Can such things be,

And overcome us', like a summer cloud',

Without our special wonder'?

Can the soldier, when he girdeth on his armor, boast like him that putteth it off? Can the merchant predict that the speculation, on which he has entered', will be infallibly crowned with success'?

Avārus has long been ardently endeavoring to fill his chest': and, lo! it is now full'. Is he happy'? Does he use' it? Does he gratefully think of the Giver of all good things'? Does he distribute to the poor'?

V. Does God, after having made his creatures, take no further care of them'? Has he left them to blind fate or undirected chance'? Has he forsaken the works of his own hands'? Or does he always graciously preserve, and keep, and guide them'?

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust'?

Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

Do the perfections of the Almighty lie dormant', or are they not rather in continual exercise'?

VI. Uprightness is a habit, and, like all other habits, gains strength by time and exercise. If, then, we exercise' upright principles (and we cannot. have them unless we exercise' them), they must be perpetually on the increase.

Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence1 (for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned'); and when they had brought them, they set them before the council.

Let us' (since life can little more supply

Than just to look about us, and to die'),

Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man.

Thou happy, happy elf!* (But stop-first let me kiss away that tear.) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! with spirits feather-light, untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin― (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin !) Thou little tricksy Puck! with antic toys so funnily bestuck, light as the singing bird that wings the air-(The door! the door!) he'll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy, in love's dear chain so strong and bright a link-thou idol of thy parents (Hang the boy! there goes my ink!) Thou cherub-but of earth; fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale, in harmless sport and mirth-(That dog will bite him, if he pulls his tail!) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey from every blossom in the world that blows, singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny―(Another tumble; that's his precious nose!) Thy father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from nature's mint (Where did he learn that squint ?)

*This humorous Ode, by Thomas Hood, addressed to his son, "aged three years and five months," contains numerous examples of the parenthesis. The verses are printed above in the form of prose, that the reader may himself detect the metrical euphony without the assistance of lines indicating the measure to the eye.

Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the hy-me-ne'al nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epit'o-me of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life-(He's got a knife!) Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, play on, play on, my elfin John!

Toss the light ball; bestride the stick- (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) - with fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, prompting the face grotesque and antic brisk, with many a lamb-like frisk (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown!) Thou pretty, opening rose! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy, and breathing music like the south — (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star- (I wish that window had an iron bar!)-bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove-(I'll tell you what, my love, I cannot write, unless he's sent above!)

VII. Newton was a Christian! Newton'! whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature on our finite conceptions; - Newton'! whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy; not those visionary and arrogant presumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting on the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie; - Newton'! who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists.

I must oppose the bill before us; a bill' in which such cruelties are proposed as are yet unknown among the most savage nations.

VIII. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would hǎrrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combi'ned locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

QUESTIONS.- - 125. What are inflections of the voice? 126. How marked by Walker? 127. Illustrate the upward and downward slide of the voice. 128. When is the rising inflection used? The falling? 129. What is the effect of the rising progression in a sentence? 130. The falling? 131. The rising indicates - ? 132. The falling-? 134. What of the value of rules for inflecting sentences? When the sense is complete, you use-? When incomplete-? Questions commencing with an adverb or verb terminate with what? Questions commencing with a verb? What is Rule V.? What is the meaning of the word parenthesis? How ought a parenthesis to be read? What is an echo in elocution? A monotone?

LESSON XII.

EXERCISES, IN INFLECTION.

135. In the following pieces, -the first by Sir Walter Scott, and the second and third from Ossian, exercises in modulation for two and three voices, or sets of voices, are given. By separating an entire class, and allotting to each group its part for simultaneous utterance, a good effect, with a little drilling, may be produced. Pupils will readily perceive that where the sense is incomplete, and the voice is suspended, the rising inflection is naturally used.

FOR TWO VOICES, OR SETS OF VOICES. (1st) Pibroch* of Donuil Dhu', (2d) pibroch of Donuil', (1st) Wake thy wild voice anew', (2d) summon Clan-Conuil'. (1st) Come away', come away', (2d) hark to the summons', (1st) Come in your war array', (2d) gentles and commons'. (1st) Come from deep glen', (2d) and from mountain so rocky'; (1st) The war-pipe and pennon' (2d) are at Inverlochy'; (1st) Come every hill-plaid', (2d) and true heart that wears one'; (1st) Come every steel-blade', (2d) and strong hand that bears one'. (1st) Leave untended the herd', (2d) the flock without shelter'; (1st) Leave the corpse uninterred', (2d) the bride at the altar'; (1st) Leave the deer', (2d) leave the steer', (1st) leave nets and barges; (All) Come with your fighting gear', broadswords and targes'. (1st) Come as the winds come', (2d) when forests are rended'; (1st) Come as the waves come', (2d) when navies are stranded':

(1st) Faster come', faster come', (2d) faster' and faster',

(1st) Chief, (2d) vassal', (1st) page' and groom', (2d) tenant' and master. (1st) Fast they come', fast they come; (2d) see how they gather'!

(1st) Wide waves the eagle plume' (2d) blended with heather';

(1st) Cast your plaids', (2d) draw your blades', (All) forward each man set! (All) Pibroch of Donuil Dhu', knell for the onset'!

FOR THREE VOICES, OR SETS OF VOICES.

-(2d Voice)-pours from the echo

(1st Voice) As Autumn's dark storm' ing hills', -(3d Voice) — echoing hills', (1st Voice) so toward each other' — (2d Voice)—toward each other approached' (3d Voice) — approached the heroes'.

* A pibroch (pronounced pi-brok) is, among the Highlanders, a martial air played with the bagpipe. The measure of the verse in this stanza requires that in the third line the exclamation "Come away "should be sounded as if it were a single word, having the accent on the first syllable, thus: come away. So in the words hill'-plaid and steel'-blade, in the 7th and 8th lines. The license of rhyme there requires that the ai in plaid should be pronounced long, as in maid. In the last line but one, the two words man'set (meaning, man set in battle array) should be sounded as a single word of two syllables, having the aecent on the first,

EXERCISES IN INFLECTION.

47

(1st Voice) As two dark streams' — (2d Voice) — dark streams from high rocks'-(3d Voice) — meet and mix, and roar on the plain',

(1st Voice)-loud, rough, and dark'-(2d Voice) — dark in battle' - (3d Voice) in battle met Lochlin and In'nisfail'.

(1st Voice) Chief mixed his blows with chief' — (2d Voice) — and man with man':- (3d Voice) — steel clanging sounded on steel'.

(1st Voice) Helmets are cleft' — (2d Voice) — cleft on high' — (3d Voice) ➡ Helmets are cleft on high'; blood bursts and smokes around'.

(1st Voice) — As the troubled noise of the ocean'-(2d Voice)—the ocean when roll the waves on high'; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven' (3d Voice) the thunder of heaven'; such is the noise of battle'.

1

(1st Voice) The groan'-(2d Voice) - the groan of the people' - (3d Voice) - the groan of the people spreads over the hills'.

(1st Voice) It was like'-(2d Voice)-like the thunder'-(3d Voice) — like the thunder of night'—(All) — It was like the thunder of night when the cloud bursts on Cona', and a thousand ghosts' shriek at once' on the hollow wind'.

(1st Voice) The morning' (2d Voice) - morning was gay'-(3d Voice) -the morning was gay on Cromla',

(1st Voice) when the sons'-(2d Voice)—sons of the sea' -when the sons of the sea ascended'.

-(3d Voice)

(1st Voice) Calmar stood forth'-(2d Voice) - stood forth to meet them', — (3d Voice) — Calmar stood forth to meet them in the pride of his kindling soul'.

(1st Voice) But pale'-(2d Voice)-pale was the face'. (3d Voice)- but pale was the face of the chief', as he leaned on his father's spear'.

(1st Voice) The lightning-(2d Voice) — lightning flies' - (3d Voice) — -the lightning flies on wings of fire'.

(1st Voice) But slowly'-(2d Voice) - slowly now the hero falls' - 3d Voice)-but slowly now the hero falls', like the tree of hundred roots before the driving storm'.

(1st Voice) Now from the gray mists of the ocean' the white-sailed ships of Fingal' appear'. (2d Voice) High' — (3d Voice) — high is the grove of their masts' as they nod, by turns, on the rolling waves'.

(1st Voice) As ebbs the resounding sea through the hundred isles of Inistore'-(2d Voice) - so loud' (3d Voice) so vast' · (1st Voice) - SO immense' (All)-returned the sons of Lochlin to meet the approaching foe'.

-

(1st Voice) But bending', -(2d Voice) — weeping', — (3d Voice) — sad, and slow (All)-sank Calmar, the mighty chief, in Cromla's lonely wood'. (1st Voice) The battle' - (2d Voice) — battle is past', — (3d Voice) — "The battle is past" said the chief".

(1st Voice) Sad is the field' — (2d Voice)- sad is the field of Lena'! — (3d Voice)- mournful are the oaks of Cromla'!

(All) The hunters have fallen in their strength! The sons of the brave are no more!

* Here the acute accent is intended as a mark of accent, not of inflection.

(1st Voice) As a hundred winds on Morven';-(2d Voice)—as the stream of a hundred hills';-(3d Voice)· as clouds successive fly over the face of heaven' ;

(1st Voice) so vast', -(2d Voice) — so terrible' - (3d Voice)—so roaring'.

(All) — the armies mixed on Lena's echoing plain'.

(1st Voice) The clouds of'-(2d Voice)-night come rolling down'; (3d Voice) the stars of the north arise' over the rolling waves': they show their heads of fire through the flying mists of heaven'.

(1st Voice) "Spread the sail'," said the king'. (2d Voice) "Seize the winds as they pour from Lena'." (3d Voice) We rose on the waves with songs'.

(All) We rushed with joy through the foam of the deep'.

LESSON XIII.

PUNCTUATION, TYPOGRAPHICAL MARKS, ETC.

136. PUNCTUATION, from the Latin word punctum, a point, is the art of dividing words or sentences from one another by means of certain marks or points, designed to facilitate the apprehension or to regulate the enunciation of a written language. Points or stops are said to have been first used by Aristoph'a-nēs, the Alexandrian grammarian; but the modern system of punctuation is due to Manūtius, a learned printer, who lived at Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

137. Authors differ in regard to the proper mode of punctuating; some contending, with Sheridan, that the stops should be disposed according to the emphasis and pauses which would be naturally made in reading aloud; and others, that they should be placed according to the grammatical structure of a sentence. The former is called the Rhetorical, and the latter the Grammatical mode. The tendency of modern usage is to the latter.

138. In grammatical punctuation, such stops only are given as may assist the reader in promptly comprehending the sense. It may, therefore, often be proper to make a pause where no stop appears to the eye. Indeed, it is often allowable, for the sake of pointing out the sense more strongly, or of shifting and relieving the voice, to make a very considerable pause where there is no punctuation mark, and where the grammatical construction requires none.

139. The grammatical points are the Comma (,), which marks the smallest grammatical division of a sentence, and usually represents the shortest pause; the Semi-colon (;) and the Colon (:), which separate those portions which are less connected than those divided by Commas ; and the Period (.), which is what its name denotes, a full stop, which commonly terminates a sentence.