elements on this interval. But it can be executed, and the effect of it is distinctly perceptible, as I hinted in the last section, on the short time of immutable syllables. For it will be found on experiment, that the word 'cup,' or any similar immutable, can be uttered in a plaintive or complaining tone, even in its shortest time. Since then this plaintiveness, when made with long quantities, on which the transition may be distinctly measured, is always produced by the concrete semitone, and not by a movement through any other known interval of the scale; it may be fairly concluded, when this plaintiveness. is heard on an immutable syllable, that the semitone is rapidly performed, even though the gradual course of its time and motion is imperceptible.

In the next section, I intend to speak of the nature and uses and various intervals of the downward vanishing movement. But it is necessary to consider here transiently the downward vanish of the semitone; since its function is involved in the subject of the chromatic melody of speech which I am about to describe.

The downward radical and vanishing semitone may be exemplified, by beginning at the top of the scale, with the word 'fire,' divided as above into two syllables, with the addition of the subtonic 'y-e,' and descending by the alternate use of these syllables. The sound, in the concrete passage from the eighth degree to the seventh, will have a plaintive character, though somewhat different from that of its upward progress through the same interval. Whereas the concrete passage downward through a whole tone, between the second and first, will not produce that plaintive effect. From this account it may be understood, that if the voice should rise concretely through the semitone, and afterwards in continuation should descend through it, the effect as far as regards expression, would be an iteration of movement, and a prolonged influence of the plaintive character. Now as the sentiment which dictates the semitone usually affects a slow time and an extension of syllabic quantity, the expression of this interval is generally made by the continuity of its upward and downward concrete movement. This structure answers two important purposes. It creates a stronger impression of the sentiment: and by doubling the interval, it allows a prolongation of quan

tity, without endangering the integrity of the equable concrete, by the liability of a long quantity, to pass into the protracted radical or vanish of song and recitative. The expressive character of this doubled semitone may be exemplified by making an immediate return in the downward direction, after having ascended to the top of the scale. For the highest interval of the scale being a semitone, if the concrete ascent be continued with an unbroken current, into a return upon that interval, as the commencement of the descending scale; and if we pause after this first downward step, we shall perceive an effect of intonation exactly resembling that which belongs to the plaintive utterance of a protracted syllable of speech.

The sentiments which are naturally expressed by the semitone are sometimes restricted to individual words; sometimes they extend over phrases and sentences, and even throughout entire sections of discourse. These last occasions requiring the semitone on every syllable, necessarily produce a melody consisting of a continued succession of that interval. In the sixth section the Diatonic melody was represented as formed by the progression of pitch through the interval of a whole tone. That which is here spoken of being through a semitone, may be called the Semitonic or Chromatic melody. Like the former it is subdivided into the current melody, and that of the cadence. The movement of its current resolves into seven sorts of phrases, similar to those in the diatonic progress. But as the change by radical pitch in the chromatic current, is through the interval of a tone, only when it descends, and not when it ascends, as will be shown presently, the use of the nomenclature must be pardoned, when I call the several semitonic phrases by the terms assigned to those of the diatonic melody.

The doctrine of key and of modulation is the same in the two melodies. A similar appropriation of phrases to the pauses of discourse, for continuing or suspending or closing the sense, is used in each; and the same rule for varying the phrases of the current melody, in the production of an agreeable effect, is applicable to both. But as the sentiments which dictate the use of the semitone and its melody are always more grave or depressed than those associated with the diatonic, the former more frequently affects the phrase of the monotone.

In speaking of the diatonic melody I divided its constructive parts into the concrete pitch and the radical pitch. The same distinctions may be made in the progression of the chromatic melody. Its concrete is always essentially formed upon the interval of a semitone. Its radical pitch, if I have not been deceived, is conducted in the following manner. When the current melody descends, the radical change is downward, over the space of a whole tone. But when it ascends, the radical change is upward over the space of a semitone. This change of a tone in descending will be perceived on executing the downward ditone of a chromatic melody, and comparing its effect with that of the two first constituents of the triad of the diatonic cadence: for it will be found that if the downward radical pitch of a chromatic melody be followed by another downward radical similar to the first; or in other words, if we attempt to make a downward tritone in a plaintive intonation, the triad of the cadence will be thereby so nearly accomplished, that it will solicit for its consummation, only the faint downward vanish of that triad on its last constituent. Now the triad of the cadence, in its tripartite form, is constructed of the successive descent of whole tones.

The following considerations lead to the conclusion that the radical change in the upward direction, is in some cases made by the step of a semitone. By intonating the scale in the manner directed at the beginning of this section, it will be perceived that after rising through the first semitone, on 'fi,' the next syllable'yer' begins at the top of that preceding concrete; thus making the radical change of the ascent in this case, a semitone: and as every concrete of a chromatic melody is a semitone, it follows, by the rule of the scale, that each successive syllable of a chromatic progression, when the radical pitch rises, must be at the distance of a semitone above the preceding.

But it has been shown that the concrete pitch of this melody is, in slow utterance, generally continued into the returning downward vanish of the semitone. On this occasion the above reason for the semitonic radical change does not apply. Whether in this case of the returning downward concrete, the radical change upward is by the semitone or the tone, I am not prepared to decide, with that confidence which I have felt on

other points of observation recorded in this work. On the whole, however, there is not much change of radical pitch in this melody; since the monotone is its prevalent phrase.

It was taught in a previous section, that in the diatonic melody special purposes of expression call occasionally for the introduction of the interval of the octave, the fifth and the third. It will be asked, perhaps, if these intervals are ever found in the course of a chromatic melody: and if so, how they are engrafted on it. They have a place in it, both for the purpose of interrogation and of emphasis; and are applied in the following manner.

Since plaintiveness is the characteristic of this melody, if an interrogative word in the course of it, should require the rise of either the octave, fifth or third, it is clear that the expression both of the semitone, and of that higher interval, should if possible be conjoined. But by the use of the high interrogative interval the plaintive expression would be lost. These two apparently incompatible effects therefore can be conjoined on one syllable, for the purpose of chromatic interrogation or emphasis, only by carrying the voice through the upward and downward semitone on the appointed syllable; and by leading it afterwards in continuation from the extremity of the downward vanish, through the upward concrete of the octave or the fifth or the third, as the intended expression of the interrogation or emphasis may require. If the peculiar keenness and force of expression which was ascribed to the octave is recollected, it must at once be supposed that it is rarely found among the signs of semitonic interrogation: the more abated power of the third or fifth being commonly used for this purpose. Perhaps the reader may not be dissatisfied if I here think it unnecessary to set forth this subject of the chromatic melody, by a scheme of notation. The precision I have endeavoured to give to the terms of the description, will I hope enable him to understand it without delineation; or to mark the tablature for himself.

The cadence of a chromatic melody is made by a peculiar construction of the triad.

The reader will find on experiment, that there is no other mode of reaching the satisfactory pause of discourse, on three distinct syllables, than that which was described in the history

of the diatonic cadence; and which consists in the radical descent of whole tones, as noted in the first and second sorts of cadence, in the sixth section.-Consequently the chromatic triad must be made by a similar radical descent, since a downward triad of three semitones, would make no more than a tone and a half. But the concrete pitch or vanish of these radicals, which thus descend by a tone, is made through the space of a semitone; and the plaintive character of the melody is thus communicated to its close.

It deserves to be remarked here, that a passage which requires the intonation of the chromatic melody, may sometimes be terminated by the plain diatonic triad; whether that close be made by its tripartite separation, or by conjoined constituents, as was illustrated in the history of that cadence. Indeed it may be further observed, that insignificant and slightly marked particles in a chromatic sentence, may bear a radical and vanishing whole tone, without deducting much from the expressive effect of the semitone when heard on all the important words and long quantities of the sentence. Of the forms of the diatonic cadence, which I have said may be occasionally applied to a chromatic melody, I have already spoken in the sixth section. I here take notice of those forms of the close which carry a plaintive expression.

The chromatic cadence may be made on a single long syllable: or it may be allotted to two syllables: or the space of its descent may be divided between three.

If the three constituents are joined severally to three syllables, the close is made by taking the radicals at the interval of a whole tone in descent from each other; and by giving to each of the constituents, except the last, the rising vanish of a semitone; the last having the feeble downward vanish, such as belongs to the diatonic cadences. This is exemplified in the following notation: in which the lines and spaces still designate the difference of a whole tone, except in the measuring of the concrete issue of the points, and of the upward change of radical pitch; both of which must be taken as indicative of the space of a semitone.

Pit-ty the sorrows

of a

poor old man.