imply a degree of loudness and quickness-and feeble, a degree of softness and slowness, either in a high or a low tone. These combinations may, perhaps, be more easily conceived by classing them in contrast with each other. High, loud, quick. Forcible may be high, loud, and quick; or low, loud, and quick. Feeble may be high, soft, and slow; or low, soft, and slow. The different combinations of these states may be thus represented: High, loud, quick, forcible. High, loud, slow. High, soft, quick. High, soft, slow, feeble. Low, loud, quick, forcible. Low, soft, quick. Low, soft, slow, feeble. When these states of the voice are combined with the five modifications of voice abovementioned, the varieties become exceedingly numerous, but far from being incalculable: perhaps they may amount (for I leave it to arithmeticians to reckon them exactly) to that number into which the ancients distinguished the notes of music, which, if I remember right, were about two hundred. These different states of the voice, if justly distinguished and associated, may serve to throw some light on the nature of accent. If, as Mr. Sheridan asserts, the accented syllable is only louder, and not higher, than the other syllables, every polysyllable is a perfect monotone. If the accented syllable be higher than the rest, which is the general opinion both among the ancients and moderns, this is true only when a word is pronounced alone, and without reference to any other word; for when suspended at a comma, concluding a negative member followed by an affirmative, or asking a question beginning with a verb; if the unaccented syllable or syllables be the last, they are higher than the accented syllable, though not so loud. So that the true definition of accent is this: If the word be pronounced alone, and without any reference to other words, the accented syllable is both higher and louder than the other syllables either before or after it; but if the word be suspended, as at the comma, if it end a negative member followed by an affirmative, or if it conclude an interrogative sentence beginning with a verb, in each case the accented syllable is louder and higher than the preceding, and louder and lower than the succeeding syllables. This will be sufficiently exemplified in the following pages. In the mean time it may be observed, that if a degree of swiftness enters into the definition of force, and that the accented syllable is the most forcible, it follows that the accent does not necessarily lengthen the syllable, and that if it falls on a long vowel, it is only a longer continuation of that force with which it quickly or suddenly commenced; for as the voice is an efflux of air, and air is a fluid like water, we may conceive a sudden gush of this fluid to continue either a longer or a shorter time, and thence form an idea of long or short quantity. If, however, this definition of force, as applied to accent, should be erroneous or imaginary, let it be remembered, it is an attempt to form a precise idea of what has hitherto been left in obscurity; and that, if such an attempt should fail, it may at least induce some curious inquirer to shew where it fails, and to substitute something better in its stead. If these observations are just, they may serve to shew how ill-founded is the opinion of that infinite variety of voice of which speaking sounds consist. That a wonderful variety may arise from the key in which we speak, from the force or feebleness with which we pronounce, and from the tincture of passion or sentiment we infuse into the words, is acknowledged but speak in what key we will, pronounce with what force or feebleness we please, and infuse whatever tincture of passion or sentiment we can imagine into the words, still they must necessarily be pronounced with one of the foregoing modifications of the voice. Let us go into whatever twists or zig-zags of tone we will, we cannot go out of the boundaries of these inflections. These are the outlines on which all the force and colouring of speech is laid; and these may be justly said to form the first principles of speaking sounds. Exemplification of the different Modifications of the Voice. The Monotone, the Rising Inflexion, the Falling Inflexion, the Rising Circumflex, and the Falling Circumflex. Though we seldom hear such a variety in reading or speaking as the sense and satisfaction of the ear demand, yet we hardly ever hear a pronunciation perfectly monotonous. In former times we might have found it in the midnight pronunciation of the Bell-man's verses at Christmas and now the Town-crier, as Shakspeare calls him, sometimes gives us a specimen of the monotonous, in his vociferous exordium-" This is to give notice !" The clerk of a court of justice also promulgates the will of the court by that barbarous metamorphosis of the old French word, O yez! O yez! Hear ye! Hear ye! into O yes! O yes! in a perfect sameness of voice. But however ridiculous the monotone in speaking may be in the abovementioned characters, in certain solemn and sublime passages in poetry it has a wonderful propriety, and, by the uncommonness of its use, it adds greatly to that variety with which the ear is so much delighted. This monotone may be defined to be a continuation or sameness of sound upon certain words or syllables, exactly like that produced by repeatedly striking a bell: such a stroke may be louder or softer, but continues in exactly the same pitch. To express this tone, a horizontal line may be adopted; such a one as is generally used to signify a long syllable in verse. This tone may be very properly introduced in some passages of Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, where he so finely describes the tales of horror related by the village matron to her infant audience : Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes To him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd Of deeds in life conceal'd! of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of Hell around the murd'rer's bed. If the words "of shapes that walk at dead of night" are pronounced in a monotone, it will add wonderfully to the variety and solemnity of the passage. The rising inflexion is that upward turn of the voice we generally use at the comma, or in asking a question beginning with a verb, as Nó, say you; did he say Nó? This is commonly called a suspension of voice, and may not improperly be marked by the acute accent thus ('). The falling inflexion is generally used at the semicolon and colon, and must necessarily be heard in answer to the former question: He did; he said Nò. This inflexion, in a lower tone of voice, is adopted at the end of almost every sentence, except the definite question, or that which begins with the verb. To express this inflexion, the grave accent seems adapted, thus ('). The rising circumflex begins with the falling inflexion, and ends with the rising upon the same syllable, and seems as it were to twist the voice upwards. This inflexion may be exemplified by the drawling tone we give to some words spoken ironically; as the word Clodius in Cicero's Oration for Milo. This turn of voice may be marked in this manner (v) : "But it is foolish in us to compare Drusus Africanus and ourselves with Clodius; all our other calamities were tolerable, but no one can patiently bear the death of Clodius." The falling circumflex begins with the rising inflexion, and ends with the falling upon the same syllable, and seems to twist the voice downwards. This inflexion seems generally to be used in ironical reproach: as on the word you in the following example: "So then you are the author of this conspiracy against me? It is to yoû that I am indebted for all the mischief that has befallen me.' If to these inflexions we add the distinction of a phrase into accentual portions, as and pronounce friends like an unaccented syllable of gains; and like an unaccented syllable of adversity; and them like an unaccented syllable of tries; we have a clear idea of the relative forces of all the syllables, and approximate closely to a notation of speaking sounds. For farther information respecting this new and curious analysis of the human voice, see Elements of Elocution, second edition, page 62; and Rhetorical Grammar, third edition, page 143. OBSERVATIONS ON THE GREEK AND LATIN ACCENT, &c. 1. In order to form an idea of the Accent and Quantity of the dead languages, it will be necessary first to understand what we mean by the accent and quantity of our own language:* and as quantity is supposed by some to regulate the accent in English as well as in Greek and Latin, it will be necessary first to inquire, what we mean by long and short vowels, or, as some are pleased to term them, syllables. 2. In English, then, we have no conception of quantity arising from any thing but the nature of the vowels, as they are pronounced long or short. Whatever retardation of voice in the sound of a vowel there might be in Greek or Latin before two consonants, and those often twin consonants, we find every vowel in this situation as easily pronounced short as long; and the quantity is found to arise from the length or shortness we give to the vowel, and not from any obstruction of sound occasioned by the succeeding consonants. Thus the a in banish, banner, and banter, is short in all these words, and long in paper, taper, and vapour: the i long in miser, minor, and mitre, and short in misery, middle, and mistress: and so of the rest of the vowels; and though the accent is on the first syllable of all these words, we see it perfectly compatible with either long or short quantity. 3. As a farther proof of this, we may observe, that unaccented vowels are frequently pronounced long when the accented vowels are short. Thus the o in Cicero, in English as well as in Latin pronunciation, is long, though unaccented; and the i short, though under the accent. The same may be observed of the name of our English poet Lillo. So in our English words cónclave, réconcile, chamomile, and the substantives cónfine, pèrfume, and a thousand others, we see the first accented syllable short, and the final unaccented syllable long. Let those who contend that the acute accent and long quantity are inseparable, call the first vowels of these words long, if they please, but to those who make their ear and not their eye the judge of quantity, when compared with the last vowel, they will always be esteemed short.t * It is not surprising, that the accent and quantity of the ancients should be so obscure and mysterious, when two such learned men of our own nation as Mr. Forster and Dr. Gally, differ about the very existence of quantity in our own language. The former of these gentlemen maintains, that the English have both accent and quantity, and that no language can be without them:" but the latter asserts, that," in the modern languages, the pronunciation doth not depend upon a natural quantity, and therefore a greater liberty may be allowed in the placing of accents." And in another place, speaking of the northern languages of Europe, he says, that it was made impossible to think of establishing quantity for a foundation of harmony in pronunciation. Hence it became necessary to lay aside the consideration of quantity, and to have recourse to accents." "In these and some other passages, that writer," says Forster, "seems to look upon accents as alone regulating the pronunciation of English, and quantity as excluded from it."--Forster's Essay on Accent and Quantity, page 28. As a farther proof of the total want of ear in a great Greek scholar-Lord Monboddo says, "Our accents differ from the Greek in two material respects: First, they are not appropriated to particular syllables of the word, but are laid upon different syllables, according to the fancy of the speaker, or rather, as it happens: for I believe no man speaking English does, by choice, give an accent to one syllable of a word different from that which he gives to another." "Two things, therefore, that, in my opinion, constitute our verse, are the number of syllables, and the mixture of loud and soft, according to certain rules. As to quantity, it is certainly not essential to our verse, and far less is accent."-See Steele's Prosodia Rationalis, p. 103, 110. A late very learned and ingenious writer tells us, that our accent and quantity always coincide: he objects to himself the words signify, magnify, qualify, &c., where the final syllable is longer than the accented syllable: but this, he asserts, with the greatest probability, was not the accentuation of our ancestors, who placed the accent on the last syllable, which is naturally the longest. But this sufficiently proves, that the accent does not necessarily lengthen the syllable it falls on: that is, if length consists in pronouncing the vowel long, which is the natural idea of long quantity, and not the duration of the voice upon a short vowel occasioned by the retardation of sounding two succeeding consonants, which is an idea, though sanctioned by antiquity, that has no foundation in nature: for who, that is not prejudiced by early opinion, can suppose the first syllable of elbow to be long, and the last shortSee Essay on Greek and Latin Prosodies. Printed for Robson. 4. The next object of inquiry is, What is the nature of English accent? Mr. Sheridan,* with his usual decision, tells us, that accent is only a greater force upon one syllable than another, without any relation to the elevation or depression of the voice; while almost every other writer on the subject makes the elevation or depression of the voice inseparable from accent. When words are pronounced in a monotone, as the bellman repeats his verses, the crier pronounces his advertisement, or the clerk of a church gives out the psalm, we hear an ictus or accentual force upon the several accented syllables, which distinguishes them from the others, but no more variety of tone than if we were to beat the syllables of the same words upon a drum, which may be louder or softer, but cannot be either higher or lower; this is pronouncing according to Mr. Sheridan's definition of accent and this pronunciation certainly comes under the definition of singing; it is singing ill, indeed, as Julius Cæsar said of a bad reader, but still it is singing, and therefore essentially different from speaking; for in speaking, the voice is continually sliding upwards or downwards; and in singing, it is leaping, as it were, from a lower to a higher, or from a higher to a lower note; the only two possible ways of varying the human voice with respect to elevation or depression: so that when we are told by some writers on this subject, that the speaking of the ancients was a kind of singing, we are led into the error of supposing, that singing and speaking differ only in degree, and not in kind; whereas they are just as different as motion and rest.+ 5. Whenever in speaking we adopt a singing tone (which was formerly the case with puritan preachers), it differs essentially from speaking, and can be pricked down upon paper, and be played upon a violin; and whenever in singing we adopt a speaking tone, the slide of this tone is so essentially distinct from singing, as to shock the ear like the harshest discord. Those, therefore, who rank recitative as a medium between singing and speaking, are utterly ignorant of the nature of both. Recitative is just as much singing as what is called air, or any other species of musical composition. 6. If we may have recourse to the eye, the most distinct and definite of all our senses, we may define musical notes to be horizontal lines, and speaking tones oblique lines: the one rises from low to high, or falls from high to low, by distinct intervals, as the following straight lines to the eye; the following oblique lines; the other slides upwards or downwards, as nor is the one more different to the eye than the other is to the ear. Those, therefore, who gravely tell us, that the enunciation of the ancients was a kind of musical speaking, impose upon us with words to which we can annex no ideas; and when they attempt to illustrate this musico-speaking pronunciation, by referring us to the Scotch and other dialects, they give us a rhetorical flourish instead of a real example; for however the Scotch and other speakers may drawl out the accent, and give the vowel a greater length than the English, it is always in an oblique, and not in a straight line; for the moment the straight line of sound, or the monotone, is adopted, we hear something essentially distinct from speaking. 7. As high and low, loud and soft, forcible and feeble, are comparative terms, words of one syllable pronounced alone, and without relation to other words or syllables, cannot *The term (accent) with us has no reference to inflexions of the voice, or musical notes, but only means a peculiar manner of distinguishing one syllable of a word from the rest. Lectures on Elocution, quarto edition, page 41. To illustrate the difference between the accent of the ancients and that of ours (says Mr. Sheridan), let us suppose the same movements beat upon the drum, and sounded by the trumpet. Take, for instance, a succession of words, where the accent is on every second syllable, which forms an Iambic movement: the only way by which a drum (as it is incapable of any change of notes) can mark that movement, is by striking a soft note first, followed by one more forcible, and so in succession. Let the same movement be sounded by the trumpet in an alteration of high and low notes, and it will give a distinct idea of the difference between the English accents and those of the ancients.-Art of Reading, page 75. I am sorry to find one of the most ingenions, learned, and candid inquirers into this subject, of the same opinion as Mr. Sheridan. The authority of Mr. Nares would have gone near to shake my own opinion, if I had not recollected, that this gentleman confesses he cannot perceive the least of a diphthongal sound in the i in strike, which Dr. Wallis, he observes, excludes from the simple sounds of the vowels. For if the definition of a vowel sound be, that it is formed by one position of the organs, nothing can be more perceptible than the double position of them in the present case, and that the noun eye, which is perfectly equivalent to the pronoun I, begins with the sound of a in father, and ends in that of e in equal.-See Nare's English Orthoëpy, page 2, 144. + It is not denied, that the slides in speaking may sometimes leap, as it were, from a low to a high, or from a high to a low note: that is, that there may be a very considerable interval between the end of one of those slides aud the beginning of another: as between the high note in the word no in the question, Did he say, No? and the low note which the same word may adopt in the answer, No, he did not. But the sound which composes the note of speaking, as it may be called, and the sound which composes the note of singing, are essentially distinct: the former is in continual motion, while the latter is for a given time at rest.-See Note to sect, 23. be said to have any accent.* The only distinction to which such words are liable, is an elevation or depression of voice, when we compare the beginning with the end of the word or syllable. Thus a monosyllable, considered singly, rises from a lower to a higher tore in the question No? which may therefore be called the acute accent, and falls from a higher to a lower tone upon the same word in the answer Nò, which may therefore be called the grave. But when the accented word or syllable is associated with unaccented words or syllables, the acute accent is louder and higher than the preceding, and louder and lower than the succeeding syllables, as in the question, Satisfactorily did he say? and the grave accent both louder and higher than either the preceding or succeeding syllables in the answer-He said satisfactorily. Those who wish to see this explained more at large may consult Elements of Elocution, page 183; or Rhetorical Grammar, 3d edit. p. 77. 8. This idea of accent is so evident upon experiment, as to defy contradiction and yet, such is the general ignorance of the modifications of the voice, that we find those who pretend to explain the nature of accent the most accurately, when they give us an example of the accent in any particular word, suppose it always pronounced affirmatively and alone; that is, as if words were always pronounced with one inflexion of voice, and as if there were no difference with respect to the nature of the accent, whether the word is an affirmation or a question, in one part of the sentence, or in another: when nothing can be more palpable to a correct ear than that the accents of the word voluntary in the following sentences are essentially different: His resignation was voluntary. He made a voluntary resignation. In both, the accent is on the first syllable. In the first sentence, the accented syllable is higher and louder than the other syllables; and in the second, it is louder and lower than the rest. The same may be observed of the following question : Was his resignation vóluntary or involuntary? where the first syllable of the word voluntary is louder and lower than the succeeding syllables; and in the word involuntary it is louder and higher. Those who have not ears sufficiently delicate to discern this difference, ought never to open their lips about the How the ancients could make every monosyllable accented (that is, according to their definition of accent, pronounced with an elevated tone of voice), without telling us how this elevation happened, whether it was an elevation of one part of the syllable above the other, or the elevation of one word or syllable above other words or syllables;-how these distinctions, I say, so absolutely necessary to a precise idea of accent, should never be once mentioned, can be resolved into nothing but that attachment to words without ideas, and that neglect of experiment, which have involved the moderns in the same mist of ignorance and error. + That excellent scholar, Mr. Forster, furnishes an additional instance of the possibility of uniting a deep and accurate knowledge of what is called the prosody of the ancients, with a total ignorance of the accent and quantity of his own language. After a thousand examples to shew how the English is susceptible of every kind of metre among the ancients (though in all his examples he substitutes English accent for Greek and Latin quantity), he proceeds to shew the difference between the English, the Irish, and the Scottish pronunciation. "The English join the acute and long time together, as in liberty; y short. The Scotch observe our quantity, and alter our accent liberty'; y short. When I say they observe our quantity, I mean they pronounce the same syllable long which we do, but they make it longer. In respect to the circumflex with which their pronunciation abounds, it may be remarked, that it is not formed as the Greek, Latin, and English, of an acute and grave, but of a grave and acute, vós rôs, róùnd, English; róùnd, Scotch.. "The Irish observe our quantity and accent too, but with a greater degree of spirit or emphasis, which Scaliger calls afflatio in latitudine, giving to most syllables an aspiration."-Essay on Accent and Quantity, page 75. Mr. Forster falls exactly into the mistake of Mr. Sheridan, though he has a quite different idea of accent. He supposes liberty always pronounced by an Englishman in one manner, and that as a single word, or at the end of a sentence: he has not the least notion of the different inflexion the same word may have, accordingly as the accent is differently inflected, as we may plainly perceive in the following question: Is it liberty or licentiousness you plead for? where the English raise the voice on the latter syllables, as the Scotch too frequently de. With respect to the quantity of the first syllable, which Mr Forster says the Scotch preserve in this word, I must dissent from him totally; for they preserve the accent, and alter the quantity, by pronouncing the first syllable as if written leeberty. If Mr. Foster calls this syllable long in the English pronunciation of it, I should be glad to be told of a shorter accented syllable than the first of liberty: if he says the accent being on it reuders it long; I answer, This subverts his whole system: for if accent, falling on any vowel, makes it long, the quantity of the Greek and Latin is overturned, and cano, in the first line of the Eneid, must be a spondee. This is the consequence of entering on the discussion of a difficult point, without first defining the terms;nothing but confusion and contradiction can ensue. But I must give this writer great credit for his saying the Scotch pronunciation abounds with the circumflex; for this is really the case; and the very circumflex opposite to the Greek and Latin, beginning with the grave, and ending with the acute. I am not, however, a little astonished that this did not shew him how deficient the ancients were in this modification of the voice; which, though used too frequently in Scotland, is just as much in the human voice as the other circumflex; and may be, and is often, used in England, with the utmost propriety. With respect to the common circumflex on Greek, Latin, and some French words, the accentual use of it is quite unknown, and it only stands for long quantity: but both these circumflexes are demonstrably upon the human voice in speaking, and may be made as evident by experiment as the stress of an accented syllable by pronouncing the word on which it is placed.-See Rhetorical Grammar, 3d edit. page 80. I must just take notice of the inaccuracy of Mr Forster in saying the last syllable of liberty is short, and yet that it has the circumflex accent: this is contrary to all the prosody of antiquity, and contrary to the truth of the case in this instance; for it is the length of the first syllable, arising from the circumflex on it, which distinguishes the Scotch from the English pronunciation. |