3. THE IMPERATIVE FORM. It is antagonistic with the meaning when requiring to be read with the upward inflection, the thought being conditional, contingent, or uncertain. Othello, Act 3, Sc. 3: "Villain, be sure thou prove my love is false: Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof; * Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul, Thou hadst better have been born a dog Make me to see it, or (at the least) so prove it, Here the thought is "conditional "; Othello does not desire that Iago should "prove" his "love" is false; on the contrary, the Moor hopes that the other may not be able to do so; he is positive enough in his meaning in the next line quoted-" Or by the worth," etc. Then we have again the "imperative" in form, but conditional in thought, on the lines: "Make me to see it" (the meaning being, "Unless you can make me to see it"), if you cannot so prove it, that the probation bear no hinge nor loop to hang a doubt on), woe upon thy life";—this last being positive. The next is imperative in form, but conditional in meaning: 66 Prove to me that person has never done wrong, and I will declare to you that he is worthy of your praise." This is imperative in form only: Prove to me, that you know your lessons for to-morrow, and I will believe you. Example of imperative form with conditional meaning: Write on both sides of a sheet, and I will throw your manuscript into the fire. §4.-MELODY, AS APPLIED TO THE READING OF POETRY. John Longmuir, A.M., LL.D., in his "Walker and Webster combined," tells us that Melody, n., is “an agreeable succession of sounds by a single voice, and thus differing from harmony, which consists in the accordance of different sounds." Now my experience tells me that most persons who read poetry aloud, do not endeavor to produce an "agreeable succession of sounds"; they attend rather to the symmetrical relation between the duration of "time" and that of "sound," and (mark this, for herein lies the great defect) to the PERIODICAL return of the same effect; they fairly struggle to give us a "harmony," when all that we ask for is a simple, pleasing, natural "melody." I emphasize the word "nature," for anything falser to nature than the sing-song manner of rendering poetry that many affect, even public readers, cannot possibly be conceived. That people of known culture should, in the expression of poetry, make more prominent the "rhythm" than the "thoughts" in a poem is simply astonishing. Yet it is matter of experience that many of them make a mere nursery jingle of the noblest and sweetest productions of the poets. What is poetry? "Poetry is the language of the imagination; poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion; the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of any thing, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid, in any other way, that gives an instant satisfaction to the thought. This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic." Poetry, then, does not consist of rhythmical changes in tone and time, but it is the language which most eloquently and vividly conveys the expression of the passions. Then should the delivery of poetry (as well as prose) be distinguished by the varied tones appropriate to different passions; the "time" in which the successive thoughts are given, depends on our mental valuation of those thoughts, and in my lesson on Time the student will find the necessary principles for guidance in this matter; the emphasis should be controlled by philosophical principles, and we should by no means allow our appreciation of rhythm to betray us into false em 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, 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, And each flower and herb-on earth's dark breast 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 "May Queen," "Resignation," "John Gilpin," Gray's Elegy," and Herrick's "To Daffodils," which last I append : 66 Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon, Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, |