and the safer exercise; for, in reading tables of unconnected words, the voice most naturally inclines to a sameness of tone, which it requires a constant effort to counteract. Nevertheless the reader who cannot, at will, pronounce unconnected words in any manner, or with any degree of inflexion, has not acquired. sufficient control over the fundamental movements of the voice. The four inflexions should, therefore, be practised-with different intervals, until a perfect mastery over them has been attained. After a little practice, if not at once, in reading word by word any familiar language, the voice will expressively adapt itself to the connectedness or disconnectedness of the words, and the feeling which they convey. This, therefore, is the best kind of exercise for the acquirement of vocal flexibility.

The custom of inflectively anticipating the next word, phrase, or sentence, because it is before the eye, is one of the most common causes of ineffective reading, especially of that kind which consists in too frequent elevations of the voice. Few readers err in the opposite way by the misplacement of conclusive turns; this constant linking-on of sentences may be said to be the most prevailing form of defective expression in reading. The worst reader generally lets slip a natural note, when he has to turn over a page to conclude a sentence. If the utterance is querulous, doubtful, or progressive, or if the sense is undeveloped, his voice will rise into naturally suspensive elevation; and if the utterance is positive, or if the sense is formed, however incomplete the sentence may be, his voice will fall here: and this because he does not see in advance of his utterance.* Let the reader reflect that his hearers are in precisely the same predicament at every word-they do not see the next; and their ears as naturally expect, as his voice naturally makes, a suspensive or conclusive turn, correspondent to the mental effect of the utterance. If he concludes a sentence with a rising turn, because he sees another sentence after it, they are led to consider what has been said as incomplete, and dependent on, or importantly qualified by, what is to follow; and they feel disappointed and annoyed, when the expected utterance comes out, and contains no reference to what preceded. Not only so, but that which

*It is not to be inferred that good readers do not look in advance of their utterance; on the contrary, the best readers exercise the longest prevision. But they look onward in order to catch the relations of clauses and sentences, and to regulate their utterance accordingly. The anticipatory effect which we condemn, has no connexion with regulated expressiveness: it is indiscriminating, and is governed, not by ideas, but by words.

in composition was meant to be conclusive and convincing, leaves on the minds of the hearers an unsatisfactory and indecisive impression-the natural effect of the reader's inappropriate intonation.

We, therefore, recommend the student who is desirous of acquiring the use of his own natural speaking voice in reading, to practise the inflexions on single words, until the vocal movements are perfectly mastered, and to proceed through all the stages of grammatical grouping which we have arranged and exemplified, with a full and varied sweep of the voice, pitched from every accent in every group,-directed on the principles of inflexion which we have laid down ;—and, we are sure, he will soon find the old, tuneful, hum-drum spell that held his voice with the force of a second nature, broken; and will be enabled to give his reading--if not a perfectly spontaneous effect,-a gradually increasing degree of natural variety, which, without some such thoroughly searching, habit-eradicating mode of practice, he could never hope to attain.

This kind of exercise, if useful for the correction of habitually faulty tones, must be much more effective for the prevention of unnatural habits of delivery, and the cultivation of vocal flexibility and expressiveness in those who have only to learn, and have not to undergo the harder labour of unlearning.

The way in which school exercises are generally allowed to be rattled and gabbled over, is productive of much mischief, both to articulation and vocal expression. Habits of speech are formed at public schools which cannot be thrown off in after-life without more labour and watchfulness than nine out of ten persons could either encounter or afford to bestow. Stammering, even, is often traced to the uncontrolled emulation of a class; and all impediments and defects of speech are, from the same cause, almost invariably aggravated at public schools. Quickness of utterance being the quality most prized by mistaken schoolmasters, the thoughtful boy, who is often shy, and who is generally of better parts than the pert, guessing lads, that are always first with their answers, has no chance; and in his efforts to expedite his thoughts, he confuses them, or they come faster than his tongue can utter them, so that jumbling rapidity, inarticulate hurry, stuttering, or convulsive impediment, is very naturally created.

Expressive inflexion prevents hurry, and favours distinctness of articulation: it may, besides, be made an index of mental ad

vancement; and used with much advantage to taste, as an instrument of mental cultivation.

Let, then, every teacher of youth take this fundamental axiom of speaking tones into ordinary class application-none questions its truth, though many violate it-that "all words, whether pronounced in a high or low, loud or soft tone; whether uttered swiftly or slowly, forcibly or feebly, with passion or without it, must necessarily be pronounced with inflexion, that is, sliding either upwards or downwards." If words are enunciated without inflexion, they must be in monotone, and SUNG.

Let this one principle be systematically enforced in every school, and the monotony, drawling, and screaming, and other forms of unnatural utterance so common and so life-lasting, will be at once banished from the Class-room,—and, through it, from the Pulpits, the Courts, and from every arena of bona-fide oratory: from all but, perhaps, the mimic stage; which might shake the sides of the next-risen generation, by imitating the grave chanting of a bygone age.

MODULATION.

IN treating of the Mechanism and Extent of the Inflexions, we have shown that the radical or pitch-note of the inflexions varies to an almost infinite extent. Our inflective notation is calculated to show the extent of the inflexions,—the intervals through which they range, and-very generally-the position of their pitch-note with relation to an assumed middle tone of voice. Modulation has reference to the prevailing pitch of the inflexions in a sentence, and the key-notes, as it were, of periods or clauses. Thus a passage may be modulated in a high or low key, without at all affecting the direction or extent of its inflexions.

In arranging a notation for Modulation, we can take notice only of the greater and more manifest varieties. Minuteness we cannot aim at. It may be sufficient to fix on five points, a middle key, and two above and two below this. The middle key corresponds to the natural or Conversational Pitch, and will be denoted by No. 3, the middle number between 1 and 5. The key above this (4,) is indefinitely Higher; and, when used with somewhat more than conversational Force, may be called the Declamatory Key. The key below the conversational-(No. 2,)—is indefinitely Lower; and when used with slower than conversational Time, may be called the Solemn Key. No. 5,-the High Key,-is, with

strong force, the key of Passion. No. 1,-the Low Key,-is, with slow time, the key of Awe. The following notation exemplifies these varieties of Modulation :

5.

4

2.
1

High.
-Higher.

Conversational.

-Lower.

-Low.

"On the one hand are the Divine approbation and immortal honour; on the other, (remember, and 'beware!) are the stings of conscience, and endless infamy."

"The old adage of 'Too many irons in the fire,' conveys an abominable falsehood. You cannot have too many: poker, tongs, and all,—keep them all going."

To indicate a progressive elevation or depression of pitch, the mark or will be placed before the modulative number. Thus [3 signifies a gradual ascent of pitch above the conversational key; and [2, a gradual descent from the pitch indicated by No. 2.

A change of modulation is always necessary to distinguish Interrogations or Appeals from Responses; Assertions from Proofs or Illustrations; General Statements from Inferences or Corollaries; to introduce Quotations; to denote the commencement of a new subject, or new division of a subject, or of any marked change in the style of composition-as from Narration to Description, or from Literal to Figurative Language, and vice versa ; to express feeling and changes of sentiment; to distinguish what has been previously expressed or implied, or what is merely expletive, from what is new and emphatic to the sense; to detach from the main body of the sentence words or clauses which are explanatory or parenthetic; and to distinguish generally those parts of a sentence which are necessary to its construction from those that are subordinate and dispensable.

The degree in which the Modulation is changed, and even the direction of the change,—whether to a higher or lower key,—must depend on the reader's judgment, taste, temperament, &c. To assist him in the cultivation of the first two qualities, and, mainly, in forming the habit of making modulative changes at those places where all good readers must agree in applying the principle of change, however widely they may differ in the degree and direction in which they apply it, is the object which we aim at accomplishing by our modulative notation.

No Exercise will be found more improving to the style of read

ing than the distinguishing,-by changes of Modulation,—the principal from the subordinate words in a sentence,-the subjective and the predicative clauses from the mass of inferior sentences and clauses in which they are often found embedded. These necessary component members of every sentence should be so delivered as to strike upon the hearer's mind with unencumbered distinctness among the most multitudinous assemblage of particulars. The Subject and Predicate are generally the most emphatic parts of a sentence: they are so always, indeed, except when either of them has been previously expressed or implied; or when some opposition or contrast of particulars or subordinate clauses requires the elevation of such inferior words.

Let the Student exercise himself in the Modulation and Relative Emphasis of principal and subordinate clauses in the following manner :- Underline the principal Subjects and principal Predicates, and the connectives of principal subjects and predicates in some passages of varied styles of composition; and separate, by an appropriate mark, all subordinate, complemental, or qualifying clauses and sentences, from the principals, and from each other. Read the composition with a modulative change at every mark, and observe whether the principal subject and predicate bear the leading emphasis, and if they do not, why not? and whether any of the syntactically subordinate words require the leading emphasis on them, and if so, why so?

The following is an Example of this kind of Modulative and Emphatic Parsing. The principal syntactical words are italicised. "Generally speaking, those who have the most grace, and the greatest gifts, and are of the greatest usefulness, | are the most humble, and think the most meanly of themselves. So, | those boughs and branches of trees | which are most richly laden with fruit, | bend downwards, | and hang lowest."

-a re

"Generally speaking" qualifies the principal sentence, "those are,” &c., and is therefore a first-class subordinate clause: “those”—the subject; although a pronoun, it is emphatic, because not immediately followed by the predicate, and because it is the antecedent to a relative: "who have the most grace," lative sentence limiting the subject, and therefore a first-class subordinate: "and the greatest gifts,”—another relative sentence in the same predicament : "and (who) are (therefore) of the greatest usefulness,"—a deduction from the two preceding relative sentences, and therefore a second-class subordinate: are the most humble," the predicate: " and think the most meanly of themselves," another predicate to the subject "those;" the leading emphasis falls on the word "meanly," because if it were on think," it would convey a false meaning, by suggesting an antithesis evidently not intended, and because “ of

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