own understanding and feelings, they rather mislead than

aflift him.

THE most common faults refpecting emphafis are, laying fo ftrong an emphafis upon one word as to leave no power of giving a particular force to other words, which, though not equally, are in a certain degree emphatical; and placing the greateft ftrefs on conjunctive particles, and other words of fecondary importance. This latter fault is humorously ridiculed by Churchill, in his cenfure of Moffop:

With ftudied improprieties of fpeech

He foars beyond the hackney critic's reach,

To epithets allots emphatic state,

Whilst principals, ungrac'd, like lacquies wait;
In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And ftands alone in indeclinabies,
Conjunction, prepofition, adverb, join

To ftamp new vigour on the nervous line:

In monofyllables his thunders roll,

HE, SHE, IT, AND, WE, YE, THEY, fright the foul. EMPHASIS is often deftroyed by an injudicious attempt to read melodioufly. In reading verfe, this fault fometimes arifes from a falfe notion of the neceffity of preferving an alternate fucceffion of unaccented and accented fyllables a kind of uniformity, which the poet probably did not intend, and which, if he had, would certainly, at leaft in a poem of confiderable length, become infufferably tirefome. In reading profe, this fondness for melody is, perhaps, more commonly the effect of indolence, or affectation, than of real taste: but, to whatever cause it be afcribed, it is certainly unfavourable to true oratory. Agreeable infections and eafy variations of the voice, as far as they arife from, or are confiftent with just speaking, may deferve attention. But to fubflitute one unmeaning tune in the room of all the proprieties and graces of elocution, and then to applaud this manner under the appel

lation

lation of mufical fpeaking, implies a perverfion of judg. ment which can admit of no defence. If public speaking must be mufical, let the words be fet to mufic in recitative, that thefe melodious fpeakers may no longer lie open to the farcafm; Do you read, or fing? if you fing, you fing very ill. It is much to be wondered at, that a kind of reading,. which has fo little merit confidered as mufic, and none at all confidered as fpeaking, fhould be fo ftudioufly practifed and fo much admired. . Can a method of reading, which is fo entirely different from the ufual manner of conversation, be natural or right? Or is it poffible, that all the varieties of fentiment, which a public fpeaker has occafion to introduce, fhould be properly expreffed in cne melodious tone and cadence, employed alike on all occafions, and for all purposes?

.

RULE VII.

Acquire a juft variety of Pause and Inflection. PAUSES

AUSES are not only neceffary, in order to enable the fpeaker to take breath without inconvenience, and hereby preferve the command of his voice, but in order to give the hearer a diftinct perception of the conftruction and meaning of each fentence, and a clear understanding of the whole. An uninterrupted rapidity of utterance is one of the worst faults in elocution. A fpeaker, who has this fault, may be compared to an alarum-bell, which when 'once put into motion clatters on, till the weight that moves it is run down. Without paufes, the fpirit of what is delivered must be loft, and the fenfe muft appear confused, and may even be misinterpreted in a manner most absurd and contradictory. There have been reciters, who have made Douglas fay to Lord Randolph*:

We fought and conquer'd ere a fword was drawn,

IN executing this part of the office of a speaker, it will by no means be fufficient to attend to the points used in printing; for these are far from marking all the paufes which ought to be made in fpeaking. A mechanical attention to these refting-places has perhaps been one caufe of monotony, by leading the reader to an uniform cadence at every full period. The primary ufe of points is to affift the reader in difcerning the grammatical conftruction; and it is only indirectly that they regulate his pronunciation. *In reading, it may often be proper to make a pause, where the printer has made none. Nay, it is very allowable, for the fake of pointing out the fenfe more flrongly, preparing the audience for what is to follow, or enabling the speaker to alter the tone or height of the voice, fometimes to make a very confiderable paufe, where the grammatical conftruction requires none at all. In doing this, however, it is neceffary that, upon the word immediately peceding the paufe, the voice be fufpended in fuch a manner as to intimate to the hearer that the fenfe is not completed. The power of fufpending the voice at pleafure is one of the moft ufeful attainments in the art of fpeaking it enables the speaker to paufe as long as he chufes, and ftill keep the hearer in expectation of what is to follow*. *

:

IN order to perceive the manner in which this effect is produced, it is neceffary to confider Paufes as connected with thofe inflections of the voice which precede them. Thefe are of two kinds; one of which conveys the idea of continuation, the other, that of completion: the former may be called the fufpending, the latter, the clofing paufe. Thus in the fentence:

Money, like manure, does no good till it is fpread.

The first and fecond paufes give the hearer an expectation

* Mr. Garrick's power of fufpending the voice is well defcribed by Sterne. See Book vi. Chap. 3, of this work.

of

of fomething further to complete the fenfe; the third paufe denotes that the fenfe is completed.

THERE are, indeed, cases in which, though the fenfe is not completed, the voice takes the clofing, rather than the suspending pause. Thus, where a feries of particulars are enumerated, the clofing paufe is, for the fake of variety, admitted in the course of the enumeration: but in this cafe the last word, or clause of the feries, takes the fufpending paufe, to intimate to the hearer the connection of the whole feries with what follows. For example;

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honeft, whatfoever things are juft, whatfoever things are pure, whatfoever things are lovely, whatfoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things*.

On the contrary, interrogative fentences are terminated by the fufpending pause; as in the following example † :

Hold you the watch to-night? We do, my lord,—Arm'd say you?-Arm'd, my lord.-From top to toe?-My lord, from head to foot.

Except that, where an interrogative pronoun or adverb begins a fentence, it is ufually ended with the clofing pause: as;

Why should that name be founded more than yours?

and that, where two questions are united in one sentence, and connected by the conjunction or, the first takes the fufpending, the fecond, the clofing pause; as,

Would you have been Cæfar, or Brutus?

It may, notwithstanding, be received as a general rule, that the fufpending paufe is ufed where the fenfe is incomplete, and the clofing, where it is finished.

* Philipp. iv. 8.

+ Book vi. Chap. 8. See a long series of Interrogations in Gloucefter's Speech to the Nobles, Book v. C. 14.

THE

THE clofing pause muft not be confounded with that fall of the voice, or cadence, with which many readers uniformly finish a sentence. Nothing can be more deftructive of all propriety and energy than this habit. The tones and heights at the clofe of a sentence ought to be diverfified, according to the general nature of the difcourfe, and the particular conftruction and meaning of the fentence. In plain narrative, and efpecially in argumentation, the least attention to the manner in which we relate a story, or maintain an argument, in converfation, will fhew, that it is more frequently proper to raise the voice than to fall it at the end of a fentence. Some fentences are so constructed, that the laft words require a ftronger emphasis than any of the preceding; while others admit of being clofed with a foft and gentle found. Where there is nothing in the fenfe that requires the laft * found to be elevated or emphatical, an eafy fall, fufficient to fhew that the fenfe is finished, will be proper. And in pathetic pieces, especially thofe of the plaintive, tender or folemn kind, the tone of the paffion will often require a ftill greater cadence of the voice. But before a speaker can be able to fall his voice with propriety and judgment at the close of a sentence, he must be able to keep it from falling, and to raife it, with all the variation which the fenfe requires. The beft method of correcting an uniform cadence, is frequently to read felect fentences, in which the ftyle is pointed, and frequent antithefes are introduced; and argumentative pieces, or fuch as abound with interrogatives.

RULE VIII:

Accompany the Emotions and Paffions, which your words exprefs, by correfpondent tones, looks, and gestures. THERE is unquestionably a language of emotions and paffions, as well as a language of ideas. Words are the

arbitrary