art, will establish the use of accents upon invariable principles, and teach the art of regulating the speaking, as they do that of the finging voice. All who are defirous of opening the way to honour and preferment to their children, will not fail to have them fo inftructed, whilft the ear is uncorrupt, and the organs of fpeech flexible. Thus all public speakers, will become uniform in their use of accents; and their auditors accustomed to this uniformity, will of course catch it and thus, a musical speech, will, in time, spread through a whole people, and uniformly prevail, amongst all ranks and claffes of men. This progress of the regular accentual language to its perfection, is not deduced merely from fpeculation; but, were there occafion for it, might be shewn by very convincing arguments, to have been the real hiftory of the advance

ment

ment of the Greek, from its moft rude, to its moft refined state.

I shall now endeavour, in the fame manner, to trace the progrefs of the other mode of speech, which I called the Emphatical.

I have faid that the emphatical language, was that which was originally fpoken, in all barbarous countries, as the mode of uttering our fentiments dictated by. Nature herself. I have fhewn the cause of the first deviations from this mode, to be a love of variety, which is also a natural principle in man. I have pointed out the ill effects of this variety, when not regulated by juft laws of proportion. I have fhewn by what means, fuch a proportion was introduced, and how a musical speech, became the vernacular one of a whole people. Of the accentual speech, I have mentioned two kinds; one, verbal, the other, fentential.

In

In the former, every word had its accent; in the latter, accents fell upon certain words, only as they happened to be placed in the fentence. The nature of the verbal accents, both in their irregular and regular state, has been fufficiently explained. It now remains to examine those of the fentential kind.

The only nations of antiquity that we know of, who used verbal accents, were the Greeks, and Romans. The only modern one are the Scots; unless the Chinese also be an exception. All other nations, as far as we can judge, have fallen into the mode of fentential accents, Sentential accents I have already explained to be, certain elevations and depreffions of the voice, which fall at random upon words, according as they happen to be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of fentences, and which are used in all fentences alike. Such fort of accents, it is evident, can have no

con

connexion with meaning; and not being adjusted to each other by any rule of proportion, cannot flatter the ear; confequently they can neither be useful, nor ornamental in fpeech. That accents of this fort are wholly arbitrary and fantastical, I have already fhewn, not only from the example of different nations, using those of different kinds, but that of the inhabitants of the several provinces and counties of the same kingdom.

It is only by a reformation of this abuse, that the emphatical language, or that of Nature, can be restored; and when restored, it is by pains and culture alone, that this language of Nature can be brought to the highest degree of perfection, of which the human speech is capable. Great advances have been made towards this, by the polite well-educated natives of England; and to point out the means of effecting the rest, is

the

the main end I have in view in delivering this course.

It is certain that the few natives of England who speak their language correctly, are entirely free from all tone, arifing from fentential accents; and ufe no change of notes in common difcourfe, but what refults from the meaning or fentiments. This was probably effected, without any formed defign on the part of men, in the following manner. We know that not only in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, the natives of each ufe a different intonation, as well as pronunciation, in uttering English; but likewise in the feveral counties of England itself. In former days, therefore, we are to suppose that the nobility and gentry, refiding chiefly in the country, partook each of the dialect of the place where they lived; and when the splendour of a court, business of parliament, and other affairs, drew them