interval with an actual slide. If any suppose that the point, at which a slide should begin or end, may not coincide with any existing degree in the diatonic scale, (the one I shall use) I would observe that is not a matter of so great nicety, as not to admit a slight variation. Indeed, different degrees of passion or spirit require, as already remarked, great variations in the length of the slides.

I have suggested above that the changes of tone, which take place in the same syllables are not always by slides, but often by steps or distinguishable degrees. This, I think, is the case with almost every syllable, that is capable of being divided into two or more parts, which may be sufficiently sounded alone, as, for instance, a genuine diphthong, *or two vowel sounds united,

*The criterion of a simple vowel is, that it may be protracted to any length, without the least change in the sound, or in any of the organs of speech. This is the case with the German sound of a, as in fall or thaw, the Italian a, as in huzza, and long e, as in me. On the other hand, where a vowel sound can not be indefinitely prolonged, without a change in the sound, or in some one of the vocal organs, it is a diphthong. If this be an accurate criterion, as I think cannot for a moment be doubted, a as in may, i ory in by, o as in no, u as in fume, oi as in voice, and ou as in thou, are unquestionable diphthongs.

or a simple vowel and a liquid or semivowel. In proof or illustration of this remark, I would refer the reader to the pronunciation of voice, man, mourn, days, and full, in the following examples:

Has he a good voice?

Man was made to

mourn.*

Our days are full of trouble.

* Dr. Rush speaks of a semitonic inflection, as characteristic of the tender or pathetic. In this, I think he is correct; and if this example and the following one occurred in connected discourse,producing their full effect on the feelings, I should have made the intervals less.

In these examples of notation, the pauses might have been expressed by musical rests; but, as they would not be understood by those, (who are not musicians, I have left the pauses to the taste of the reader or performer.

EXAMPLE OF THE CIRCUMFLEX.

The wise shall inherit glory.

RULES OF INTONATION.

I. Unaccented syllables and feeble words generally occupy the lowest degrees in the scale, excepting when they make a part of the rising or the circumflex inflection. See the preceding example.

Note. This rule may be applied to the indistinct sounds of gl in the word glory in one of the foregoing examples.

II. Mesophonous words generally occupy the medium of the rhetorical scale, and do not vary more than two or three semitones..

III. On every emphatical word, however short, there is a change of tone either by a slide or by distinguishable degrees, amounting to four semitones at least, and more in proportion as the emphasis is increased..

IV. The successive members of a climax are to be pronounced each in higher tones, in general, than those of the preceding.

EXAMPLE.

Though you, though all the world, though an ANGEL from HEAVEN should assert such a thing, I would not believe it.

Tho' you, tho' all the world,

tho' an angel from heaven.

V. Several emphatic members in succession, which are not in climax, may gradually descend in their intonations one after another, and this gradation may often supersede the penultimate rise spoken of under Inflections..

EXAMPLE.

When I was a child I spàke as a child; thought as a child; I understood as a child.

I

OF THE PECULIARITIES OF EXPRESSION REQUIRED BY DIFFERENT SENTIMENTS AND PASSIONS.

In the previous sections I have endeavored to unfold the general properties of good reading, which are to be regarded in every species of composition, in prose no less than in verse, in the calmest addresses to the understanding, as well as in the strongest appeals to the passions. I do not say that in all the varieties of expression, re