'Grave and bold.' tive,' demanding abrupt stress' and rising slides.'

The ideas are also 'harsh' and 'nega

"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the Sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

"Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, (now known and honored throughout the earth,) still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,

'Bold,' negative,' and 'harsh,'

"bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards,'

6

'Bold' and 'noble,' 'positive' and 'good,' demanding 'loud' and smooth' 'force,' 'full volume,' long falling slides,' and 'pure quality,'

"but everywhere, spread all over,in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, Liberty AND Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”

2.

• Unemotional' and 'grave.'

"Friends,

I come not here to talk. Ye know too well
The story of our thraldom.

We are slaves!

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave."

'Bold' and 'noble,' ' negative.'

"Not such as swept along

By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame."

'Sarcastic,' (contempt, scorn, and irony.) These mixed ideas, being 'harsh' and 'impure,' demand abrupt stress' and ' aspirated quality,' with the 'circumflex slides.'

"But base, ignoble slaves, slaves to a horde

Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords,
Rich in some dozen paltry villages,-

Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great

In that strange spell, — a name. Each hour, dark fraud Or open rapine, or protected murder,

Cries out against them. But this very day,

An honest man, my neighbor,—there he stands,

Was struck, struck like a dog, by one who wore
The badge of Ursini; because, forsooth,
He tossed not high his ready cap in air,
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts,
At sight of that great ruffian.

And suffer such dishonor?

The stain away in blood?

"Be we men,

Men, and wash not
Such shames are common."

'S-bdued' pathos and joy blended.

"I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to ye, I had a brother once, a gracious boy,

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,

Of sweet and quiet joy,·

'there was the look

Of heaven upon his face, which limners give
To the beloved disciple.' How I loved

That gracious boy! g*

Younger by fifteen years,

Brother, at once, and son! "He left

my side,

A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile
Parting his innocent lips."

'Pathetic' and bold,' with abrupt' and 'tremulous' force.

"In one short hour

The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance!

'Impassioned' and 'sarcastic.'

"Rouse, Romans! Rouse, ye slaves!

ye

Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters? Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash."

'Animated.'

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans."

'Noble'

Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman

Was greater than a king! And once again,-
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus ! Once again I swear,
The eternal city shall be free!"

POETRY.

Good reading of Poetry demands, in addition to the elements of elocution which belong to all emotional expression, as such, that just enough special attention be given to quantity and accent to fill out the time equably in each "bar" of the poetical "measure," and mark its rhythm perceptibly. In good

poetry the rhythm always harmonizes with the sense and spirit, so that the rhythmical accent falls naturally just where emphatic force is needed to give the author's true meaning. The relative degree of force which should mark the rhythm, agrees with the relative or emphatic force with which the ideas should be read.

It is better, therefore, to study and read poetry as emotional prose, without any thought of poetical measure, than to fall into the greater fault of marking the metre too prominently and mechanically, with an offensive "sing-song," or "scanning.”

The aim should be to mark the poetical measure but delicately, so that we may perceive, if we choose to think of it, that the reader is giving it happily, but not so that we must think of its mechanical structure instead of the worth and beauty of the ideas. Poetical rhythm and quantity belong not so much to the form as to the spirit of poetry, for they are essential elements in the natural expression of all beautiful and tender and noble sentiments, whether in verse or prose.

PHYSICAL CULTURE.

To make the exercises in reading as conducive to health as to elocutionary improvement, let teachers see that the following necessary physical conditions of healthful vocal expression be carefully observed, viz:

1. POSITION. Pupils must stand or sit uprightly and easily, so that the larger organs of speech may act with perfect freedom.

2. BREATHING. Pupils must inhale fully at the outset, and as frequently as the natural pauses will allow, so as to keep the lungs at all times well supplied with fresh air.

3. EXPULSION. Pupils must learn, if they would read with force and ease, to expel the emphatic tones from the throat, by contracting the expulsory muscles of the waist, so as to lift up and throw out the vocalized breath with the utmost required force, without unnaturally exercising and irritating the throat

VOCAL CULTURE.

The organic divisions of quality of voice, such as “headtone," "chest-tone," and "orotund," we have not given in this manual for schools, for the practical reason that there are so few, even among professional vocalists, who have naturally · both the tenor and bass qualities, or the 'head' and 'chest' tones, so few who can ever learn to use both expressively. Instead of trying,-in most cases in vain,—to make the reader, whose natural quality of voice is 'head-tone' or tenor, cultivate the chest-tone' or bass, and vice versa,' let the lower natural tones of the high pitched voices, and the upper natural tones of the low pitched voices, be cultivated and rounded into the full, noble, orotund quality on the tones of the middle pitch. This has the advantage of being practicable and of preserving, amid all the manifold improvements of vocal culture, the natural quality of each voice, which is always the most expressive and pleasing.

The many examples we have given for daily exercise in the different kinds of vocal expression, if thoroughly practiced, furnish the most natural means and method of vocal culture. Exercise in the right way and earnestly what voice the pupil has, and he will soon acquire additional force, volume, compass, flexibility, and expression of voice.

NATURAL EXPRESSION.

Let pupils practice carefully and thoroughly the examples for the right use of each one of the 'elements' of expression, and the examples for rightly blending all these elements in the natural expression of each 'kind' of sentiment, till the appropriate 'force,' 'time,'' slides,' &c., for reading any given 'kind' become inseparably associated in the reader's mind with the sentiment itself. Then the IDEA, the FEELING, will spontaneously inspire its own best expression; and so, at last, IMPERFECT ART may ripen into PERFECT NATURE.

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