For soon expect to feel

His thunder on thy head, devouring fire.

Then, who created thee lamenting learn,

When who can uncreate thee thou shalt know.

In this example, the long quantities of the accented syllable of thunder,' and 'devouring,' are given as instances of the emphatic tie; by which the apposition of two subjects, notwithstanding the intervening clause, is shown in its true syntax by the voice. Perhaps these words, as well as the others which are marked for quantity alone, might, in the opinion of a critic, receive the additional distinction of a forceful or intonated mode of emphasis. It may be learned from the speech at large, that Abdiel is no longer the fervent angel' contending with the apostate. He is now the herald of the decrees of the Almighty. The warm spirit, the hopes and the fears of argument, have given place to grave admonitions, and to the solemn declarations of an ordained judgment; and the mode of unimpassioned but conspicuous distinction by temporal emphasis, appears well accommodated to the utterance of the 'unmoved, unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,' and prophetic Seraph.

The reader must have seen how closely connected the various accidents of speech are; and that however wishfully the attempt is made, to bring them down to the state of single constituents, it is impossible to represent each separately in the necessary illustrations. I am pretending here to speak of the simple extension of quantity as the means of emphasis, when in reality that quantity is effectual, as an attractive agent, even in its plainest form, through the influence of one of the formerly described elements of intonation. It must therefore be taken into the account of the temporal emphasis, that, though the protraction of syllables may be made in the simple rise or fall of an interval, still the common form of long quantity is that of a direct or inverted wave. When the time is extended on interrogative syllables; or on those which carry positiveness or command; or which form a monad cadence, the intonation is drawn, respectively to these cases, through the simple course of the upward or downward third or fifth or eighth. But in the plain emphasis of time, such as

that employed in the above examples, and such generally as may be used in the diatonic melody, which admits of no peculiar expression except that of serious dignity,—the extension of the indefinite syllable is always made by the direct or inverted wave of the second.

Of the Emphasis of Pitch.

It was stated generally in speaking of the pitch of the voice, that the several intervals of the scale are used as the means of emphasis. We should now proceed to the illustration of this subject but as the rising third, fifth, and octave, were said to be the symbols of interrogation, and as they have this signification even when applied to but one word of a sentence, it certainly becomes a matter of inquiry, how the interrogative characteristic in discourse is to be distinguished from the emphatic. There must be even to the common ear, something like an unwritten rule to which reference is unconsciously made; for notwithstanding, the frequent employment of these symbols in their different meanings, these meanings are rarely confounded. But our discriminations of this matter have in time past been but four footed instincts; let us try to ennoble them a little, by giving them the support and the exalted step of principles.

The various modes of constructing interrogative sentences were described in the sixteenth section.

As the emphatic employment of the intervals of pitch is on a single word of a sentence, or at most on two or three, there is no liability to mistake cases of emphasis, for those of declarative and earnest interrogation, which always bear the thorough intonation. It was shown formerly that the partial expression is never applied except to questions made by the pronoun or adverb, or by the inverted nominative therefore, questions of this sort, even when intonated by a solitary third, or fifth, or octave, are not liable to be confounded with cases of emphasis formed upon these same intervals, in sentences which have not the above described grammatical construction.

Many phrases which have the form of a question, seem nevertheless to hang doubtfully between an interrogative and an

assertive meaning. When such phrases can be fairly resolved into an interjective appeal, or into that assurance in argument, which dictates a negative interrogatory, the positive temper of the sentiment generally calls for an intonation in the downward concrete, as was shown in the thirty-first section. The following passages are by editorial punctuation, marked with an interrogative sign. Whereas the above named conditions seem to me to apply so clearly here, that I would exclude the interrogative intervals, and designate these virtual affirmations by the positiveness of a downward intonation.

What should be in that Cæsar?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

In the first of these instances, Cassius does positively mean that there is nothing in that Cæsar, nor in his name. In the second, Casca would say,-it is a dreadful night; and the heavens were never known to menace so. And in the last, Shylock means,-you know it, noble judge. If therefore the interrogative intonation should be applied either thoroughly or in part to these phrases, the intended positiveness of conviction, will not be reached in expression. Sentences of this sort call for the grammatical note of exclamation.

We

go on now to the enumeration of the intervals of pitch, which serve the purpose of emphasis.

Of the Emphasis of the Octave.

Ir the concrete rise of the Octave should be set on a single syllable of a current diatonic melody, it will, by the peculiarity

of its sound, conspicuously distinguish that syllable above others formed on the interval of a tone; and will thus be brought within the meaning of the term emphasis, even though it should not receive any excess of force.

The reader may remember what was said on the subject of the intervals of the scale being appreciable, even in the momentary flight of an immutable syllable. But it has been shown likewise, that such short syllables generally take on the expression of the octave, by a skip of radical pitch, from the level of current speech to the height of that interval above it. The emphasis of the octave appears therefore under the form of the slow concrete, and that of the change of radical pitch; and it may be well to have it understood here, that the same varieties exist in the emphasis of the other higher intervals of the scale.

I can not say that the octave is employed emphatically, except for the special enforcing of one word above others, in an interrogative sentence: and this indeed but rarely; for there is a kind of musical cant in its long-drawn ascent that excludes it from those elevated purposes of speech which it is the design of science to investigate, and of taste to approve.

The octave, it was remarked formerly, carries the spirit of a quick, a taunting or a mirthful interrogative; and is perhaps never used in a calm, serious and dignified question. It would be admissible in the following sneering exultation of Shylock over Antonio.

Monies is your suit.

What should I say to you? should I not say?

Hath a dog money? Is it possible

A cur can lend three thousand ducats?

Every word of the two last questions will bear an interrogative intonation: but the terms dog and cur being emphatic allusions to the previous rating of Shylock by Antonio, they carry a revengeful triumph, and an immediate antithesis to their former purpose, by being run up to the piercing treble of the octave. It is possible, some readers might be disposed to set a more dignified mode of intonation on these questions. I only say they will bear what is here given, without making

preference the subject of discussion. The readings proposed throughout this essay are for illustration, and their design is fulfilled, whether or not they exactly accord with common opinion. There is a best in the works of every art but the latitude of their variation, within the pale of principles, has an ample and liberal scope, which sometimes will admit even cases of unsuccessful search after excellence. Over such failures the intelligent critic will be neither quarrelsome nor se

vere.

The emphasis of the octave when formed by a change of radical pitch, is exemplified in the following lines.

"Zounds, show me what thou'lt do:

Woot weep? woot fight? woot fast? woot tear thyself?

The exasperated energy of Hamlet, in his encounter with Laertes, calls for the highest pitch of interrogation on the words here marked; but the correct pronunciation of these words does not admit of the slow concrete. To fulfil the purposes of expression they are to be immediately transferred by radical change to an octave above the word 'woot,' which is set in its several places, at the common level of the voice. The emphatic syllable, when thus raised, is still further endowed with the character of the interrogative interval, by a rapid flight through the concrete octave, agreeably to the account given of this process in a former section. In short, the first seven words of the second line do really skip, alternately ascending and descending, between the extremes of an octave.

Whilst these lines are before us, it may be well to draw attention to the contrast between the two modes of pitch in the octave for the word 'tear,' having an indefinite quantity, admits freely of the protracted concrete; and the voice after being restrained on the preceding immutable syllables is here restored to its prolonged and gliding intonation.

Of the Emphasis of the Fifth.

THE relation which the interval of the concrete fifth bears to the octave, was shown formerly as regards its interrogative