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EXERCISES ON THE FALLING INFLECTION.

RULE I.

Calling, shouting, exclamation, energetic command: 1. Up drawbridge, groom! What, warder, hò! Let the portcullis fall!

2. Liberty! freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Run hencè! proclàim, cry it about the streets. 3. Follow your spirit; and upon this charge, Cry-God for Harry!* England! and St. George! 4. Rejoice! you men of Angiers, ring your bells: King John, your king and England's, doth approach,-

Open your gates, and give the victors way!

5. Arm, arm!† it is, it is the cannon's opening roar!
6. War! war! no peace! peace is to me a war.
7. The combat deepens :-On, ye brave
Who rush to glory or the grave!

Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.

8. On them, hussars! in thunder on them wheel!

9. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse! 10. Then let the trumpet sound

The tucket-sonance, and the note to mount.

Indignant or reproachful address:

1. Thou slàve, thou wrètch, thou coward, Thou little vàliant, great in villany! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!

The examples not accented in type, are meant to be marked by the learner.

†The inflection on the repeated word, is on a lower note than the first; the first has a more moderate fall; and the pause between the exclamatory words, is very slight, as the tone is that of agitation, hurry, and alarm.

2.

1.

Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety.

-But oh!

What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ungrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the keys of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use?

Challenge and defiance:

-Who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his pèril, on my head?

2. Pale, trembling coward, there I throw my gage,By that and all the rights of knighthood else, Will I make good against thee, arm to arm, What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise. 3. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest,

Swearing, adjuration, imprecation:

1. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot, 2. Seven, by these hilts, or I'm a villain else.

3.

5.

By the elements,
If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,

He is mine or I am his.

4. You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.
-When night
Closes round the ghastly fight,
If the vanquish'd warrior bow,
Spåre him-by our holy vòw,
By our prayers and many tears,
By the mercy that endéars

Spare him: he our love hath shar'd :-
Spare him, as thou wouldst be spared!

6. I conjure you by that which you profèss, (Howe'er you come to know it,) answer me: Though you untie the winds, and let them fight Against the churches; though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodg'd, and trees blown
down;

Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the

treasure

Of nature's germins tumble all together,
Even till destruction sìcken,-answer me
To what I ask you.

7. Ruin seize thee, rùthless king!

Confùsion on thy banners wait!

8. Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat!

9.

-Beshrew thy very heart!

I did not think to be so sad to-night,

As this hath made me.

10. Perish the man whose mind is backward now!

11. And when I mount, alive may I not light, If I be a traitor or unjustly fight!

12.

-Heaven bear witness;

And if I have a conscience, let it sink me,
Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful!

Accusation:

1. Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true: That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles,

In name of lendings for your highness' sòldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for base employments,
Like a false tràitor and injurious villain;
That all the trèasons, for these eighteen years,
Complotted and concocted in this land,

Fetch from false Mowbray their chief spring and head.

2. And thou, sly hypocrite! who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more than thou

Once fawn'd and cring'd, and servilely ador'd
Heaven's awful monarch?

Assertion, declaration, affirmation, assurance: 1. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true. 2. Yès, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are the contrivers of your own ruin.

3. I tell you though you, though all the world, though an angel from heaven, should declare the truth of it, I could not believe it.

4. When I behold those manly feelings darkened by ignorance, and inflamed by prejudice, and blinded by bigotry, I will not hesitate to assert, that no monarch ever came to the throne of these realms, in such a spirit of direct, and predetermined, and predeclared hostility to the opinions and wishes of the people.

5. And by the honourable tomb he swears,

--

That stands upon thy royal grandsire's bones,
And by the royalties of both your bloods,
Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
And by the worth and honour of himself,
Comprising all that may be sworn or said;
His coming hither hath no farther scope
Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
Enfranchisement immediate on his knees:
Which on thy royal party granted once,
His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
To faithful service of your majesty.

6. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe,
What thou hast said to me.

1.

2.

Threatening and warning:
-If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next trèe shalt thou hang alive
Till famine cling thee.

-But, sirrah, henceforth

Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:

Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.

3. Return to thy dwelling, all, lonely return;

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,

And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing
brood.

4. And if you crown him, let me prophesy-
The blood of English shall manure the ground,
And future ages groan for this foul act;
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,—
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,

Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
The field of Golgotha.

Denial, contradiction, refusal:

1. Thou dost belìe him, Percy, thou dost belìe him; He never did encounter with Glendower.

2.

Cassius. I am a soldier, I,

Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Brutus. Go tò: you're not, Cassius.
Cas. I àm.

Bru. I say you are not.

3. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man, Nor no man's lord: I have no name, no title,— No, not that name was given me at the font,But 'tis usurped.

4.

-I'll keep them all;

-he shall not have a Scot of them: No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.

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