But here an ear which cannot difcern the true difference of found in these words, will be apt to suppose that what difference there is, arifes from the last fame being pronounced in a lower tone than the first; but this, it may be observed, makes no effential difference: Let us pronounce the laft word in as high a key as we please, provided we preserve the proper inflexion, the contraft to the former word will appear; as a proof of this, let us pronounce the laft word of the last phrafe with a strong emphasis, and we shall find, that though it is in a higher key than the firft word fame, the voice flides in a contrary direction. Accordingly we find, that if we lay the strong emphasis upon the first fame in the following fentence, the laft fame will take the rifing inflexion :

He fays fame, and not fame.

fo that the inflexions on the first and laft fame, in this fentence, are in an opposite order to the fame inflexions on the fame words in the two former phrases.

But, perhaps, by this time, the reader's ear is puzzled with the founds of single words, and it may not be amifs to try it with the fame inflexions, terminating members of sentences: This, perhaps, will not only convey the nature of these two inflexions better than by founding them upon fingle words, but give us, at the fame time, a better idea of their importance and utility. And, first, let the reader try over the following paffage of Mr. Addifon in the Spectator, by reading it fo as to place the rifing inflexion, or that inflexion commonly marked by a comma, on every particular of the feries:

The defcriptive part of this allegory is likewife very ftrong, and full of fublime ideas: The figure of Death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, are circumftances too noble to be paffed over in filence, and extremely fuitable to this king of

terrors.

Then let him practise it over by reading it fo as to place the falling inflexion, or that inflexion commonly marked by a colon, on every particular of the feries but the laft; to which let him give the rifing inflexion, marked by the

comma:

The defcriptive part of this allegory is likewife very strong, and full of fublime ideas: The figure of Death: the regal crown upon his head his menace of Satan: his advancing to the combat: the outery at his birth, are circumstances too noble to be paffed over in filence, and extremely fuitable to this king of

terrors.

This laft manner of reading this paffage is unquestionably the true one, as it throws a kind of emphasis on each member, which forms a beautiful climax, entirely loft in the common mode of pronouncing them: and, to omit no method that may tend to convey an idea of this difference of inflexion, let us fuppofe these words to be all emphatical, and, as fuch, according to the common method they may be printed in Italics; this is not an accurate idea of emphafis, as will be fhewn hereafter, but it is the common one, and, as fuch, may ferve to fhow the difference between pronouncing the firft example and the second.

The defcriptive part of this allegory is likewife very strong, and full of fublime ideas: The figure of Death: the regal crown upon his head: his menace of Satan: his advancing to the combat: the outcry at his birth, are circumftances too noble to be paffed over in filence, and extremely fuitable to this king of

terrors.

If the reader, from this defcription of the inflexions of the voice, can so far understand them as to be fenfible of the great difference there is between fufpending the voice at every comma in the first example, and giving it a forcible downward direction at every colon in the two laft examples, it is prefumed, he will fufficiently conceive, that this diftinction of the two leading inflexions of the voice may be applied to the most useful purposes in the art of reading. But in order to give a ftill clearer idea, if poffible, of these two different inflexions, we fhall fubjoin a fort of scale or diagram, with an explanation of each example annexed.

Explanation of Plate I.

No. I. Did he do it voluntarily or involuntarily ?

In the pronunciation of these words, we find every fyllable in the word voluntarily rifes except the first, vol; and every fyllable in the word involuntarily falls but the firft, in. A flow drawling pronunciation of these words will evidently fhow that this is the cafe. Thefe different flides of the voice are named from the direction they take in the conclufion of a word, as that is the most apparent, especially if there are feveral fyllables after the accented fyllable, or if the word be but of one fyllable, and terminate in a vowel or a liquid: for, in this case, the found lafts fome time after the word is articulated. Thus voluntarily may be faid to have the rifing, and involuntarily the falling inflexion; and we must carefully guard against mistaking the low tone at the beginning of the rifing inflexion for the falling inflexion, and the high tone at the beginning of the falling inflexion for the rifing inflexion, as they are not denominated rifing or falling from the high or low tone in which they are pronounced, but from the upward or downward flide in which they terminate, whether pronounced in a high or a low key.

In this representation we fee fomething of that wave-like rifing and falling of the voice, which conftitutes the variety and harmony of fpeech. It will not be eafy at first to conceive this correfpondence between the eye and the ear, efpecially if we do not dwell diftinctly on the words we repeat; but I flatter myself a little