PREFACE. In the following attempt to "point" the Canticles and reader would cause his emphasis to fall; and, wherever a stress is laid in reading, common sense requires that a musical accent should also be given when the words are sung. In chanting the Psalms, this accent can be obtained only in one way the emphatic syllable must be placed in the accented part-i.e., the beginning of the Bar; and we shall have as many emphatic positions as the Chant has Bars. *The theory of Syncopation, by which another kind of accent is obtained, belongs to a different order of composition, and does not concern our present inquiry. It is important to notice this, because many persons are in the habit of speaking as if the laws of musical accent were arbitrary, and might be suspended at pleasure, |