As

thing taken from the power and volume and ease of his utterance. the sound of the violin reaches the ear the instant the bow of the skiltul violinist touches the string, so should that of the voice at the instant expiration the bowing of the vocalist-begins; no interval of time being left during which air may escape from the lungs, without being turned to account in the production of sound. Many speakers and readers, and even singers, disregard this; having taken breath, they give some of it out again before their utterance commences,-obviously with a loss of power."

I would summarise, then, all that I think can be said upon this branch of the subject in the following practical directions:

Remember, in order to ensure personal ease and fluent utterance, that the lungs must receive in the way I have described a volume of air much greater than that which is taken in, in ordinary respiration. You must also avail yourselves of the opportunity afforded by grammatical or rhetorical pauses, which I shall explain hereafter, and always at the full stop which marks the close of a sentence replenish the lungs by taking in a fresh supply of air; for if, neglecting this regular and systematic replenishment of the lungs, you go on reading or speaking to the very end of your breath, you will find not only that your utterance becomes both laborious and feeble, but you will produce much less effect, with very much more of physical exhaustion, which, to say the least of it, is very bad economy. I think it is always best before beginning to read or speak in public to thoroughly inflate the lungs by a full, deep inspiration, and then by replenishment at the proper pauses to keep up the normal amount of air within the lungs as far as possible.

I need not, I am sure, stop to dilate at any great length upon the proper management of the breath in the act of expiration, being an essential element of Elocution, and, like the act of inspiration, an allimportant consideration. The breath being, as I have shown you, the primary cause of vocal sound, and the lungs being nature's reservoir for the reception of air, and containing only a certain amount of it proportionate to their depth and extent, it is most incumbent on the speaker or reader to know how to economise, as it were, and make the most varied and effective use of that supply. Besides the personal sense of fatigue that will follow from an error in this respect, too large a stream of breath exercises an injurious influence on the pitch and quality of the voice, and, moreover, tends to destroy all purity and delicacy of tone, by the very efforts which are made to sustain the art of expiration.

In dwelling upon this portion of my subject, I do not think I can do better than quote the remarks of Mr. Kingsbury,* because, though his work professedly refers to singing only, yet in this respect all that he says applies with equal force and propriety to reading aloud and speaking: "Although we all know that in the common operation of breathing the air passes out of the lungs as quickly as it passes into them, yet it cannot too much be insisted upon that in singing" (and in reading aloud also, I would observe parenthetically) "the lungs must acquire the power to control the passage outwards of the breath; that is, instead Kingsbury, "On the Voice."

*

of the quick, gushing exhalation, as in breathing, the stream of breath must be rendered as small as possible, so that the sound may not only be prolonged, but that, too, with a degree of clearness of tone and completeness of control indispensable to perfect vocalisation. The difference will be at once evident by trying to produce a sound, emitting the breath as in the act of breathing, and it will be found that although the larynx may have been placed in the vocalising position, yet the sound will be of a disagreeable, husky quality, and of very short duration, for the lungs will have become exhausted almost instantaneously. If, on the contrary, the process be repeated at the same time that we endeavour to prolong the outward passage of the breath, the result will be a clearer and purer quality of vocal sound, together with a much augmented power of sustaining it.

"The vocal sound, then, does not require a large stream of breath, and I shall only give one example more in this place tending to show the advantages of a modified form of using it.

"A practised reader takes breath but seldom, and yet what a number of words he will pronounce, sentence after sentence, in the same breath; and when he does replenish the reservoirs within, it is done so quickly and quietly as to be almost imperceptible.

"This is equally required in speaking and singing, for all are performed by the same physical means; with this only difference, that in singing, the changes of articulation not being generally so frequent or so rapid, the vocal sound to compensate for this should be caused to dwell upon the vowal of the syllable or word expressed: thus the singer substitutes sustained sound for that which the speaker uses in more rapid succession; the reader, speaker, and singer alike requiring but a small stream of breath to effect a clear and elegant enunciation.

"Enough has been said, it is now hoped, to show the desirability of economising the breath in the production of the vocal tone. The pupil may rest assured that there is nothing so pernicious to the true development of the vocal sound or tone as a too profuse expenditure of breath. The smaller the stream the better, if it is the wish to acquire a really good tone, and likewise the facility of prolonging it."

These, then, are the remarks of Mr. Kingsbury, and of the soundness of the principles contained in them I am thoroughly convinced. One of the modes by which the supply of breath is wasted, instead of being economised, I continually observe in the pupils I have had under my care, and it consists in the following error. Instead of seizing the sound, as it were, and articulating the very instant the mouth opens, the lips are suffered to remain apart for a few seconds before the pupil begins actually to read or speak. By this mistake much valuable breath is lost, and the sound of the voice most seriously injured in quality, to say nothing of the personal fatigue and speedy exhaustion caused by this erroneous habit. And now, as a means of fixing the rules I have been laying down firmly in your minds, I will practically illustrate my remarks to you by reading some few selections, with articulation clear and distinct enough, but committing the errors I have been warning you against. You will, I think, find by the great care I shall bestow

on the articulation of each word, I shall be perfectly audible even in the remotest part of this hall, but you will perceive in my reading that all the mistakes I am now pointing out and warning you against, have precisely the same results. Whether I only half fill my lungs with air, or whether I take the inspiration by the mouth, or whether I suffer the lips to be open for a second or two before I begin to read or speak, I shall equally injure the fulness of tone. What musicians call roundness of voice will be in a great measure gone; it will sound comparatively thin and flat, and you will hear that the power of conveying with anything like due effect the various passions or emotions portrayed in the piece which I am about to read, is almost entirely destroyed.

I will then read the same passage, taking care to inflate the lungs adequately, and properly economise the supply of breath I have thus obtained, and you will hear how very differently the whole of it will sound.*

I am inclined to think that these occasional practical illustrations in my own person, as I proceed with my course of Lectures, will serve materially to explain my reasoning, and tend perhaps more than anything else to fix the principles I am laying down firmly in your memories.

* A passage from one of Burke's speeches was here read by way of illustration.

LECTURE VII.

Analysis of the elements of the Human Voice-Professor Hullah's suggestions in regard to the best mode of Developing and Cultivating the Speaking VoiceDifferent degrees of Aperture of the Mouth and the Shape taken by the Lips for the pure Sound of the different Vowels-Herr Georges' method of ascertaining these-Illustration of the positions of the Lips, by Signor Lanza-Classification of Voices-Causes of the different Classes of Voices-Philosophy of Sound and its Phenomena-Chladni's Experiments-Causes that produce the different degrees of Intensity of Sound, Pitch, Tone, and Timbre-Range of Human Perception in regard to Sound-The Telephone, Phonograph, Microphone, Phoneidoscope, and Audiphone-Difference between Sound and Noise-Resemblance and differences between the Music of Speech and the Music of Song.

W

E have now, I hope, arrived at a fair understanding of the marvellous mechanism and process by which the human voice is produced. Let us next proceed to analyse the subject of voice in some degree at least, and inquire of what its elements consist. It is obvious that words are composed of vowels and consonants, and very rarely of vowels only. "Though it be not without exception true," remarks Professor Hullah, in the work I mentioned in my last lecture, "that consonants have no individual phonetic existence, it is certain that vowels have; that consonants are practically initiatory, distributive, or interruptory only, indeed, altogether dependent on vowels; and that of necessity, therefore, vowels are pre-eminently the sounds of speech (consonants being rather the noises) and form the sole element in it which admits of any appreciable variety of pitch, duration, intensity, or timbre. As it is in the utterance of vowels alone that we can estimate the voice, whether of speaker or singer, so it must be through their instrumentality exclusively, in the first instance, that we can hope to develop its sweetness and power, whether in speaking, reading, or singing. Not only so: on one vowel only is the timbre of the human voice to be heard in its highest perfection, the vowel A, as pronounced in the English word 'Father.' During the perfect utterance of this vowel, the teeth will be at least sufficiently apart to admit of the insertion of a finger between them; the tongue will lie along the bottom of the mouth, its tip resting on the lower teeth, and forming a curve corresponding to that presented by the roof of the mouth. If the teeth be not sufficiently apart, the timbre

will want resonance and openness; if the tongue be not sufficiently advanced, or if it approach the roof of the mouth too nearly, it will also want purity, become guttural or nasal. This last imperfection may likewise be produced by extravagant retrocession of the corners of the lips.

"Recent physiological researches have justified the choice of the long open A, not merely as the vowel on which the voice is heard to the greatest advantage, but also as that on which, with a view to its improvement, it should be most frequently exercised. 'Professor Willis has shown that by setting a reed in a state of vibration, and gradually elongating the tube which augments and governs its sounds, a series of sounds closely resembling in their timbre the vowels E A (narrow, as in the word day) A (open) O and OO, as in the word coo-is produced. In like manner, the tube which augments and governs the vocal mechanism-the mouth-is, so to speak, elongated as the vowels are uttered in the above order; ie., more and more of it is brought into operation, E being formed at the back of the mouth; OO at the most advanced part of it, indeed by the lips almost exclusively, whilst the open A proceeds from the centre, where the utmost resonance is possible. This discovery not only justifies the choice of the open A as the vowel on which the voice should be first and most exercised; but also suggests the order in which the practice of the other vowels should be taken up. As the open A is formed in the central position of the oval tube, so are O and the narrow A in that nearest to it, the former involving the employment of more of the tube than the latter.

"To the utterance of these vowels on the dominant notes-those nearest to the middle of his voice-now fully sustaining them, now attacking them suddenly and quitting them in like manner, at various degrees of intensity, the student should devote a good deal of his time and his very best attention. He should begin with, and often return to the practice of, the open A; begin with it because it is the easiest, and return to it because experience has shown it to be the most useful. The practice of the open A had best be followed by that of O, and that of O by that of the narrow A. OO had better follow, and E, incomparably the most difficult, be attacked last. The maintenance of the proper degree of adjustment of the variable cavity of the mouth and lips may be tested from time to time by the eye, with the aid of a looking-glass; and that of the pitch, by an occasional reference to a musical instrument."

So much for the judicious remarks of Professor Hullah.

Whilst we are considering the different vowels, or, in other words, the elements of voice, a most important subject, for on them only can inflection and modulation take place in elocution, and the different notes of the musical scale in song, I may mention here, that a very excellent and ingenious German teacher of singing, Herr Georges, has lately brought into notice a simple mechanical instrument which he has invented, and used with great success among his pupils, for the purpose of making them acquainted with the different degrees of aperture which the mouth should have for the pure formation of the different