10. Poor child of earth! and could'st thou then have borne Thy life till now without my aid? 'Twas I

That saved thee from imaginations idle;

I guarded thee with long and anxious care;

And but for me even now thou would'st have been
Idling in other worlds! Why sittest thou there,
Lingering in hollow cave or sifted rock,

Dull as the moping owl? Why, like the toad,
Dost thou support a useless life, deriving

Subsistence from damp moss and dripping stone?

11. Do you think to frighten me? you! Do you think to turn me from any purpose that I have, or any course I am resolved upon, by reminding me of the solitude of this place and there being no help near? Me, who am here alone designedly? If I had feared you, should I not have avoided you? If I feared you, should I be here in the dead of night, telling you to your face what I am going to tell? But I tell you nothing until you go back to that chair-except this once again. Do not dare to come near me-not a step nearer. I have something lying here that is no love trinket; and sooner than endure your touch once more, I would use it on you-and you know it while I speak with less reluctance than I would on any other creeping thing that lives.

12. As a private man, you are unworthy of my anger, beneath contempt. In that capacity you have every claim to compassion that can arise from misery and distress. The condition you are reduced to would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, and leave no consolation to the most vindictive spirit, but that such an object as you are would disgrace the dignity of revenge. But in the relation you have borne to this country, you have no title to indulgence; and if I had followed the dictates of my own opinion, I never should have allowed you the respite of a moment. I should scorn to keep terms with a man who preserves no measures with the public. Neither the abject submission of deserting his post in the hour of danger, nor even the sacred shield of cowardice, should protect him. I would pursue him through life, and try the last exertion of my abilities to preserve the perishable infamy of his name, and make it immortal!

I have now finished all that I have to say with regard to the general principles that govern the application of the inflections of the voice to reading and speaking, and I have only now to mention some points that have reference to the several classes of the inflections. In regard to a simple rising inflection, the beginning, relatively to the end, is low; a simple falling inflection, it is relatively high. It is to be noticed, too, that the inflection always begins on the accented syllable, which is thus pitched, it may be said, comparatively low for a rising, high for a falling inflection; and that the rise or fall is continued directly upward or downward from the accented syllable through whatever number of secondarily accented syllables may follow.

I have spoken in general terms of simple rising and falling inflections, as well as of rising and falling compound inflections or circumflexes; but it must be always borne in mind that in proportion to the degree in which the voice rises or falls in the musical scale, much of the logical as well as the emotional expression of a sentence depends. The final inflection of a clause or sentence, rising or falling through the interval only of a semitone, is chiefly plaintive, and expresses melancholy, dejection, and subdued grief or pathos. If the falling inflection descends through the interval of a tone (or a musical second), it conveys simply the logical completion of the meaning of a clause or sentence, but without any passion or feeling being expressed; if the inflection rises through the interval of a tone, it merely shows that the logical meaning of the clause or sentence is in progress of development, but conveys no emotion. If the rising inflection is carried through the interval of a tone and a half (or in music, a minor third), the inflection becomes strongly plaintive, and characterises all pathetic appeals; whilst, if the inflection falls to the same extent, it marks all assertions with an air of grief and lamentation. If the voice rises through an interval of two tones (or a major third), it expresses strongly doubt, appeal, and inquiry, and if it falls in the same degree it conveys strong assertion. When the voice rises through the greater intervals of the musical fifth, or, still more, the interval of the octave, it expresses earnest appeal, wonder, amazement, and exclamation; while if it falls through these intervals it expresses the strongest conviction, command, reprehension, hate, and all the sterner passions. A similar increase of meaning or emotion characterises the extent to which the rising or falling circumflexes may be carried in those cases where they are specially applicable.

Those students who may desire to study more fully the various points of analogy existing between the music of song and the music of speech, will find them very carefully and minutely considered and copiously illustrated in M. De Pradel's enlarged edition of the Abbé Thibout's Action Oratoire, ou Traité Théorique et Pratique de la Déclamation, pour la Chaire, pour le Barreau, et à l'usage de tous ceux qui lisent en Public, ou qui débitent un discours quelconque, published in 1846.

LECTURE XII.

Modulation of the Human Voice-Explanation of the term Modulation when used in reference to Reading and Speaking-The views of Walker, Sheridan, and BellThe Rev. G. Sandlands on a mode of developing the Sense of Modulation in Speech-Illustrations of Different Keys in Modulation—General Rules for the Modulation of the Voice.

H

JAVING finished the subject of the Inflections of the Voice, I have now to bring before your notice what is termed the Modulation of the Voice, that is, a knowledge of the various keys of the speaking voice in which those inflections are pitched, and the principles on which, from time to time,

they are varied.

A person may use quite proper inflections in reading and speaking, and yet, from keeping entirely to one key, or shifting from key to key improperly, without any system or method, possibly resorting to high keys when he should take low, or vice versa, may wholly fail to produce the effect he would desire; nay, it may be, the very opposite effect would be the result.

Before I proceed further in the subject, let me guard you against a mistake that is frequently made, and that is, confounding the terms "high" and "low" in modulation of the voice, with "loud" and "soft" as regards the variation of the voice in power. The distinction between the two must be always borne in mind. Those who are acquainted in the slightest degree with the rudiments of music, will know perfectly well that the terms high and loud and low and soft are by no means necessarily connected together; that we may sing a very high note in the very softest manner (pianissimo), and sing a very low note with the fullest power of the voice (fortissimo); just (to use Walker's illustration) as a smart stroke on a bell produces exactly the same note as a slight one, though it is considerably louder. Indeed, to make this matter quite clear to those who are wholly unacquainted with music, I cannot do better than resort again to another illustration given by Walker, who says, that when we speak of a high key, we mean that which we instinctively and naturally take when we wish to be heard at a distance, as the same degree of force is more audible in a high than in a low tone, from the acuteness of the former and the gravity of the latter; and that a low tone is that we naturally assume when we are speaking

to a person at a small distance, and wish not to be heard by others; as a low tone with the same force is less audible than a high one; if, therefore, we raise our voice to the pitch we should naturally use if we were calling to a person at a great distance, and at the same time exert so small a degree of force as to be heard only by a person who is near us, we shall have an example of a high note in a soft tone; and, on the contrary, if we suppose ourselves speaking to a person at a small distance. and wish to be heard by those who are at a greater, in this situation we shall naturally sink the voice into a low note, and throw just as much force or loudness into it as is necessary to make it audible to the persons at a distance. This is exactly the manner in which actors speak the speeches that are spoken aside. The low tone conveys the idea of speaking to a person near us, and the loud tone enables us to convey this idea to a distance. By this experiment we perceive that high and loud, and soft and low, though most frequently associated, are essentially distinct from each other.

Thomas Sheridan (the father of the great orator and statesman, the Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who doubtless owed much of his fame and eminence to the thorough training in Elocution which he received in early life) very truly observes, that if a speaker does not know how to pitch his voice properly, he can never have the due management of it, and his utterance will be painful to himself and irksome to others; and further, that it may be fairly said that every speaker, who is not corrupted by bad habit, has at least three pitches in his voice, the high, the low, and the middle pitch. The middle pitch is that which is used in ordinary discourse, from which he either rises or falls according as the matter of his discourse, or the emotions of his mind, require. This middle pitch, therefore, is what ought to be generally used, for two reasons-first, because the organs of the voice are stronger, and more pliable in this pitch, from being most frequently used; and, secondly, because it is more easy to rise from that pitch to high, or descend to low, with regular proportion.

Most persons, through want of skill and practice, when they read or speak in public, fall into one or other of the extremes. Either through timidity or diffidence they use the low pitch, in which they are scarcely, or not at all, heard by those who are remotely placed, and even if heard, it is with so much trouble to the listeners as soon to weary attention; or if speakers aim at avoiding this fault, they run into the high pitch, which is productive of consequences equally bad. The organs of the voice in this unusual pitch are soon wearied, and languor and hoarseness ensue; and as the reason for continuing it will be equally strong during the whole discourse as for the first setting out in it, the speaker must lose all the benefits which arise from variety of pitch, and (to use Sheridan's own words) "fall into a disgusting monotony."

The prevalence of this practice arises from a common mistake in those who speak for the first time in a large room and before a numerous auditory. They conclude it to be impossible they should be heard in their ordinary pitch of voice, and therefore change it to a higher. Thus they confound two very distinct things, making high and low the same

with loud and soft. Loud and soft in speaking is equivalent to the forte and piano in music; it only refers to the different degrees of volume and power of voice used in the same key, whereas high and low imply a change of key. A man may speak louder or softer in the same key; when he speaks higher or lower he changes his key. So that the business of every one is to proportion the volume or loudness of voice to the size of the room and the number of his auditory, but not necessarily to alter the pitch.

It is evident that he who begins in this high pitch on a supposition that he could not otherwise be heard, must for the very same reason continue in that pitch throughout; and they who set out under this delusion are apt to continue in it all their lives, having but little chance of being informed of their error. So that whenever they have to deliver anything in public, they, of course, fall into that strained and unnatural key; and (says Sheridan) this error is nowhere more observable than in the usual manner of reading divine service. May I ask if this remark is less applicable now than it was when Sheridan wrote, more than a hundred years ago?

The volume of sound necessary to fill even a large room is much smaller than is generally imagined; and to the being well heard, and clearly understood, a good and distinct articulation contributes far more than mere power of voice. You may rest assured, that if a man with a naturally weak voice be only possessed of this qualification, he has infinite advantages over the loudest voice devoid of clearness of articulation. He who delivers himself in a moderate pitch, whenever the logical meaning of his subject, or its emotional expression, demands that his voice should rise to a higher or sink to a lower key, does it with ease and due proportion, and produces the effects which are to be expected from such properly regulated change and agreeable variety; whilst he who takes a high pitch cannot rise upon occasions without running into a discordant strain, nor sink with any rule of proportion to guide him. Those persons who, to avoid this, run into the opposite extremes, and begin in too low a pitch, err indeed on the safer side, but are equally distant from the point of truth. It is true it is more easy to rise gradually and proportionately than to descend; but while they remain in that low key, it will appear equally unnatural and more languid than the other, and they will be very apt throughout their discourse to run chiefly into that key with which they first set out. I think Sheridan well sums up the subject when he says the true, safe, and sure rule is (unless upon some extraordinary occasions, such, for instance, as some special form of exordium), always to begin in the middle key of speech, and if that should not prove strong enough, it should be developed and strengthened by practice, on right principles, and by proper management of the breath, alike as regards the functions of inspiration and expiration, so as to avoid all straining; for he who strains his voice will scarcely be able to articulate well. The office of articulation (justly remarks Sheridan) is of a very delicate nature, and requires that the organs which perform it should not be disturbed or suffer any violence, which must always be the case when the voice is