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ftruction fufficiently fhews it is not entirely uselefs; and, if executed with more judgment, there is little doubt of its being rendered still more useful.

The truth is, fomething relative to pronunciation can be conveyed by written marks, and fomething cannot. The paufes between fentences, and members of fentences, may be conveyed; the accent on any particular fyllable of a word may be conveyed; the emphafis on any particular word in a fentence may be conveyed; and it is prefumed it will be demonftrated in the course of this work, that a certain inflexion of voice, which fhows the import of the paufes, forms the harmony of a cadence, diftinguifhes emphasis into its different kinds, and gives each kind its fpecific and determinate meaning, may be as clearly conveyed upon paper, as either the paufe, the accent, or the emphatic word.Here then is one step farther, in the art of reading, than any author has hitherto ventured to go; and that this new ftep is not entirely vifionary and impracticable, will more clearly appear by confidering the nature of speaking founds.

Of the two fimple Inflexions of the Voice. ALL vocal founds may be divided into two kinds, namely, fpeaking founds, and mufical founds. Mufical founds are fuch as continue a given time on one precife point of the mufical fcale, and leap, as it were, from one note to another; while speaking founds, instead of dwelling on the note they begin with, flide* either upwards, or downwards, to the neighbouring notes, without any perceptible rest on any fo that speaking and mufical founds are effentially diftinct; the former being constantly in motion from the moment they commence ; the latter being at reft for fome given time in one precife note.

The continual motion of speaking founds makes it almoft as impoffible for the ear to mark their several differences, as it would be for the eye to define an object that is swiftly paffing before it, and continually vanishing away: the difficulty of arrefting fpeaking founds for examination, has made almost all authors fuppofe it impoffible to give any fuch diftinct account of them, as to be of use in fpeaking and reading; and, indeed, the vast variety of tone which a good reader or speaker throws into delivery, and of which it is impoffible to convey any idea but by imitation, has led us eafily to fuppofe that nothing at all of this variety can be defined and reduced to rule: but when we confider, that, whether words are pronounced in a high or low, in a loud or a foft tone; whether they are pronounced fwiftly or flowly,

Smith's Harmonics, p. 3. Note (c.)

forcibly or feebly, with the tone of the paffion, or without it; they muft neceffarily be pronounced either fliding upwards or downwards, or else go into a monotone or fong; when we confider this, I fay, we fhall find, that the primary divifion of fpeaking founds is into the upward and the downward flide of the voice; and that whatever other diverfity of time, tone, or force, is added to speaking, it must neceffarily be conveyed by these two flides.

These two flides, or inflexions of voice, therefore, are the axis, as it were, on which the force, variety, and harmony of speaking turns. They may be confidered as the great outlines of pronunciation; and if these outlines can be tolerably conveyed to a reader, they must be of nearly the fame ufe to him, as the rough draught of a picture is to a pupil in painting. This then we fhall attempt to accomplish, by adducing fome of the most familiar phrases in the language, and pointing out the inflexions which every ear, however unpractifed, will naturally adopt in pronouncing them. These phrafes, which are in every body's mouth, will become a kind of data, or principles, to which the reader muft conftantly be referred, when he is at a lofs for the precife found that is understood by these different inflexions; and these familiar founds, it is prefumed, will fufficiently inftruct him.

Method of explaining the Inflexions of the Voice.

It must first be premised, that by the rifing or falling inflexion, is not meant the pitch of voice in which the whole word is pronounced,

or that loudnefs or foftnefs which may accompany any pitch; but that upward or downward ide which the voice makes when the pronunciation of a word is finishing; and which may, therefore, not improperly be called the rifing and falling inflexion.

So important is a juft mixture of these two inflexions, that the moment they are neglected, our pronunciation becomes force lefs and monotonous if the fenfe of a fentence require the voice to adopt the rifing inflexion, on any particular word, either in the middle, or at the end of a phrafe, variety and harmony demand the falling inflexion on one of the preceding words; and on the other hand, if emphafis, harmony, or a completion of fenfe, require the falling inflexion on any word, the word immediately preceding, almost always, demands the rifing inflexion; fo that these inflexions of voice are in an order nearly alternate.

This is very obfervable in reading a fentence, when we have mistaken the connection between the members, either by fuppofing the fenfe is to be continued when it fin fhes, or fuppofing it finished when it is really to be continued: for in either of thefe cafes, before we have pronounced the laft word, we find it neceffary to return pretty far back to fome of the preceding words, in order to give them fuch inflexions as are suitable to those which the fenfe requires on the fucceeding words. Thus, in pronouncing the speech of Portius in Cato, which is generally mif-pointed, as in the following example:

Remember what our father oft has told us,
The ways of heav'n are dark and intricate,
Puzzled in mazes and perplex'd in errors;

Our understanding traces them in vain,

Loft and bewilder'd in the fruitless fearch:

Nor fees with how much art the windings run,
Nor where the regular confufion ends.

If, I fay, from not having confidered this paffage, we run the fecond line into the third, by fufpending the voice at intricate in the rifing inflexion, and dropping it at errors in the falling, we find a very improper meaning conveyed; and if, in recovering ourfelves from this improper pronunciation, we take notice of the different manner in which we pronounce the second and third lines, we fhall find, that not only the laft word of these lines, but that every word alters its inflexion; for, when we perceive, that by miftaking the paufe, we have mifconceived the fenfe, we find it neceffary to begin the line again, and pronounce every word differently, in order to make it harmonious.

But though these two inflexions of voice run through almost every word of which a sentence is compofed, they are no where fo perceptible as at a long paufe, or where the fenfe of the words requires an emphafis; especially if the word end with a long open vowel: in this cafe, if we do but attend nicely to that turn of the voice which finishes this emphatical word, or that member of a fentence where we paufe, we fhall foon perceive the different inflexion with which these words are pronounced.

In order to make this different inflexion of voice more eafily apprehended, it may not, perhaps, be ufelefs to attend to the following directions. Let us fuppofe we are to pronounce the following fentence:

Does Cæfar deferve fame or blame?

F

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