considering the structure and physiology of the larynx, no notice whatever was taken of the mechanism and action by means of which this alternation is produced; and yet without due attention to this point, the most accurate and scientific anatomist and physiologist will not be able to explain satisfactorily the other functions of the larynx. We ought to have, and indeed must have, clearly before our minds, all the several functions of that most wonderful, complex and important organ to the human race, and the various phenomena which have to be accounted for, before we can be prepared to investigate its various parts and the special action of each, by means of which the various functions are performed, and each of the phenomena produced. Without these distinctions being carefully borne in mind, we may possibly attempt to explain one function, by reference to the means which are really employed to carry on another, and hence all kinds of mistakes may arise.

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Now that such regular alternate action and reaction is in fact continually going on, may indeed be felt distinctly with the finger, if you place it just between the thyroid and cricoid cartilages. Indeed, as Mr. Thelwall truly said on the occasion I alluded to, this is wholly distinct from, and independent of, the varieties of loud and soft, forcible and feeble, high and low in the musical scale, and long and short in regard to the relative quantity of the syllables which form a bar in music or a foot in verse: it continues to take place in the absence of sonorous vibration, when the voice is hushed down to a mere whisper. Hence, in the nature of things poise, or the alternation of heavy and light (thesis and arsis), must be essentially distinct from acute and grave, long and short, loud and soft. Insomuch that the heavy syllable may be either long or short, acute or grave: nay, although, cæteris paribus, the heavy syllable is more forcible than the light, and therefore, forcible might be more naturally confounded with heavy, than acute or long,—yet these are really distinct,-insomuch that, in the almost imperceptible interval between a light syllable and the heavy one which naturally follows it in the succeeding bar, the voice might drop from its loudest elevation to a mere whisper, and yet the whispered syllable would still retain its proper poise-it would still be heavy."

Many persons naturally carry out this poise admirably in delivery without ever having had any instruction in elocution, especially such persons who are possessed of strong feelings, lively imagination and warm temperament, and particularly when they are speaking in public, or reading aloud any powerful descriptive or dramatic passage. Others, on the contrary, who are of cold, lethargic, unimpassioned temperament, or languid health, allow only the slightest amount of range of action and reaction to be perceptible, and hence the poise is inadequately maintained, and the delivery in reading or speaking is poor, tame and feeble, void of all proper expression, and often accompanied with a tendency to stammer or stutter. Indeed some of the worst cases of impediments of speech among the pupils who have come to me for their removal, I have found to arise chiefly from an almost total neglect from childhood of this important function of the larynx in properly carrying out its action and reaction or poise. The aim of the skilled and experienced instructor in

elocution should be in all cases, but especially such as I have mentioned last, to show the pupil, by his own practical illustration first, and then by the pupil carefully following out his instructions, how the larynx can best be made to exercise the functions of action and reaction effectively, and so properly carry out the poise, without which all delivery must be ineffective, and neither poetry, blank verse, nor any other kind of rhythmical structure can be rightly rendered, or proper time in reading such compositions truly observed. In fact all English verse is constructed, and must be pronounced, with a regular succession and alternation of heavy and light syllables. No heavy sounds can successively follow each other without a slight pause occurring between them, the time of which might serve for the sound of a light syllable. Let us take the following signs, which my predecessor here used for his pupils in the exercises which he made them go through in illustrating the doctrine of the poise. This mark shall signify the heavy syllables, this.. the light syllables, while an omitted heavy syllable we will indicate by this mark, and an omitted light syllable by this o, and a vertical line | shall be our time measurer, and separate the verse into its proper bars. As I have said already, the natural order of verse, and of its harmonious rendering in delivery, is from action to reaction, or from pulsation to remission, that is from heavy to light. It is certain that the first bar of every line in poetry must have one syllable in thesis, or a heavy syllable; and though it may be followed by two or more in arsis, or light syllables (and perhaps, for the sake of simplicity and uniformity, we had better henceforth speak only of syllables which are heavy and those which are light), yet it is equally certain that two heavy syllables cannot be contained in one bar. That which is called in poetry common measure, consists of bars of which each begins with a heavy syllable and ends with a light one, as the following illustration from an old poet of the seventeenth century will show us—

Wit's perfection | Beauty's | wonder

Triple measure is so called because it consists of three syllables in each bar, of which the first is heavy and the two that follow in succession. A well-known couplet from Dryden's "Alexander's Feast" will supply us with a good illustration

/joy

furious joy
A....

flambeau with | zeal to destroy

Δ ..

You will often find that a very pleasing and melodious variety of rhythm is introduced by artistically uniting common with triple measure, as well as by the judicious introduction of what are termed imperfect measures. Now in reading these imperfect measures, as they are called, remember that pauses (of which I shall have to speak more fully hereafter) must compensate or make up the time, which the full measure

requires, for do not forget that pause is just as much an element of rhythm as sound; and bear in mind, also, that when you are reading aloud poetry of which the accurate conveyance in delivery requires the observance of rhetorical pauses, such pauses must occupy the full time of the regular measure—that is to say, every heavy syllable must be followed by either a light syllable or the time of one, and every light syllable must either be preceded by a heavy syllable, or else the time of the omitted syllable must be compensated for by a pause. Let us take these lines in illustration of examples of pause, and of imperfect measures :— Ye airy sprites who oft as fancy | calls

In pronouncing certain important or rhetorical words, as they are sometimes termed that is to say, the words with which the rhetorician desires to make the most impression on his auditors-the heavy and light percussion may, as Mr. Bell, a well-known teacher of elocution in Dublin, truly remarks, take place not unfrequently on one syllable; the time of the simple sound being, as it were, distinguished and extended by a connected kind of swell and fall of the voice, as thus

The number of measures in a line, either caused by sound or pause, is immaterial, so that the time of each is regularly preserved. You will also have noticed that the weight of the voice in reading these illustrations has varied much in point of degree as it pronounced the heavy syllables of the words. As a general rule, I may remark that a greater degree of weight is given by the percussion of the voice on the heavy syllables of nouns and verbs than on the other words in a sentence, as they are usually the most important. Indeed the latter must always be considered as a rhetorical word; for it is in fact what its origin (verbum) imports, the word of the sentence, or that which (to quote from Archbishop Trench's admirable book "On the Study of Words") constitutes, as it were, the soul of the sentence, and gives it all its power and vitality.

LECTURE VIII.

Emphasis. Definition of the term.

Its use and abuse. Illustrations. Cumulative Emphasis. Punctuation, Grammatical and Rhetorical. General rules for Rhetorical Punctuation. Various requisites in good Delivery. Expression, Attitude, Gesture. Orators of antiquity. Plutarch's anecdotes of Demosthenes and Cicero. Suggestions in reference to Attitude and Gesture in Public Speaking. Mistakes to be avoided. Quintilian on Gesture. Mr. Smart's classification of Gesture. Summary.

N this lecture I propose touching on several subjects, to all of which attention is necessary in order to speak or read correctly and effectively. And the first of these to which I shall direct your notice is that of emphasis. What is emphasis in elocution? As I understand it, it consists in giving a certain amount of prominence, which may vary greatly in degree, to particular words, clauses, or sometimes indeed whole sentences, so as to make them stand out, as it were, in relief, or contradistinction to others either implied or expressed. Emphasis judiciously given points out the precise meaning of a sentence, shows in what manner one idea is connected with or arises out of another, gives point to the several clauses of a sentence, and so conveys to the mind of the hearer, thoroughly and fully, the entire meaning or import of the whole. A long, involved and complicated sentence may be made to appear perfectly intelligible and perspicuous by the discriminating power of emphasis. But to do this rightly, it is requisite that the reader should be perfectly acquainted with the exact construction and full meaning of every sentence in the composition he is reading. The eye must be trained to grasp (if I may venture on such an expression) the full meaning of the passage at a glance, and thus the mind will constantly be in advance of the voice. Dr. Enfield nearly a century ago, most truly remarked that, without this habit is thoroughly acquired, it is impossible to give those inflections and modulations of the voice, and that variety of emphasis, which nature requires; and it is for want of this previous study more perhaps than from any other cause, that we so often hear persons read with an improper emphasis, or with no emphasis at all, as a modern writer (the Rev. W. Cazalet) openly advocates as a correct mode of reading, but which must end in and can only be (I quote Dr. Enfield's own words) "stupid monotony." No doubt much study and pains are requisite in order to acquire in every way an elegant and effective delivery in reading and speaking, and it is only by close attention and constant practice that we can be able with a mere glance of the eye to read any piece with good emphasis and dis

cretion. As I said at the close of my last lecture, nouns and verbs are almost always emphatical words in a sentence, but of course the degree of emphasis to be given must depend on the character and nature of the sentence, and is a question of taste and judgment.

I have shown, I hope already, sufficiently in previous lectures, how much opposite inflection and modulation bring out the meaning of antithetic words and clauses in a sentence. The judicious introduction of emphasis on such words or clauses will add greatly to the power of the antithesis. You will find in Pope's "Essay on Man," and also in his beautiful "Moral Essays," many admirable passages for exercises on emphasis; and the whole book of Proverbs abounds in illustrations and examples for practice. In some instances the antithesis is double and even treble, and this must be rendered apparent to the hearer by the reader giving not merely opposite inflections and modulation, but also due emphasis on each important word of the antithesis. We may take the following sentences as illustrations.

Anger may glance into the hearts of the wise, but rests only in the bosom of fools."

"An angry man, who suppresses his passion, thinks worse than he speaks and an angry man that will chide, speaks worse than he thinks."

Emphasis also serves to express some particular meaning not directly arising from the words, but depending upon the intention of the reader or some accidental circumstance.

The following short sentence-"Do you intend to go to London this summer ?"—may have three different meanings, according to the different place of the emphasis, as

"Do you intend to go to London this summer?"

"Do you intend to go to London this summer ?"

"Do you intend to go to London this summer?”

Here the question as first marked, enquires whether the person spoken to, will go to London this summer: as secondly marked, whether London is the place to which the person spoken to will go this summer: and, as thirdly marked, whether this summer is the time at which the person spoken to will go to London.

In order to acquire a habit of speaking with a just and forcible emphasis, nothing more is necessary than previously to study the construction, meaning, and spirit of every sentence, and to adhere as nearly as possible to the manner in which we distinguish one word from another in conversation; for in familiar discourse we scarcely ever fail to express ourselves emphatically, and seldom place the emphasis improperly.

The most common faults respecting emphasis, are laying so strong an emphasis on one word as to leave no power of giving a particular force to other words, which, though not equally, are in a certain degree emphatical; and placing the greatest stress on conjunctive particles, and other words of secondary importance. These faults are strongly characterised in Churchill's censure of Mossop the actor :