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ON FORCE OF VOICE.

The oak-crowned Sisters, and the chaste-eyed Queen,
Satyrs and sylvan Boys were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;

And Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:

He with viny crown advancing.

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed-
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol;
Whose sweet, entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain
They saw in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing:
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay, fantastic round,
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound,
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O, Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid,
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Layest thou thy ancient lyre aside ?
As in that loved Athenian bower
You learned in all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in the elder time,
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age
Fill thy recording sister's page-
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age,
Even all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound-
Oh, bid our vain endeavors cease,
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state;
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

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THE QUALITY OF THE VOICE.

THE QUALITY OF THE VOICE.

THE voice is known as being sometimes rough, smooth, harsh, soft, full, slender, musical, shrill, nasal, etc. The quality of the voice is improved by the exercise and practice which are recommended in the preceding sections. We will examine the quality of the voice under the following heads: The Orotund, the Tremor, the Aspiration, the Guttural, the Falsetto, and the Whisper.

THE OROTUND.

This quality, although sometimes natural, is more frequently acquired. It is the most pleasing and musical sound. It enables the speaker to enunciate distinctly. It is the most powerful tone. It is more readily modulated— easier to expand or diminish. It is the quality most suitable for the stately, swelling sentences of Milton, of Dryden, or of Young. There is nothing in its practice calculated to injure the voice for any or all other expressions.

THE TREMOR,

As its title indicates, has the qualities which distinguish laughter or crying. It should be rarely used-but is easily acquired by attentively studying from nature.

THE ASPIRATION.

The pronunciation of the letter h instructs in the meaning of this division of our subject. It is mostly used in suppressed passion and whispering.

THE GUTTURAL.

This quality, as its name imports, is uttered from the throat. Seldom, only, should it be employed. But if judiciously used it is highly effective. It is most properly used to convey an expression of scorn, detestation, or contempt.

THE FALSETTO.

This is sometimes called a "head" voice in contradistinction to the guttural. It may be cultivated and attained

THE QUALITY OF THE VOICE.

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by practice. It is useful to simulate the whinings of peevishness, or the scream of baffled rage or abject hopeless terror.

THE WHISPER,

The word illustrates itself. It is, if carefully used, eminently effective. Both Kean and Forrest have made it more telling than the loudest exclamations in many deep tragic passages.

For practice on these several qualities of voice, we subjoin the following extracts:

THE OROTUND VOICE.

Cor. The fires i' the lowest hell fold in the people!
Call me their traitor !-thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,

In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say,
Thou liest, unto thee, with a voice as free
As I do pray the gods.

Cor. You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till, at length,
Your ignorance (which finds not, till it feels),
Making not reservation of yourselves
(Still your cwn foes), deliver you, as most
Abated captives, to some nation

That won you without blows! Despising
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a orld elsewhere.

The above speeches of Coriolanus should be delivered in the highest tone of voice, with every expression of fury, and perfect recklessness of the consequences to himself. The head should be erect, the gestures few but vehement, and the eyes directed at the audience, darting fire.

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THE QUALITY OF THE VOICE.

THE TREMOR.

Oth. That is a fault :

That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give:

She was a charmer, and could almost read

The thoughts of people; she told her, while she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father
Entirely to her love; but if she lost it,

Or made a gift of it, my father's eye

Should hold her loathly, and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: She, dying, gave it me:

And bade me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so and take heed of 't,
Make it a darling like your precious eye;

To lose or give 't away, were such perdition,
As nothing else could match.

Des.

Is it possible?

Oth. 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it;

A sibyl, that had numbered in the world

The sun to make two hundred compasses,

In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;

The worms were hallowed, that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy, which the skillful
Conserved of maiden's hearts.

Des.

Indeed! is 't true?

Oth. Most veritable; therefore look to 't well.

Des. Then would to heaven, that I had never seen it.

In the above extract, Othello endeavors to inspire the suspected Desdemona with superstitious dread. Speaking in a suppressed, yet earnest voice, he combines the tremor with the aspiration, as if fearful that the supernatural powers would overhear him and inflict sudden vengeance on them both for losing the enchanted handkerchief.

THE ASPIRATION.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waist and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered. A figure like your father,
Armed at point, exactly, cap-a-pie,

Appears before them, and, with a solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walked,
By their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled

THE QUALITY OF THE VOICE.

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him.
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

This to me

And I with them, the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had delivered, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;

These hands are not more like.

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In thus speaking of the apparition, Horatio looks cautiously around him as if in momentary expectation of seeing the ghost of Hamlet start out from the gloom and confront them again.

THE GUTTURAL.

Oth. Had it pleased Heaven

To try me with affliction; had he rain'd

All kinds of sores, and shames, on my bare head;
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips;

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes;
I should have found in some part of my soul
A drop of patience: but (alas!) to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at-

0! O!

Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart;
Where either I must live or bear no life;
The fountain, from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!

Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads

To knot and gender in !-turn thy complexion there
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubim ;
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

In the latter part and conclusion of this speech, the voice sinks into the throat, and affords a fair specimen of the guttural.

THE FALSETTO.

Bra. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my
daughter?

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her:
For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid-so tender, fair, and happy;
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd