When the reader looks upon the change of pauses, in the following notation, he must bear in mind, that whether his decision is favorable to it or otherwise, it may still illustrate my idea of the power and place of the phrases of melody. If this is accomplished, we need not dispute about the free will of taste, in the particular application of these phrases. My purpose in this essay is to explain some of the untold functions of the voice: not to contend with those who may otherwise, know more than myself,

In the use of the phrases of melody, at the pauses of discourse, the phrase is to be applied to the last syllables preceding the pause. Nevertheless, for particular purposes of expression, the monotone may be continued on the succeeding syllable.

As this notation, represents only the use of the phrases of melody at pauses, I have marked the whole passage with the simple concrete; omitting waves of the second, on the long quantities, which would be its proper intonation, as dignified narrative, in the diatonic melody.

So spake the Seraph Ab-diel, faith-ful found

A-mong the faith-less. Faith-ful on- -ly he.

༼

A-mong in- -nu- -me-ra- --ble false, un-moved,

Unshaken, un-se-duced, un- -ter- -ri

-fied,

His

loy-al-ty he kept, his love, his zeal.

Nor num-ber, nor ex--8m -ple, with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his con-stant mind,

Though sin- -gle.

The first pause at Abdiel is marked with a falling ditone, because the included member does not necessarily produce the expectation of additional meaning or qualification: and because this phrase does not absolutely dissolve the grammatical concord, between the members it separates. I have set the triad of the cadence at faithless, not exclusively upon the right to assume the sense as here completed; but with a view to prepare for the eminent display of the sentiment contained in the remainder of the line. The editor has marked this place with a comma, and thus made the three succeeding words, faithful only he, a dependent clause. I have regarded this clause, and with grammatical reason, as an elliptical sentence, in order to promote the expressive effect of the sentiment. These words reiterate the previous attribution of faithfulness to Abdiel, with the further affirmation of his singleness in virtue. This definite and emphatic restriction of the individuality of the subject, is made with mingled sentiments of regret over the rebellious rejection of truth, and of exultation that Abdiel alone has the undivded merit of defending it. There is a touch of feeling in these sentiments, that even with all other due means for an appropriate utterance, cannot, as it seems to me, be answerably displayed, except those sentiments are separated from preceding and succeeding thoughts, by the marked distinctions of the limitary cadences. If the word faithless should be read with what is called, in the schools, a suspension of the voice, which in their

indefinite language means, avoiding a fall, the spirit of the succeeding clause will be perverted or lost. Milton's fine ear, his vivid feelings, and his discriminating intellect, qualified him to be a good reader; and though he may not have been one by practice, I would with difficulty believe, he thought the passage we are here considering, with the close sequence, implied by the editor's comma and semicolon.

The next pause at false, is preceded by the rising ditone. The structure of this member evidently creates expectancy, and the species of intonation indicates the continuation of the sense.

Of the four succeeding pauses, each rests on a single word. The first three are noted with the monotone, to foretell the continued progression of the sense: the fourth, at terrified, has the falling ditone, to denote a change, but not a close of thought. In ordering these four pauses, variety might be shown without affecting the sense, by giving to the last two syllables of unshaken, a rising phrase. The phrase at kept is the rising ditone, and is expectant; for love and zeal being equally with loyalty, the objectives of kept, are therefore held within the prospective eye of the grammatical construction. But the three objectives being separated by the construction, the rising ditone at kept prepares the expectant attention to bring them back into company on the ear, at the feeble but sufficient cadence on zeal; and thus impresses on the auditor, the true syntax of the

sentence.

At zeal, marked by the editor with a semicolon, I have applied a period, and a form of the cadence; for this, as just stated, throwing back love and zeal, as objectives to the verb kept, prevents their bearing forward, as if nominatives to some expected verb; which might not be avoided by employing, at this place, one of the continuative phrases of melody, with a semicolon. We may account for the semicolon at zeal, by supposing the editor considered the following word nor, as a connective. Yet it certainly begins a new sense; and in regard both to its place and its immediate repetition, may be looked upon as only a poetical inversion, and a redundancy of negative. The remaining part of the notation contains examples of the principles just elucidated, and therefore needs no explanation.

I have thus endeavored to fill up, in part, a blank in elocution, by giving a definite description of the intonation, to be joined with pauses; and by illustrating the manner of framing rules to direct the use of the several phrases of melody. Those who desire knowledge of the structure of sentences, for the purpose of applying these principles, may consult books of rhetoric. Mr. Sheridan writes with his usual ability, on the nature of pause, and gives numerous exemplifications of its proper use. But he makes no analysis of that intonation which he may perhaps have joined with it, in the accomplished practice of his own voice. Mr. Walker has also given a masterly treatise on this subject, in his Rhetorical Grammar. He wisely saw the practical utility of uniting with his view of the temporal purpose of pause, an inquiry into the applicable forms of intonation. In a philosophical view of the subject, his treatise contains no description of the functions of pitch, beyond the ancient general distinctions into rise, and fall, and turn. Not having the materials, for a specific discrimination and use of the phrases of melody, he was under the necessity of regarding his four general heads, as ultimate species, capable of no further subdivision: and hence, the limited, the indefinite, and the erroneous application of his whole doctrine of Inflection at Pauses. Mr. Walker undertook the investigation of the nature of speech, without possessing a discriminating ear; without sufficient familiarity with certain distinctions of sound, long established in music; and without seeming to keep in mind the means and end of philosophical inquiry. The example of the highest masters in natural science, had taught that all he should aim to accomplish, would be, to discover the effective functions of the voice, and to class them with known facts in the history of sound. But the most precise nomenclature, if not the most comprehensive history of tunable sound, that is, sound distinguished from the endless kinds of noise, is contained in the science of music: and Mr. Walker appears to have had too feeble or too limited a perception of its clear and abundant discriminations, to enable him to recognize an identity, or analogy between the speaking voice, and the familiar phenomena of musical sounds.

Even though we might despair that future inquiry will teach us the structural cause of the vanishing movement, and of the orotund, and falsette voices: it is certainly now within the ability of a disciplined and attentive ear, to discover whether sounds, supposed to be peculiar to the human voice, are similar to others that have been accurately measured and definitely named, in the classifications of music; and consequently whether they might be designated by the same nomenclature, as far as the terms of music are applicable to the phenomena of speech. Such a method of investigation, with its satisfactory results, being the whole means and gains of a true and useful philosophy, we might as well believe, the Newtonian discoveries in optics, could have been effected, without a previous acquaintance with the laws of motion, the variety of colors, and the relations of mathematical quantity, as look for a description, and an available arrangement of the phenomena of the human voice, from one who is ignorant of the known distinctions of sound.

SECTION XIII.

Of the Grouping of Speech.

I HAVE adopted a term from the art of painting, to designate the instrumentality of pauses, and certain uses of the voice, in uniting the related ideas of discourse, and separating those which are unrelated to each other.

The inversions of style, the intersections of expletives, and the wide separation of antecedents and relatives, allowed in poetry, may be sufficiently perspicuous, through the circumspection of the mind, and the advancing span of the eye, in the deliberate perusal of a sentence. But in listening to