which an emphasis on it would suggest: if, when these words are fupplied, we find them not only agreeable to the meaning of the writer, but an improvement of his meaning, we may pronounce the word emphatical; but if these words we fupply, are not agreeable to the meaning of the words expreffed, or else give them an affected and fanciful meaning, we ought by no means to lay the emphafis upon them: Let us take an example of both these kinds of emphasis.

Mr. Addifon, in one of his Spectators, showing the advantages of good tafte, fays,

A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleafures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving; he can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. Spectator, N° 411.

We fhall find but few readers lay any confiderable ftress upon the word picture, in this fentence; but if we examine it by the former rule, we shall find a ftrefs upon this word a confiderable embellishment to the thought; for it hints to the mind that a polite imagination does not only find pleafure in converfing with thofe objets which give pleasure to all, but with those which give pleasure to fuch only as can converse with them; here then the emphasis on the word pilure, is not only an advantage to the thought, but in fome measure neceffary to it. This will appear still more evidently by reading the paffage both ways, as in the last example.

But if emphafis does not improve, it always vitiates the fense; and, therefore, fhould be always avoided where the use of it is not evident: this will appear by placing an emphafis on a word in a fentence which does not require it:

I have feveral letters by me from people of good fenfe, who lament the depravity or poverty of taste the town is fallen into with relation to plays and public fpectacles. Spec. No 208.

Now, if we lay a confiderable degree of emphafis upon the words good fenfe, it will ftrongly fuggeft that the people here mentioned are not common or ordinary people, which, though not oppofite to the meaning of the writer, does not feem neceffary either to the completion or embellishment of it; for as particularly marking these people out as perfons of good fenfe, seems to obviate an objection that they might poffibly be fools, and as it would not be very wife to fuppofe this objection, it would show as little wifdom to endeavour to preclude it by a more than ordinary stress; the plain words of the author, therefore, without any emphafis on them, fufficiently fhow his meaning.

From thefe obfervations, the following definition of emphasis feems naturally to arife: Emphafis, when applied to particular words, is that ftrefs we lay on words which are in contradiftinction to other words either expressed or underftood. And hence will follow this general rule: Wherever there is contradiftinction in the fense of the words, there ought to be emphasis in the pronunciation of them; the converfe of this being equally true, Wherever we place emphasis, we fuggeft the idea of contradiftin&tion.

Emphafis thus inveftigated and defined, we may observe, that all words are pronounced either with emphatic force, accented force, or unaccented force; this laft kind of force we may call by the name of feeblenefs; or, in other words, where the words are in contradiftinction to other words, or to fome fenfe implied, we

may call them emphatic; where they do not denote contradiftinction, and yet are more important than the particles, we may call them accented, and the particles and leffer words we may call unaccented or feeble; for if we obferve the pronunciation of these latter words, we fhall find they have exactly the fame feeblenefs as the unaccented fyllables of a word whose accented fyllable is pronounced with fome degree of force: we fhall fee likewise, that an accented word, which has a degree of force, when compared with unaccented words; when it is joined with an emphatic one, and pronounced immediately before or after it, finks into a feeblenefs equal to the unaccented words; and that the unaccented fyllables, even of an emphatic word, are pronounced with as much lefs force than the accented fyllable, as the unaccented fyllables of an accented word, are lefs forcible than the accented fyllable of an unemphatic word. Thefe obfervations are exemplified in the pronunciation of the following fentences:

Exercife and temperance ftrengthen the conftitution.

Exercife and temperance ftrengthen even an indifferent conftitution.

In the first of thefe fentences, the particles and and the are pronounced like unaccented fyllables of temperance and constitution: in the laft fentence, the word conftitution is pronounced with the fame feeblenefs as the particles and and the; and the two laft fyllables of the emphatic word indifferent, are as much below the fecond fyllable in force, as the particles and

unaccented fyllables are below those which have

an accent.

By this threefold diftinction we are enabled to make very confiderable advances in the methods of conveying inftruction in reading; we can not only mark the emphatic words as ufual, but diftinguish them from the accented: these again may be diftinguished from the unaccented, and by these means we make a nearer approach to the sense of compofition, and to a method of conveying our delivery of it to others. But a ftill greater advance remains to be made by another diftinction: a distinction, which, to the former advantages of marking the different degrees of force on words, adds the ftill more ftriking difference of inflexion of voice. This diftinction, though obvious and palpable, is perfectly new; and it is hoped it has been fo explained in the first part of this work, as to be readily comprehended by the reader; for when it is once comprehended, we may strongly presume that it cannot fail to add greatly to inftruction in speaking, as these two different inflexions of voice are the most marking and fignificant diftinctions of fpeech.

As a specimen of the utility of these distinctions of emphafis and inflexion, we may obferve, that a difference of character may exprefs the different degrees of force with which every word is pronounced, and a different accent may fhow what inflexion each of thefe forces muft adopt. Thus in the following example:

èxercise and temperance ftrengthen éven án INDIFFERENT conftitution.

Here we fee a threefold diftinction of force:

the word indifferent is emphatical, and has the greatest ftrefs; the words exercife, temperance, and strengthen, have a leffer degree of force; and the words and, even, an, and conflitution, have a still smaller degree of ftrefs, and may be faid to be abfolutely feeble: and thefe different forces are diverfified by the difference of inflexion, as marked in the example. But although, in certain critical cafes, where the fense of an author is difficult to point out, all these three diftinctions may greatly affift us in conveying the exact pronunciation; yet in general, it will be quite fufficient to mark the emphatic word with fmall Italics, and the reft with Roman letters, without entering into the diftinction of the feeble words from thofe that have a fecondary force; which feeble words, if necefsary to be pointed out, may be denoted by thefmall Roman letter, and their different inflexions by a different accent.

Those who wish to fee this notation more diftinctly delineated, may confult the RHETORICAL GRAMMAR; where, it is prefumed, they will find the fulleft fatisfaction refpecting the relative force of unaccented words.