3. Solemn Denunciation.

"Wo unto thee Cho-razin, Woe unto thee Beth-saida."

"For soon expect to feel

His thun-der on thy head de-vour-ing fire,

Then who created thee lamenting learn,

When who can un-create thee thou shalt know."

4. Deep Pathos. This requires the use of the wave of the semitone, which is nothing but plaintiveness and long drawn time. The following is a marked instance.

"We have err'd and strayed from thy ways, like lost sheep. We have done those things which we ought not to have done and we have left un-done those things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us. But thou, O! Lord, have mercy upou us miserable of-fenders. Spare thou those O! God, who confess their faults. Re-store thou those who are penitent, ac-cord-ing to thy promises declared unto mankind, in Christ Je-sus our Lord. And grant, O! most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and so-ber life, to the glo-ry of thy ho-ly name."

I have here particularized by italics, those words which require the most marked extension. The general movement is comparatively slow, for these cast their sombre shadows over the whole, and subdue it to the tone of deep and penitential sorrow. Other instances will be found in this Grammar, and in the Elocutionist, requiring from their dignified and serious character, an extended time. The apostrophe to the Queen of France. The extracts from the Revelations: parts of Isaiah and the Psalms, together with several others.

QUESTIONS TO RECITATION EIGHTH.

1. What is the meaning of quantity, as applicable to speech?

2. What are the conditions which limit its use in syllables?

3. What interval of pitch is most employed in the use of very long quantity?

4. What are the circumstances necessary to give it an agreeable effect?

5. How is a drawl to be avoided?

6. How is song to be avoided?

7. Under what particular circumstances is quantity inadmissible on consonants susceptible of it?

8. What is the classification of elements best adapted to present an elementary view of quantity?

9. State the different classes of elements susceptible of quantity.

10. To what subjects is long quantity applicable?

10

RECITATION NINTH.

OF PLAINTIVENESS IN SPEECH, OR THE USE OF THE SEMITONE.

I SHALL state merely what is directly practical on this subject. Persons desirous of looking more deeply into it, may consult with great advantage, Dr. Rush's profound disquisition on the chromatic melody of speech, Sec. 18, page 247, of his "Philosophy of the human voice."

Let the following vowels sounds be uttered with plaintiveness, and they will slide through the interval of a semitone, a, i, o.

Let them be sounded with a marked plaintiveness of character, at high pitch, at a low one, and at one that is intermediate between high and low. This will show that the plaintiveness is inherent in the semitonic slide, wherever it may begin in the compass of the voice. In general, however, a low radical pitch is best adapted to subjects requiring the semitone. All subjects of great pathos and tenderness, require the use of the semitone. It is the natural element of the plaintive emotions. Let the student, therefore, acquire a command over it. This will be best effected by turning to the table of the vowels and consonants, and sounding them with strenuous endeavour to give them an unequivocally plaintive character, until it is distinctly marked.

Let the following sentences then be read with a conspicuously plaintive expression.

My mother, when I learned that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son?
Wretch, even then, life's journey just begun.
Perhaps thou gavest me, though unseen, a kiss;
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss.
Ah! that maternal smile, it answers yes.
I heard the bell toll'd on thy funeral day;
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away;
And turning, from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu.

Quantity is always united with the semitone, when it is employed in solemn and serious subjects; it then assumes the form of the wave. The semitone is appropriate to love, pity, complaint, vexation, disappointment, sorrow, penitential supplication, and pain of all kinds.

EXAMPLE 1. Love.

Oh! Mary, dear, departed shade,
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
See'st thou thy lover, lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

"Oh! sailor boy, sailor boy, peace to thy soul."

EXAMPLE 3. Complaint.

Q.Kath. Would I had never trod this English earth,
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it.

Ye have angel's faces, but heaven knows your hearts :
I am the most unhappy woman living.

EXAMPLE 4. Deep sorrow.

"Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom,

would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son."

EXAMPLE 5. Disappointment.

"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain, upon you; for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away. The shield of Saul as though it had not been anointed with oil.

EXAMPLE 6. Penitential supplication. The instance quoted, page 108, is an example.

EXAMPLE 7. Bodily pain.

"Oh! Griffith sick to death,

My legs like loaden branches bow to the earth,
Willing to leave their burthen. Reach a chair,
So, now me thinks I feel a little ease."

In most of the above cited examples, the reading contemplated, is that which exhibits personal feeling in the highest degree. If some of them are read in a narrative manner, we may drop the semitone retaining the long quantity. Language effects its objects in two ways; first by the particular words employed, and their connection; and secondly by the intonation put upon them. Words are in themselves symbols of feeling, but their effect is heightened by special conditions of melody. Where the language is in itself solemn and plaintive, the superaddition of long quantity and a predominant use of the monotone, will be sufficient for a moderate degree of pathos. But the highest expression of mournful feeling, can only be effected by the semitone.