Defects of enunciation.

This subject has been also amply discussed.

Violation of measure.

Measure as a fundamental point in delivery occupies a large space in this grammar.

Defects as to force.

This arises principally, from the want of radical stress. An excess of force constitutes ranting. The improper use of the vanishing stress, is not a very unfrequent fault in delivery. The circumstances which ought to limit its use, have been fully explained elsewhere. The pronunciation of the Irish, will exhibit the fault of an unnecessary vanishing stress, in the highest degree. The general current of discourse is sometimes too feebly marked by the combined and antagonist effects of force and quantity.

Mouthing.

This is a very common fault among young persons, and deserves their serious attention and efforts, to correct it. Its causes have been already explained, page

104.

17

RECITATION EIGHTEENTH.

PREVALENT CIRCUMSTANCES IN ELEGANT SPEECH.

ELEGANT speech is marked by a proper distribution of stress and time. It employs exclusively, the simple melody for plain thought, grafting upon it other upward and downward movements, for purposes of interrogation, emphasis, and emotion. The slides are distinguished by a clear and full opening, and those susceptible of quantity, by a distinct vanish, at their termination. In dignified subjects, the utterance assumes, and maintains, upon words of long quantity, the equal wave of the second, joining with it median stress, for purposes of emphasis. In ordinary discourse, the temporal and percussive emphasis, are blended in due variety, with the alternation of the higher rising and falling movements. The semitone is restricted to the expression of the plaintive feelings, and tremor is employed on proper occasions, to mark grief and exultation. The intermixture of high intervals in the current melody is avoided, unless for a reason assignable upon an analysis of the sense.

CIRCUMSTANCES TO BE BORNE IN MIND, IN CRITICISING A PUBLIC SPEAKER.

1. Is his voice full, strong, and agreeable ?

2. Is his enunciation exact and audible, without affected preciseness; and are his syllables pronounced according to sound usage?

3. Is his simple melody free from monotony ?

4. Is he without what is usually called a tone, consisting (according to a more technical phraseology,) in a recurrent melody?

5. Is there the monotony of a high note, or circumflex, in his speaking upon emphatic words, or in the general current of his discourse?

6. Are his emphases so varied by time, percussion, and a properly alternated rise and fall in pitch, as to prevent monotony from a perceptible recurrence of the same kinds?

7. Do his emphases of pitch, consist of a direct rise and fall, and not of the puling unequal circumflex? 8. Does he employ radical stress with effect?

9. Is his speech marked by an agreeable use of quantity free from drawl, or any mixture of song?

10. Are his consonant elements free from improper quantity?

11. Has he full command over the downward slides of the voice, and over the downward radical pitch, for expressing the positive emotions, and those of surprise, and for marking exclusive emphasis ?

12. Does he avoid the monotony, of the vanishing stress?

13. Does he employ the cadence in proper places? 14. Does he mark his parentheses, paragraphs, and changes of subjects by transitions of pitch, time, force, and quality of voice?

15. Are the vocal powers so employed, as to delineate the sense in a vivid manner?

16. Is the semitone at his command, for purposes of pathos ?

17. Can he employ the tremor with effect, to heighten the language of sorrow and exultation?

The beauties of delivery, above enumerated, are all of easy attainment, if sought for upon a well devised and persevering plan of elementary instruction.

DIRECTIONS TO THE EXERCISES.

EVERY bar, as in music, is to occupy the same time. This time is to be consumed in the pronunciation of the syllables contained in the bars, or the syllables and pauses, or the pauses alone, where the whole bar is devoted to rest. The mark shows that a syllable is heavy or accented; .. that it is light or unaccented. The mark 7 indicates that a rest, or pause, is to be made. A long syllable can be extended through the whole time of a bar, and may be made heavy or accented in its opening, and light at its termination; a short one cannot fill a bar. When the mark 7 is omitted after a short heavy syllable, standing alone in a bar, a pause is to be made as if it were present.

By the use of the exercises, it will soon be perceived that most persons are deficient in rythm. By an exact observation of it, two consequences will follow; reading will cease to be laborious, and the sense will be rendered perfectly clear, as far as it is dependent on the capital point of the distribution of time, or measure.

Lastly, the progress of the voice is to be distinct from the accented to the unaccented syllable, or from heavy to light, and not from light to heavy.