tal description, than belongs to the rambling signification of vulgar nomenclature. We are not aware that no describable perceptions are associated with these phrases, until required to illustrate them by some definite discrimination of vocal sounds. 'Grandeur of feeling,' says a writer, should be expressed with pomp and magnificence of tone;' and we may presume, that if he had been asked how pomp and magnificence of feeling should be expressed, he would have said, by grandeur of tone. These are words, not explanations. Nor can any weight of authority give them the power of description: since the terms sorrowful expression,' and tone of solemn dignity' in the precepts of an accomplished Elocutionist, have no more precision of meaning, as to pitch, time, and force of sound, than those of fine turned cadence,' and chaste modulation,' in the idle criticism of a daily gazette.

All arts and sciences appear under two different conditions. They may be seen through the medium of terms of vague signification, adapted to the limited knowledge and feeble senses of the ignorant, in every caste of society. Those who view them under this condition, in vainly pretending to discriminate, express nothing but their approbation. In the other light, they are shown in definite delineation, by a language of unchangeable meaning; and independently of the perversions, which slender ability, natural temper, or momentary humour may create. He who thus views an art, in expressing his approbation, always discriminates.

Some branches of the art of speaking, are, even at this late period, scarcely removed from the first of these conditions. We might say, this is strange, if the causes were not so manifest. The specific constituents of intonation and force and time, have never been described: and the mind has consequently wanted that fine stimulus to attention, which abundant and definite terms always afford. The fulness of the nomenclature of an art is always directly proportional to the degree of its improvement; and the precision of its terms is generally the index of its perfection. The few and indeterminate designations of the modes of sound in Reading, compared with their number and accuracy in Music, imply the different degree of success with which each has been cultivated. The inquirers into the nature of speech, have given up their judgments to

authority, and their pens to quotation. The musician has devoted his ear to observation, and his labour to the trial of its truth. The words, quick, slow, long, short, loud, soft, rise, fall and turn, include nearly all the analytic terms of the art. How far they fall short of an enumeration of all the functions of the voice, and how fairly I have represented the present condition of our knowledge, shall be determined by an age to come, when the ear will have made deliberate examination.

A conviction of the imperfect state of our knowledge in some of the branches of the art of speaking, first suggested the design of the ensuing investigation of them: whilst a hope to influence others to assist in the completion of a desirable measurement and method of the voice, produces the present publication. If I have failed to furnish a plan for the future establishment of the principles of intonation and time and force, I must still desire to believe, without controversy, in the attainable nature, and practical benefits of such a work.

I can not withhold from this place, a few very general remarks on the importance of fixed principles in the arts; not only because these principles are the true sources of the intellectual enjoyment which the arts afford, but because they are the most effective means for their improvement. And although the entire want of such principles, for the government of intonation, has unnecessarily led to the belief that they can not be instituted, still I hope to show, in the following essay, that they are not only as essential, but likewise as attainable in Elocution, as in any other art which employs the judgment, and interests the imagination.

Those persons who receive the highest enjoyment from the works of art, know well, that its fulness and durability are derived from the wide and vivid discernment, which is acquired by a disciplined reflection on those principles of taste that directed their production. The knowledge of these principles gives power to the artist, and delight to him who contemplates the work. It is not the form, or color, or sound, which merely passes into the eye or ear, that constitutes an enlightened perception of the objects of the fine arts. Delicate organization is, indeed, essential to this perception: but it is the activity of the senses or the mind in the work of comparison, together with the application of pre-established rules, which forms the

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liberal pleasure of taste. And if there is yet to be discovered some surpassing efficacy of art, it can never be attained, except through the influence of sure and multiplied principles.

Besides the means of advancement, which systematic principles afford an art, their powers are operative after a temporary decline, or total loss of its practice. They work a speedy restoration when the influence of evil example has passed away, or a tradition of former excellence has produced a desire for its revival. The definite description of elementary constituents and the statement of the rule of their use, are particularly necessary in the art of speaking well; since its exercise leaves no durable effect. The works of art, unaccompanied by the history of their production and uses, are often as deep an enigma, as the works of nature: and a long course of observation is in each case equally required, to note and class their phenomena, and to discover their efficient and final causes.

Although the ancients have left us abundant eulogistic anecdotes of the art of Painting, they have been almost silent in relation to its higher principles: and the want of these, even with the benefits of patronage, was one cause of the delay of at least two centuries, in the gradual progress to its complete restoration, in modern Europe. Stories of the graces and possible powers of ancient art were revolved in the minds of the image-makers of Italy, and of the decorators of cloisters, like the problems of the mechanical wonders of Archimedes, which were not to be solved by record or tradition.

Ancient architecture has, by the fragments of its ruins, been revived in modern days, to that degree which belongs to the dull precision of measurement: and in this view, may have all the accuracy of a copy. Delicate observation, aided by a refined taste in other arts is yet to be employed, in order to retrieve the knowledge of those principles which must have directed the varied excellence of the Greeks: but which Vitruvius perhaps designedly omitted, whilst compiling a popular book for builders; and which Pausanias, in his hurried tour, forgot to set down, as the proper preface to his inventory of temples.

If the old writers on music had not transmitted some account of the ancient scales, and their practical applications, the records of Choragic monuments, and the accounts of the

Odeum would have created in us, only a stupid wonder at all the works of sound. The inventive mind of Guido, instead of completing the modern scale, might have only laid its foundation, by fixing a single chord across a shell, and the finished system of modern harmony might now have been but just begun.

The following essay exhibits an attempt to delineate the varying modes of speech, with that precise analysis which may render criticism instructive, and afford to future times, the means of comprehending its discriminations.

The discussion of the subject of standard principles, in some of the arts, has always involved the question of their origin: and nature has generally been assumed as the source.

There are two modes through which nature affords her governing rules in the arts. In one she sets as a prototype for exact imitation, in those branches of art which profess to copy her actual details. In the other, which consists in adorning some one creation of art, by a selection from her scattered integrals of beauty, the standard grows out of that congenial judgment and feeling, exhibited in strong similarity among persons of equal cultivation, which, if it does not declare conformity in taste to be the development of irreversible nature, at least affords education effectual means to personate her.

The uses of the voice have not yet been brought to the rule of either of these conditions. Nature, or what we call nature in this case-unenlightened humanity, cannot be imitated entirely in her own aggregates; since she never furnishes a single instance worthy to be copied: and from the want of a full knowledge and definite nomenclature of the elements of speech, there has never been that clear perception of the causes of beauty and deformity, which would warrant the construction of a system upon the more artificial mode of selection. The highest achievements in statuary, painting, and the landscape, consist of those ideal forms and compositions, which are perhaps never found purely associated in nature, but which, in the estimation of taste, far surpass her individual productions.

In the following essay, the reader will find an analysis of the human voice, which will enable an Elocutionist of any nation, to reduce to established form, the best modes of speech in his language. He will also find the outline of a system of

principles that I have ventured to propose, upon a survey of those excellencies of utterance, which are accommodated to the temper and habits of the English ear; and which, in analogy with the above named arts, may be called the Ideal Beauty of speech.

I am well aware, that in this undertaking, I oppose a vulgar 1 error. The minute distinctions, the perpetual variations, and the rapid course of utterance are considered as invincible obstacles to the palpable representation of the principles of the speaking voice. This objection will be hereafter answered, otherwise than by verbal argument. I would now only ask, if there is no opportunity to count the radii of a wheel but in the race; or to number and describe the individuals of a herd, except in the promiscuous mingling of their flight. Music, with its infinitude of details, would still have been a mystery, if the doctrine of its intervals and time, and the modes of their construction could have been caught, only from the multiplied combinations and rapid execution of the orchestra. The accuracy of mathematical calculation, joined with the sober patience of the ear over the slow practice of its elements, has not had more success in disclosing the system of this beautiful and luminous science, than a similar watchfulness over the deliberate movements of speech, will afford for the facilities of instruction, and the conscious use of its acquisitions. If there is any scope in the works of nature, or any foredoomed efficiency of means to complete the circle of her designs, we shall find, on the development of the scheme of speech, those unalterable rules, within the pale of which the voice should be variously exercised, in order to give light to the understanding, and pleasure to the ear.

The accurate sciences and the fine arts, with great inadvertence to the pretensions of each, have been set in opposition to each other, by wider antithesis, than is justified on near examination. The careless argument asserts that taste is a variable feeling, and has no rule of beauty, in the uses of form, color and sound. If the general agreement among men of equal education in the arts, approximates towards the meaning of a standard, there is not full reason for the contrariety, decreed to these departments of knowledge. Who does not know that particular excellences of the painter, poet, architect, orator,