when the subject is of sufficient magnitude to bear the speaker out in its adoption; for if it be recurred to frequently, and upon trivial occasions, censure will be the result. The effect is to be produced by stopping and suspending the voice immediately before the passage, or part of a sentence, by which you mean to make what is in oratory called your point. When you stop, let it be with an elevation of voice, which will leave the sense broken and incomplete, then your hearers, being in expectation of something superlative, will, when it comes, amply reward you for the excitement and gratification of their expectations. There are two ways of reading the protracted suspensive pause. The one is, when you suspend in a loud tone, you should terminate in a subdued tone; and the reverse. Independently of the particular power above attributed to suspension in the protracted sense, there is another and a slighter kind of suspension, which has a general power over eloquence, for by that keeping up of the voice, while the necessary breathing time is taking, a disjunction of the sense, and a stop to the harmony of the subject, which would otherwise continually occur, is prevented, some sentences being so long that a speaker could not have sufficient breath to go through them, even rapidly, much less to give them force and harmony, unless he were to have recourse to suspension, which carries him and the meaning evenly along until it set both down safely at he period. Its power is such, that the speaker may stop when and where he pleases, without injury to the sense, if he be a perfect master of its use.

Examples of the protracted Suspensive Pause.

"And Nathan said to David- -thou art the man.”

"It is an attribute to God himself."

"Born for your use, I live but to obey you,
Know then'twas I!""

TRAGEDY OF The Revenge, Act 5,

VIII. PARENTHESIS

Parenthesis, says Dr. Johnson, is a sentence so included in another sentence, as that it may be taken out without injuring the sense of that which encloses it. This figure, rather used to impart variety than elegance to composition, should be read or spoken in a quicker and a lower tone of voice than the general subject. The reader or speaker, should slightly suspend his voice immediately before the parenthesis, and take up the same "tone at its close.

Examples.

"This moon, which rose last night, (round as my shield,)
Had not yet filled her horns, when, (by her light,)

A band of fierce barbarians," &c.

"Beneath a mountain's brow, (the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trod,)

In a deep cave, (dug by no mortal hand,)

An hermit liv'd," &c.

TRAGEDY OF DOUGLAS.

"If there's a power above us,

(And that there is all nature cries aloud

Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue.”

TRAGEDY OF CATO.

Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, (a killing frost,)
And when he thinks, (good easy man,) full surely
His greatness is a ripening, nips his shoot,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
(Like little wanton boys, that swim on bladders,)
These many summers in a sea of glory:
But far beyond my depth: my high blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
(Weary and old with service,) to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.

HENRY THE VI

IX. ANTITHESIS.

Antithesis arises in a sentence or line where words are opposed to each other. This figure gives force to meaning, and variety to utterance, and should be read or spoken with a particular stress on the words in opposition.

Examples.

"Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen ?"

TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CESAR.

"Is it credible that when he declined putting Clodius to death with the consent of all, that he would choose to do it with the disapprobation of many? Can you believe that the person whom he scrupled to slay, when he might have done so with full justice-in a convenient place-at a proper time-with secure impunity, he made no scruple to murder-against justice-in an unfavourable place-at an unseasonable time—and at the risk of capital condem

nation?"

CICERO FOR MILO.

"So, also, is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corrup tion, it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

1 COR. XV. CHAP. 42nd VERSE.

X. MONOTONY, OR MONOTONE.

Monotone occurs in those parts of a subject where several words follow each other, without requiring any variation of voice, or particular stress upon one word more than another. This figure often imparts sublimity, and from its own want of variety, bestows variety upon that to which it is attached. It should be read of spoken with unvarying sameness.

Examples.

"For who would bear the whips and scorns o' the time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself night his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels t
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."-

"High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show's on her king's barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat-

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep fal teth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which inade all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly: How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth. They are destroyed from morn. ing to evening; they perish forever without any regarding it." JOB, 4th CHAP. 13-20th VERSES.

"As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, so towards each other approached the heroes. As two dark streams from high rocks meet and mix, and roar on the plain; loud, rough and dark in battle, met Laughlin and Innisfail : Chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man. Steel clanging sounded on steel. Helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle."

OSSIAN.

"In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him

2

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations, also, of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: He bowed the heavens, also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet and he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind."

18th PSALM,

6-10th VERSES.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light,' and there was light.” GENESIS, 1st and 3d VERSES.

NOTE. The above extracts, save the first, are examples of the sublime, as well as of Monotone.

XI. MODULATION.

In Modulation are comprehended all the various in-flections of which the voice is capable. It may, indeed, be termed the soul or witchery of eloquence; for through its medium the sense is charined, the imagination taken prisoner, and the most obdurate softened and relaxed. The effect of Modulation upon the heart must ever be acknowledged, as long as the human ear can drink the harmony of its sounds. To attempt a system of ac curately teaching this delightful power, would be indeed vain and futile ;* nothing but being possessed of

* Mr. Walker, and others, have made very ingenious remarks typified on paper, on the inflections of the human voice; but a just knowledge of the true causes which produce those inflections, will preclude the necessity of any study on the subject, save of the rules to be found in this, and similar books, and of a just conception, as has been above stated, of the author's meaning, which conception will impart the true feeling, and out of that feeling, will arise the natural, and, consequently, the proper inflection, which marks on pa per can never correctly convey. Mr. Walker's own words, give cre dence to these observations. In his preface to the third Edition of his Rhetorical Grammar, he says, "The sanguine expectations I had once entertained, that this analysis of the human voice, would be received by the learned with avidity, and applause, are now over; I have almost worn out a long life in laborious exertions, and though. I have succeeded, beyond expectation, in forming readers, and speak. ers, in the most respectable circles in the three kingdoms, yet I have had the mortification, to find few of my pupils listen to anything,