similar differences. He should not be enslaved to the peculiarities of any dialect; he may when occasion requires, speak English like an Englishman, Scotch like a Scotchman, and Irish like an Irishman; but his reading should not be imbued with the characteristics of Irish of Scotch or of any local pronunciation when he delivers the language of Shakespeare, of Milton, or of Addison.

The differences that distinguish dialects are quite susceptible of assimilation to any standard. Just as a piece of music can by a skilful player be transposed in execution to a different key from that in which it is written, so language can by one skilled in the characteristics of dialects be transposed in pronunciation from one dialect into another.

But local peculiarities manifest themselves in varieties of intonation as well as of syllabic pronunciation. As the tones of speech have all a natural expressiveness, there is rarely any difficulty in acquiring command over them. The "science of sweet sounds" can only be effectively studied by those who have "an ear" for music, but the expressive tones of speech can be distinguished and efficiently executed, even by those who are destitute of the musical faculty. This department of elocutionary discipline is of high importance, as it involves the exercise of much judgement in discriminating the analogies of sound to sense. The peculiarities of tone which characterize dialects consist, for the most part, of repetitions of the same species of inflexion, clause following clause in a sort of tune. which prevails merely by the force of habit. The voice of every individual is apt to partake too much of a uniformity of melody; but we have no difficulty in understanding the intention of the speaker, notwithstanding the sameness or the habitual fluctuations of his tones. This proves the folly of attempting, by any set of Rules, to impose a system of intonation, as a standard for all voices. There is scarcely a sentence which will not admit of just expression by half a dozen, or ten times as many modes of vocal inflexion. What is wanted is not a Rule for this or that species of sentence, but a power over the voice generally, to redeem it from monotony; a knowledge of the various modes of conveying sense; and an appreciation of the special sense to be conveyed. To aim at anything more than this would be to destroy the speaker's individuality, and to substitute_formality and mannerism for versatility of natural manner. In reference to inflexion, elocu

tionary training has for its object mechanical facility, and definiteness of execution, rather than uniformity of application. It is the mistake of Mr. Walker's, and all similar Rules, that they tend to produce the latter result only; one which is neither desirable nor strictly possible.—which is in fact unnatural

Inflexion is associated with accent, or emphatic stress, and this is regulated by the sense to be conveyed. The laws of emphasis form a study of the highest intellectual value, which has been too little investigated and systematized. No department of Elocution can compare with this in importance; yet not only has it been superseded in books, by unnecessary Rules for Inflexion, and in Schools by thoughtless Imitation, but these rules, and all exercise founded on them, constantly violate the laws of accent. Here is one point in which almost absolute uniformity must prevail among all good readers. Set practice right in respect to emphasis, and inflexion cannot go far wrong.

Every sentence or clause is susceptible of various meanings, according as its different words are rendered prominent by emphasis. "There will always be some word or words more necessary to be understood than others. Those things which have been previously stated, or which are necessarily implied, or with which we presume our hearers to have been preacquainted, we pronounce with such a subordination of stress as is suitable to the small importance of things already understood; while those of which our hearers have not been before informed, or which they might possibly misconceive, are enforced with such an increase of stress, as makes it impossible for the hearers to overlook or mistake them. Thus, as it were in a picture, the more essential parts of a sentence are raised from the level of speaking, and the less necessary are at the same time sunk into a comparative obscurity!"*

How awkwardly ambiguous is the reading of those who have no principle to guide them in the selection of emphasis,—the distribution of the light and shade of speech! One verse of Scripture a peculiarly difficult one to hap-hazard readers-is rarely delivered correctly. This is the 25th verse of the 24th chapter of the Gospel by Luke :- O, fools, and slow of heart to believe, all that the prophets have spoken." The reproof conveyed here is that the disciples addressed were "slow to believe;"

* "Practical Elocutionist," by Alex. Bell, (the Author's father.) London, 1842.

but, by a faulty clausing of the sentence, separating these allied words, and a misplaced emphasis, precisely the opposite censure seems to be intended: "O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken."

It is the business of Elocution to teach the Student three things important to be known: 1st. How to discover all the meanings that any passage may embody; 2nd. How to express the several meanings, supposing each of them to be just; and, 3rd, How to ascertain the true interpretation, or the sense intended by the Author. In all these processes, and especially in the last, much 'judgement will manifestly be required. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any study is more directly calculated to exercise the mind in all its faculties than the investigation of the precise meaning of a standard author. It is true that the critical acumen to appreciate the sense may be possessed without the ability to express it; and herein is manifest the necessity of vocal training, to give the judicious interpreter a command over the mechanics of expression, that he may "make the sound an echo to the sense."

The succession of the accents in sentences constitutes what is called Rhythm. This succession is regular in metrical composition, and irregular in prose. The regularity of rhythmus in poetry, while it favours a musical delivery, is very apt to lead the voice into a tuneful movement, where music is not intended; and the result is that nauseating intermixture of the tones of speaking and of singing which is denoted canting or sing-song. There can be no doubt that the school methods of scanning, and of reading poetry by the line, are directly productive of this worst and most prevailing oratorical taint. It is but rarely that a reader can be found whose voice is entirely free from this blemish; and the habit is speedily extended from poetry to prose, so that the expressive irregularity of prosaic rhythm is entirely lost in the uniformity of time to which the reader's voice is set. Pinned, as it were, on the barrel of an organ, his accents come precisely in the same place at every sentential revolution, striking their emphasis, at one turn, upon a pronoun or a conjunction, and, at another, impinging sonorously on an article or an expletive.

""Tis education forms the infant mind;

Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined,"

The little green twigs in the Grammar School are sedulously bent into the barrel-organ shape, and pegged to play their destined tune by systematic teaching; and when the tiny twig-barrel has swelled into a full-grown cylinder, and rolls forth its cadences in far-sounding pitch, the old pegs are still there, striking the old chords in the old way.

What have children, or men either, to do, in reading, with trochees, iambi, dactyls, amphibrachs, or anapæsts? They are all pests together. Scanning, or the art of dividing verse into the "feet" of which it is composed, is a practice that should not be left "a foot to stand upon." It confounds every element of natural pronunciation, calling long "short," and short "long;" separating the syllables of the same word, and uniting the syllables of different words, in a way that would be almost too monstrous for belief. were we not so habituated to the "scanning" art from our earliest "twig"-hood, that we have great difficulty in scanning its full stupidity. While this wretched pedantry is taught in our schools, so long must our pulpits bring forth the normal increase of such seed, in sing-song, drawling, and unnaturalness.

The subject of Rhythmus has been involved in much obscurity by the way in which writers have treated of it; and even Elocutionists have been so far misled under the influence of early education, as to adapt their reading exercises to the accustomed measures, and divide their sentences into bars of equal time. It is difficult to characterize the folly of such divisions as the following, quoted from a well known work :-

"While the stormy | tempest | blows

While the battle | rages | long and | loud."

"Where is my | cabin door | fast by the | wild wood?
Sisters and sire | * did you | mourn for its | fall?"

These bars are terrible bars to progress in the art of reading-barriers of nonsense in the way of sense!

The marks of punctuation are taught in schools as measures of the pauses in reading. Children are told to stop at all the "stops," and only at the stops, and to proportion their stopping to the supposed time-value of the stops. But the marks of punctuation have no relation to time; nor are they at all intended to regulate the pauses of a reader. They have a purpose, but it

is not this. They do, in the majority of cases, occur where pauses should be made, but they do not supply nearly the number of pauses that good reading requires. They simply mark the grammatical construction of a sentence. While word follows word in strict grammatical relation, no comma is inserted, though many pauses may be indispensable; and wherever any break occurs in the grammatical relation of proximate words, there a comma is written, though, often, a pause would spoil the sense. Commas are placed before and after all interpolations that separate related words-adjective and noun, adverb and adjective, pronoun and verb, verb and object, &c.;—but they are not written while words follow each other in direct and mutual relation. Punctuation has thus no reference to delivery; it has no claim to regulate reading; and nothing but ignorance of a better guide could have led to the adoption of the grammatical points to direct the voice in pausing.

Some writer has happily expressed the principle of pausing in a metrical form, which is worth committing to memory, although the Reader will find something more definite in the section on "Verbal Grouping :"

"In pausing, ever let this rule take place,
Never to separate words, in any case.

That are less separable than those you join;
And, which imports the same, not to combine
Such words together as do not relate

So closely as the words you separate."

The subject of Antithesis and the relation of antithesis to emphasis, is one in which the Rules of Elocutionists are not only superseded by a fundamental law, but in which the rules are often at variance with the natural Principle. There is a grand distinction in the expressiveness of the tones of speech, which has been insufficiently attended to. The vocal inflexions are primarily two, an upward and a downward movement.

These express

the sentiments of appeal to the hearer, in the rising movement, and of assertion from the speaker, in the falling turn. The union of these simple movements with one accent, or impulse of stress, produces two compound tones, which express the same sentiments with a suggestive reference to the antithesis of the utterance. No great observation was necessary to discover that all emphasis implies antithesis; but Elocutionists have jumped to the conclu