EXAMPLES.

Aspiration should prevail in the following mysterious

passage.

"Then first, with amazement, fair Imogine found
That a stranger was placed by her side;

His air was terrific; he uttered no sound;

He spoke not, he moved not, he looked not around,
But earnestly gazed on the bride."

And in the following.

Shylock. How like a fawning publican he looks!

GUTTURAL EMPHASIS.

THERE is a harsh grating sound in the throat, expressive of the highest degree of loathing, scorn, and anger, which is sometimes required in the strong expression of dramatic reading.

It requires to be united with strong radical stress, and is always accompanied with aspiration. See example under Emphasis.

ACCENT.

THE property of syllables, so well known by the name of accent, is dependent on the perception the ear has of force and time. The former communicates accent to short, the other to long, syllables.

Short syllables-vic-tory, tem-poral, ra-pidly. Longho-ly, an-gel, fear-less.

QUESTIONS TO RECITATION TENTH.

1. What are the ways in which force is applied to syllables?

2. What is meant by radical stress?

3. What by vanishing?

4. What by median?

5. What by compound?

6. To what subjects is radical stress appropriate?

7. To what median ?

8. To what vanishing and compound?

9. The student is required to give some striking instances of the different kinds of stress.

10. What is meant by aspiration?

11. What elements consist of pure aspiration?

12. Can all the elements be rendered partially or wholly aspirate?

13. How?

14. To what sentiments is aspiration appropriate? 15. How is guttural emphasis produced?

16. The student is required to give a vocal demonstration of it in one of the examples under emphasis. 17. To what conditions of feeling is it applied?

18. How is accent produced?

19. Give an instance of accent by stress. 20. By quantity.

RECITATION ELEVENTH.

MEASURE OF SPEECH.

We are now to enter on a subject highly curious as a part of the Physiology of speech, and connected with facility of utterance.

Whether habits of frequent public speaking shall be compatible with easy respiration, and with health, or shall in many cases be destructive of the constitution, will depend on a comprehension and application of the principles contained in this section of our subject. On a preservation of the measure of speech, as here explained, will depend harmony of utterance as well as its healthful exercise. Public speaking is a healthful exercise if properly conducted; but of most evil tendency to every delicate constitution, if prosecuted against the laws of measure. We request attention to the following preliminary observations.

The Larynx, (the primary organ of voice) is a compound organ. It performs the function of an air tube and of a musical instrument. The first is essential to respiration, the second to speech. By a beautiful law of relation, which we shall presently explain, a perfectly undisturbed respiration is compatible with the flow of energetic discourse. But that law requires, the division of continued speech, into measures.

Definition. A measure, as applied to speech, consists of a heavy or an accented portion of syllabic sound, and of a light or unaccented portion, produced by one effort

of the organ of voice. In the production of all immediately consecutive sounds the larynx acts by alternate pulsation and remission. On this account, two heavy or accented syllables cannot be alternated with each other; while a heavy and a light one or an accented and an unaccented one, can. The word Hunter can be uttered by a single effort of voice; the first portion of that effort is pulsative, the second is remiss, and the two syllables alternate with each other. But the syllable "hunt" cannot be uttered, as it is spoken in the word "hunter," that is, under accent, twice, in immediate alternation. There must be a palpable hiatus or pause between the repeated syllables as hunt, hunt. Therefore in assuming consecutive pulsation and remission of the organ of the voice, in the pronunciation of the word "hunter," we intend to express the fact of alternation in the utterance of the syllables and to account for it upon some law of alternate forcible and remiss organic action.

Let stand for heavy or accented, and .. for light or unaccented in our future explanations.

A perfect measure in speech consists of one, or any greater number of syllables, not exceeding five, uttered during one pulsation and remission of the organ of voice. A single syllable may constitute a measure; for if it be extended in quantity, the first portion may be under accent, or may be perceptibly heavy, and the latter unaccented or light. A short syllable will not constitute a measure. The syllables hail, woe, man, and others will make a perfect measure, their length admitting of a remission as palpable as if the word consisted of two written syllables. Syllables therefore of indefinite quantity can be so pronounced as to constitute a measure or

not, at the option of the speaker. The heavy or accented portion of a measure cannot be spread over more than a single syllable; in other words from some inexplicable law of the voice, more than one syllable cannot be uttered during what we have ventured to call its pulsative effort; while, as we shall see presently, its remiss action can be farther divided. A measure may consist of two distinct syllables, as temper, the first heavy, the se

Δ.

cond light but it may consist of three, as in temperance,

Δ. ..

the first being heavy, and responding to pulsation, the two latter ones light, and dividing between them the remiss action of the voice. Four syllables may make a measure, as in spiritual-so may five, as spiritually: here the

Δ......

remission is farther subdivided; but in its nature it is distinct organic action from that employed on the first syllable. I believe more than five syllables cannot be crowded into one measure. Five are sometimes employed in lyric poetry. Milton and Shakspeare, have not, as far as I know, ever employed, in any of their lines more than four syllables in a measure. It is by no means necessary that a measure should consist of a single word. I only make this observation because single words have been employed for illustration, and I was afraid they might mislead some of my junior readers into wrong notions at the outset. 'Came to the', is a measure; so is 'when he

Δ :. ..

Δ ..

was in.' He had a fever | when he was in Spain. So

is the part distinguished by notation in the following sec