation.

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Eminent instances of the essential importance of long quantity may be shown, by considering some existing defects in the syllabic construction of sentences with reference to expression for since the display of certain sentiments requires the prolonged time of indefinite syllables, it may happen that such sentiments are to be expressed on the limited duration of a mutable, or the mere moment of an immutable syllable. I here illustrate my meaning by a passage from the fourth book of Paradise Lost, where Satan is brought before Gabriel. In the dialogue between them, one of the replications of Satan is as follows:

'Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain,
Insulting angel! well thou know'st I stood
Thy fiercest, when in battle to thy aid,
The blasting vollied thunder made all speed,
And seconded thy else not dreaded spear.
But still thy words at random, as before,
Argue thy inexperience what behoves
From hard assays and ill successes past
A faithful leader, not to hazard all
Through ways of danger by himself untried:
I, therefore, I alone first undertook
To wing the desolate abyss, and spy
This new created world, whereof in Hell
Fame is not silent, here in hope to find
Better abode, and my afflicted powers
To settle here on earth, or in mid air;
Though for possession put to try once more
What thou and thy gay legions dare against;

Whose easier business were to serve their Lord

High up in heaven, with songs to hymn his throne,
And practis'd distances to cringe, not fight!'

I have marked in italics, the words on which an indefinite quantity is required for the full measure of expression. The word 'insulting,' when interpreted by the context, contains

the mingled indications of complaint, pride and reproach; and these require an element of pitch to be mentioned hereafter, which is made with a long quantity, and which consequently can not be here employed with satisfactory expression on the emphatic syllable 'sult.' This syllable belongs to our class of mutables, and can not be prolonged to the necessary degree, except by extending the natural time of the monothong e-rr, which is here represented by 'u,' or by drawing out the subtonic 1;' either of which modes would deform pronunciation. The second instance, marked in the mutable syllable ‘dread,’ contains a declaration of slight contempt; and this, I shall say hereafter requires an element of expression which calls for a duration of voice not allowed by the natural quantity of the syllable. The last marked phrase of the foregoing passage affords a more conspicuous illustration of the subject before us: for of the words 'not fight,' the first is mutable, and the last which is strictly immutable, does not admit of prolongation, without a disgusting departure from correct pronunciation. Now the sentiments of this phrase are those of strong contempt, and of exultation, the expressive symbol of which must be made upon an indefinite time. A reader of discernment and delicate feeling can never satisfy his ear on these words.

To a bad reader all sentences are alike, however improperly constructed for the use of the elements of expression. A good reader, who looks abroad through all the ways of the voice, must often find the tendencies of his utterance in regard to time, restricted by the unyielding nature of an immutable phraseology. The humblest exercise of art, and any mode of quantity suffice to set forth the sense of an author; but the picture of passion, will be in many cases imperfect, if made on the short time of syllables. He who can assume the spirit of the poet, will not be able to give the prompted expression to part of the last line of the following passage. It is taken from Gabriel's answer to Satan's apology for his flight from Hell, formerly quoted, and is a comment on the title of faithful leader' vaunted by Satan.

O name,

O sacred name of faithfulness profan'd!
Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?
Army of Fiends, fit body to fil head.

The six syllables of this last phrase are short, and all the emphatic ones are immutable. They contain a degree of admiration at the well marked fellowship between a ringleader and his crew, mingled with scorn at the wicked faithfulness of the rebellious outcast: and these sentiments, we shall learn hereafter, can not be eminently shown on the abrupt shortness of the time here employed. With an accomplished speaker, the management of this phrase would be like the efforts of a musician of feeling and skill, on a defective instrument and the different success of his voice, on the above short syllables, and on indefinite quantities would be like the inexpressive chattering of the harp or piano-forte, compared with the rich resources of the violoncello.

The abrupt and atonic elements produce, in discourse, many instances of syllabic construction that hamper expression: But perhaps the greater number of sentences admit of the voices which their sentiments require. For it is not absolutely necessary that every word should join in the expression. One or two well accommodated quantities sometimes sufficiently convey the sentiment of the sentence. The syllable' Par' of the following line has a natural quantity, which, without impropriety, may be doubled or more in expressive utterance; and the same may be said of bleed.'

Pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meck and gentle with these butchers!

The circumstances of the scene of Julius Cæsar, from which this is taken, inform us that Mark Antony's sentiments, as first expressed in the passage, are those of love, grief and contrition; his feeling of revenge does not appear until the second line. Those sentiments, I shall show hereafter, call particularly for an extension of syllables. If I am right in the interpretation, the words 'pardon' and 'bleeding' are emphatic, since they respectively picture the special object of the suppliant, and the disastrous assassination, which, with self reproach, he had delayed to punish. The accented syllables of these words admitthe prolonged concrete; and the application of the proper element, to them alone, spreads the coloring of expression over the whole of the sentence.

In the preceding illustration, the reader may discover some

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