phasis, by causing us to give a corresponding stress on successive lines without any logical reason for so doing. It remains for me to point out some of the principal errors, into which readers of poetry commonly fall.

1. SIMILARITY OF RHYTHMICAL ACCENT.

This mistake is referred to above; it is a propensity for emphasizing words at a given spot in each successive line; as if, in the first verse of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant," I were deluded by my sense of rhythm into giving it in this manner:

1 A sensitive plant in a garden grew,

And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

2. SIMILARITY OF ENDING EACH LINE.

This fault in "ending" may be committed by either "stress," or "tone," or a "fall of voice"; the first of these three would be

"A sensitive plant in a garden grew,

And the young winds fed it with silver dew," etc.

The second, by "tone":

A sensitive plant in a garden grew,

And the young winds fed it with silver dew, etc.,

the upward inflection (or any other) being systematically given on each concluding word. The "fall of

voice" is a peculiar downward cadence given on each concluding word.

3. SIMILARITY BY PAUSE.

This is dividing the lines into equal parts by pausing at stated periods; as if the second verse of the same poem were to be read:

2 And the spring arose-on the garden fair,
Like the spirit of love-felt everywhere;

And each flower and herb-on earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams-of its wintry rest.

The remainder of this poem may be practised by the pupil, his special care being to avoid the defects. against which he is here warned.

For testing whether one has already formed these habits of false rendering, the choice should be given to poems whose measured lines and pronounced rhymes make them peculiarly liable to defective treatment. Of these, familiar to us all, I would suggest the "Bridge of Sighs," the "Psalm of Life," the

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May Queen," "Resignation," "John Gilpin," Gray's Elegy," and Herrick's "To Daffodils," which last I append :

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon,
As yet the early rising sun

Has not attained his noon.

Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the even-song;

And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or any thing;

We die

As your hours do, and dry

Away,

Like to the summer's rain;

Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

CHAPTER V.

THE TONES OF THE EMOTIONS.

IFFERENT emotions and passions are expressed

by different intonations of voice. I will not enlarge here upon the lamentable prevalence of false intonations, but we may say that if persons really desirous of cultivating the art of elocution, would but notice the people around them when under the influence of different passions, they would very soon become familiar with the vocal expression natural to the various emotions; they would soon discover that in nature we never describe the tender, the affectionate, the beautiful, in semitones; nor deliver sublime passages with abrupt force (which is natural to "rage and kindred passions). These errors are specified because of their being most common among false intonations. The observant student will find that force, abruptness, time, and pitch are employed in various degrees in giving expression to every emotion that has possession of the mind; he will also perceive that there are some occasions on which soft and tender intonations would be utterly ridiculous; and others again on which force would cause the sentiment to appear disgusting bombast. That state of mind which indicates mere "thought," narratives or descriptions,

I

which represent things as they are in themselves, without reference to our relationship to them, require an intonation which is unemotional; that which we call the didactic, or simply intellectual. Force of voice is employed in the expression of rage, wrath, danger, horror; and force combined with the aspirate gives us astonishment, exultation, or surprise-according to the degrees of aspiration and force used. Abrupt force gives us a greater degree of rage, wrath, anger, or impatience; then with less force, much less, and equal abruptness, we have mirth and raillery. All sentiments that embrace the idea of deliberation we give in lengthened intonations, as sorrow, grief, respect, veneration, dignity, apathy, contrition. speak of this here, as these passions in their expression are opposed to those more violent emotions, which will not bear repression, but take instant relief in "abrupt force." The quality of voice in anger and in imperative authority is "loud"; in grief, modesty, commiseration, "soft"; secresy is "whispered "; hate is “aspirated." We hear the "head voice" in the whine of peevishness; in the querulous, in the high tremulous pitch of mirth, in the piercing scream of terror; we hear the head voice in all of these, but they are distinguished from each other by the different degrees of force, of time, and of emphasis or stress, that are also employed in conjunction with it.

A softened modulation of voice is required by humility, modesty, shame, doubt, irresolution, apathy, fatigue, caution, tranquillity--these on whole tones generally, and with different degrees of time and