solve into a want of true apprehension in the reader.

It

should, however, be remarked, that through ignorance of the other constituents of speech, this well known subject of mere stress-laying emphasis, has acquired an importance in elocution which has assumed the very name of the whole art. 'How admirably she reads,' said a thoughtless critic, of an actress, who, with perhaps a proper emphasis of Force, was nevertheless deforming her part, by every fault of Time and Intonation. The critic was one of those who have neither knowledge nor docility; I therefore made no comment. Emphasis being almost the only branch of the art in which there is any thing like an approach towards a rule of instruction, this single function, by a figure of speech grounded on its importance, is taken in the narrow nomenclature of criticism for the sum of the art. Even Mr. Kemble, whose eulogy might have laid upon other merits, made his first stir of fame, if we have not been misinformed, by a new reading' of some of the lines in Hamlet.

We have awarded to emphasis its due degree of consequence. We have also given other elements theirs and perhaps it may be hereafter admitted that much of the contention about certain unimportant points of stress-laying emphasis, and of pause, has arisen from critics on the drama finding very little else of the vast compass of speech, on which they were able to form for themselves a discriminative opinion, or on which they were willing to expose their ignorance to others. When hereafter we shall have more important matters to study and delight in, we may perhaps find that much of that trifling lore of italic notation, which now serves to keep up contention in a daily journal, will be quite overlooked, in the high court of philosophic criticism.*

* Some one, of those who like to make business in an art, rather than do it, has raised a question whether the following lines from Macbeth, should be read with a pause at 'banners,' or at 'walls:'

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls

The cry is still, They come.

To those whose elocution consists in such riddles, I propose the following from Goldsmith.

A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

Now let them guess, or dispute, for the rest of their lives, whether the emphasis

I pass by the faults of pronunciation which depend on the misplacing of accents on syllables. Propriety in this matter is set forth in the dictionary, and the errors of speech may be measured by its rules.

I deprecate noticing the faults of speakers, in the pronunciation of the alphabetic elements. It is better for criticism to be modest on this point, till it has the sense or independence to make our alphabet, and its uses, look more like the work of what is called-wise and transcendent humanity: till the pardonable variety of pronunciation, and the true spelling by the vulgar have satirized into reformation, that pen-craft which keeps up the troubles of orthography for no other purpose, as one can divine, than to boast of a very questionable merit as a criterion of education.

Of Faults in Pitch. Speech has been peculiarly one of those subjects, in which we often pronounce upon the right and the wrong, without being able to say why they are so. We have resolved the obscurity in respect to the proprieties of intonation; it will not be difficult on similar principles, to give the analysis of its faults.

Of Faults in the Concrete Movement. I have more than once spoken of that peculiar characteristic of speech, which consists in the full opening, the gradual decrease, and the delicate termination of the concrete. Now, as this structure is destroyed by the use of the vanishing and the thorough stress, it follows that their misplaced application must be regarded as a fault. The vanishing stress, which is exemplified in the jerk of Irish pronunciation, produces, when continued throughout discourse, a vulgar monotony: whilst the thorough stress gives a rustic coarseness to speech. Some readers seem incapable of carrying on a long quantity through the equable concrete; substituting in place of it the note of song. The most remarkable instance of this speech-singing is that of the public preaching of the Friends, which I shall particularly describe among the faults in melody.

Of Faults in the Semitone. Who has not heard of whin

should be on 'passing' or on 'rich': thereby to determine whether the good village parson was passing or superlatively rich, with his forty pounds; or merely considered by his parish, as very well off in the world.

ing? It is the misplaced use of the semitone. The semitone is the language of love, tenderness, petition, complaint, and doubtful supplication: but never of manly confidence, and the authoritative self-reliance of truth. This is the ground which entraps the sycophant, and even the crafty hypocrite himself. They assume a gentle persuasion, or a more tuneful cant, not only because they wish to make it appear that they are moved by a kind and affectionate spirit, but because they distrust or despise themselves, and are therefore governed by the feeling of infirmity or meanness. The honesty of conviction calls for no subsidiary arts of this sort: suspicion should therefore be awake, when the show of truth or benevolence is proffered under this cringing intonation.

The chromatic melody is more common among women. Actresses are prone to this fault, and it is one of the causes which frequently prevent their assuming the matron-rule of tragedy, and the dignified severity of epic reading. They sometimes intercede, threaten, complain, smile, and call the footman, all in the semitone. They can vow and love and burst into agony in Belvidera; but can not with masculine ambition, order the scheme of murder in Lady Macbeth.

The sentiments signified by the semitone, have been enumerated. Whenever it supplants the proper diatonic melody, it becomes a fault, and begins to be monotonous; for when appropriate it never is so. I once heard the part of Dr. Cantwell, in the Hypocrite, played in the chromatic melody throughout. Perhaps it suited the mock virtue of the pious villain, but it certainly produced a palling monotony on the ear; and the want of transition in voice, when he throws off the mask, in addressing his patron's wife, was remarkable. He was the knave and the lover in the same intonation. On the whole, the effect would have been more agreeable, if an abated, slow, and monotonous drift of the second had prevailed, with the use of the chromatic melody when required by the sentiment.

Of Faults in the Second. The ear has its green as well as the eye; and the interval of the second in correct and elegant speech, like the verdure of the earth, is widely distributed to relieve sensation from the fatiguing stimulus of more vivid impressions. Though the diatonic melody, is the

predominating hue of a well composed elocution, is simple and unobtrusive, and thus affords a fine ground for bringing out the contrasted color of more expressive intervals; it does, when continued into the place of this higher intonation, assume a positive character under the form of a fault.

The most striking instance of the misapplication of the second, is its employment for the sentiments which properly require the semitone. There are some persons of such a dull and frigid temperament, or with such inflexible organs, even when the feeling does not appear to be wanting, that they seem incapable, under ordinary motives, of executing the chromatic melody. Pain or the excitement of their selfish instincts will produce it: But in them it seems to be so slightly associated with a general tenderness of feeling, or so much beyond the limit of the will, that the most pathetic passages are given in the comparatively phlegmatic intonation of the diatonic melody. We sometimes see actors of such a temperament, on the emergencies of a night, cast to the part of lovers: and may occasionally hear from the pulpit the most fervent appeals of the Litany, and the humble petitions of extemporary prayer, uttered with the same matter-of-fact intonation which would be appropriate to the manner of repeating the multiplication table.

Some persons are so bound to the monotony of the second, (for when this element is thus misplaced it has the effect of monotony,) that we are often more indebted to grammatical construction, than to the voice, for a perception of their interrogations. It is the same too with their emphasis in those conditional and positive sentences which, for impressive and varied effect, respectively require the rising and falling interval of the third or fifth or octave.

One of the most important functions of the second, is its agency in the formation of melody. It was shown in the sixth section that the best effect of the diatonic arrangement is produced by a varied composition of the seven phrases. We have now to learn how far the common practice of readers, deviates from this assumed perfection.

Of Faults in the Melody of Speech. If the rule laid down in this essay, for constructing an agreeable succession of phrases, is exact, I must by that rule declare I have never heard a

speaker with a good melody. Players spend their time before mirrors, till grace of person is studied into mannerism, and expression of feature distorted into grimace. Emphasis too is teased in experiment, through every word of a sentence, and tested in authority, by all the traditions of the Green-Room:but who has ever thought of the succession of pitch in his sylJables, or imagined that faults may lie there!!

The First fault to be noticed is-the continued use of the monotone, or that of keeping on the same line of radical pitch; the vanish of the second or of higher intervals, being properly performed. I do not here mean that monotony which writers have observed, and have illustrated by the drawl of the parish clerk; for this is the note of song, and will be spoken of presently. The defect of variation, in radical pitch, now under consideration, is not so glaring as this old conventicle tune, nor has it at all the character of song. I wish I could be near the reader, to show the nature of this fault without a further waste of words. All I can say in description is, that it takes from speech a very agreeable effect arising from a perception of the contrast of pitch in the falling ditone; as the transition in this case is made from a feeble vanish, to a full radical, which in the diatonic succession, is at the distance of two tones below the summit of that vanish.

One of the causes of this fault in public speakers, deserves to be remarked here. I spoke of vociferation as a means for imparting vigor and fulness to the voice. But this exercise being made on a high pitch, sometimes tends to corrupt the style of melody. Speakers who address large assemblies, and who have not that clear vocality and distinct articulation which produce the requisite reach of voice, generally attempt to remedy the defect by rising to the utmost limit of the natural compass; and there hold their current just below the falsette. For fear of breaking into this, they dare not vary the melody by taking their pitch alternately higher: and the desire to preserve the diffusive effect of shrillness does not allow them to descend by radical changes. They consequently continue on one monotonous line: and thus vitiate their taste by the partial pleas of their own example; impair their melodial flexibility, if I may so call it; and blunt their perception of the variety of movement in a more reduced current of pitch.