The New review, or monthly analysis of general literature

eodem scribentium,-me, quotiescunque materiam sive thema versuum proposuerim, quosdam locos communes suggessisse, et summa rerum fastigia leviter, et vivâ illâ, ut dicitur, voce attigisse. Hoc tamen, ni fallor, non impedivit quo minùs variis puerorum ingeniis amplum ad se indicanda spatium patuerit.

J. P.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH RHYTHMUS: with an Introductory Essay on the Application of Rhythmical Science to the Treatment of Impediments, and the Improvement of our national Oratory; and an Elementary Analysis of the Science and Practice of Elocution, Composition, &c. By J. THELWALL, Esq, Professor of the Science and Practice of Elocution. London, Arch, 1812. 8vo. Pr. 10s. 6d. in boards. Bound with Duplicates for the Use of Pupils, One Guinea. With MS. notations for persons with Impediments 20 Guineas.

THIS is one of several books, which have been composed and compiled by Mr. Thelwall more immediately for the use of the pupils of his own institution; but which may be of general use in furtherance of the objects of elocutionary instruction; particularly in the hands of those who are at all acquainted with the professor's peculiar mode of teaching. The introductory, or original matter, is compressed into seventy-two closely-printed pages in a small type; to which are added one hundred and seventy-six of selections (principally poetical) from the most approved authors in the English language, from the days of Elizabeth to the present time. Of the latter it is sufficient to say that they are not (like the articles in the

generality of volumes of this description) compiled from other copied compilations, but such in general as lay out of the beaten track of common-place selection, and seem to have been adopted principally with a view to the illustration of the rhythmical doctrines of the compiler. It is the introductory matter alone which demands, or is capable of, analysis. The author commences his essay with assigning as one of the principal causes of the prevalence of impediment in this country, "the general neglect of the study of Rhythmus" and "the worse than total ignorance of our grammarians and professed instructors of the genuine principles upon which the rhythmus of our language depends." From this general censure he admits but of three exceptions"Joshua Steele, Odell and Roe:" and even these, he considers as having "sought for their data in the rules of inventive and imitative art, instead of appealing to physical analysis, the primary principles of nature, and the physiological necessities resulting from the organization of vocal beings." He regards their respective labors therefore (though highly valuable) as not completely competent to the establishment of a just theory, and still less so to that practical improvement which the institution he presides over has particularly in view. Laying his foundations, therefore, alike in the science of physiology, and the laws of music, he proceeds to assert the completeness and excellency of the English language in all the capabilies of metrical and rhythmical proportion, to lay down the fundamental laws of English (and indeed of universal) rhythmus, and to state his opinion how it has happened "that the six proportioned, but varied cadences that constitute (in

"This

its simplest form) an English heroic line, have been theoretically degraded into five disproportioned and incongruous feet; and that the rich, the magnificent, the infinitely diversified, but mathematically perfect measure of the divine Milton has been theorised into chaotic anarchy and dissonance, by speculative monastics, who could neither utter with their organs, nor scan with their ears." The commencement and termination of a cadence or foot, according to this writer, depends not upon the numerical position of the syllables in a line, but upon the inherent physical qualities of such syllables: i. e. the thesis, or heavy; and the arsis, or light; the syllable in thesis wherever found, being always the first syllable of every perfect foot, in all fluent spontaneous utterance, and in all good reading and recitation, whether of verse or prose, metrical principle," he affirms, "of instinctive progress from heavy to light, applies not only to human speech, but to the vocal efforts, however limited and imperfect, of all the tribes of voice: all at least that have any alternation :-for there are some animals (as the duck, for example) that have no light sound, or arsis, and consequently no cadence at all. I shall not deny that there are also featherless ducks, in the same predicament, who, in reading at least, make all their syllables in thesis, or heavy poise, using a pause between impulse and impulse, instead of the intervening alternation; but the guinea-hen is the only untaught animal I remember that marks the cadence of its utterance from light to heavy: and they, who can be charmed with such elocution, need no instruction from the lark, or the nightingale." Having enumerated the principal laws of

utterance resulting from this primary principle, the author proceeds to maintain-" that this principle, once admitted and understood, the compositions of our best and most harmonious writers, whether in verse or prose, will be found to have a rhythmus as truly metrical as the rhythmus of the writers of Greece and Rome." He admits, however, that some of the classical measures may not be congenial to our language: "though no conclusions ought to be drawn from the bungling experiments of those, who, not being capable of discriminating between poise and quantity, have treated every heavy syllable as if it were long, and every light syllable as if it were short. But it is sufficient for the purposes of elocutionary instruction, that the cadences of our language have metrical quantity; that our rhythmus is a rhythmus of measure, and that the measure of our rhythmus is capable of being taught and explained, upon practical and scientific principles, whether our language be capable of hexameters and sapphics, or whether it be not."

That our language is frequently both read and written unrhythmically our author considers as no objection to his doctrine-" for are not," he inquires, not," he inquires, "the Greek and Latin languages occasionally pronounced unmetrically also? Did the critical inquirer never hear of such a thing as a difference between the written theory and the oral practice of our classical scholars, in this respect. And are not hesitation and stammering sometimes the consequences of this practical jargonizing in Greek and Latin, as well as in English elocution. "I had one pupil," he continues, who, having been pretty well cured of his his English impediment, was

obliged to come to me again (from
his college tutor) to remedy his
Latin stammering, and teach him
how to reconcile theory with prac-
tice, and apply the principle of ca-
dence to a Latin hexameter, as well
as an English heroic." He then
proceeds to examine the prevalent
axiom "that Greek and Latin
verses (the scanning of which is of
such importance) are not to be
read as they are scanned; " and to
ridicule the idea-" that Homer
and Virgil constructed their verses
upon a theoretical principle of
rhythmus, that was to be subvert-
ed in practice"-" that they ad-
justed imaginary quantities, to in-
volve themselves in useless difficul-
ties and amuse Utopian sophists;
and that the measures they elabo-
rated were addressed to the fingers
of pedants, not to the organs of
their readers, or the ears of their
auditors." " Such, at any rate," he
affirms, "is not the rhythmus of the
English language. It is addressed
to the ear, though demonstrable to
the understanding; and no tutor,
who is properly initiated in its mys-
teries, will have occasion to say to
his pupil, you must not read as you
scan.""The accomplished pupil
is not only to read his Shakespeare
and his Milton as he would scan
them, but he is to speak also as he
would scan; whether philippicising
in the senate, or unbending in easy
pleasantry at the tea-table." These
broad and comprehensive assertions
are somewhat qualified by an expla-
nation of the distinctions of abstract,
rhetorical, and conversational rhyth-
mus; all of which, however, the
author considers as differing from
each other only in degrees of com-
plication and perfection, not at all
in their essential principles, or me-
trical proportions.

Having enlarged a little upon the
VOL. I.

practical application of this system, the author reminds his reader, "that this is not the declamation of speculative enthusiasm; the romance of untried hypothesis.""Whatever pedantry may reject for its novelty, or prejudice condemn as heretical and hetorodox from the vulgar creed, the efficacy of the system, as applied to the remedy of defects of utterance, has been proved in too many instances, and the demonstration has become matter of too much notoriety, to be discredited by the quibbles of sophistry, or the dogmas of prescription."

After some observations on the extent to which a complete developement of his entire system of elocutionary science and instruction would inevitably spread, and an apology for the brevity of the ensuing analysis (which, except in one or two indispensable particulars, is indeed confined to a mere outline or prospectus of the lectures heretofore delivered, and the essential axioms and definitions of the science); the author states his reasons for the preponderancy of poetical articles in the selections; and states his unqualified opinion that such are "the advantages of commencing the study of elocution through the medium of verse (provided the tutor or the student be infected with no fanciful notions of arbitrary quantities and accents)," that "the art of reading even prose, with grace and expressive harmony," is not to be acquired "through the medium of prose alone," while he has never known a single pupil, "who had attained a tolerable degree of facility in reading the best poets, who did not, as a necessary consequence, acquire a smoothness, harmony, and expression in his prose delivery." The remarks that NO. II.

2 A

follow upon the manner in which poetry ought to be read, and the succession of authors and of styles through which the student should ascend, from the smooth equanimity of Pope to the bold varieties and rhythmical perfection of Shakespeare and Milton; and" from the semiversified periods of Gibbon" to "the conversational playfulness of Goldsmith," and thence to more careless and unpolished writers, are interspersed with criticisms, several of which have at least a boldness and originality that may demand examination.

The Essay is followed by a "Praxis," directing the pupil and the tutor in the mode of applying the system laid down to the articles selected; which is also interspersed with rhythmical and rhetorical criticisms and animadversions, and a refutation of the objection that his process might be productive of an artificial and measured formality" of delivery. Experience, it is affirmed, has demonstrated the very reverse of this. "Flexure and harmonic variety," says the professor, are the perpetual objects of the system; and the very principle of proportion (defined and understood, in all its due varieties and component quantities) is so far from superinducing monotony, that nothing has a greater tendency to its eradication."

The Analysis, Axioms, and Definitions that follow, pursue the science and practice of elocution through all its ramifications.

SERIES 1.

Physiology of Elocution-The Theory of Human Speech as an important Branch of Natural Philosophy-Objects of the Speaker-Definition of the Perfection of Speech-Apparatus, or Organs of Speech Theory of Sounds - Vocal Sounds-Remote or incidental Organs of Voice-Primary, or immediate Organs

-Secondary Organs of Voice-Enunciative Organs-Analysis of Alphabetic Sounds Syllabication- Pulsation and Remission, or the primary Action and Re-action of the Organs of Voice, in the formation of syllabic Impulses, and the consequent Physical Alternation of heavy and light syllables.

This section is treated with great amplitude and explicitness; as is also the whole of the ensuing series, and accompanied by a string of demonstrations rendered intelligible by a notation of poises, accents, and musical quantities; but which do not admit of any abbreviation. These parts, indeed, form the bases of that peculiar system of tuition invented by Mr. T. and by him applied with acknowledged efficacy and success, even to several species of defect hitherto regarded as susceptible neither of remedy nor palliation. In the musical part of the subject his obligations to Joshua Steele are explicitly avowed, and some essential parts of the notation are avowedly adopted from that valuable but neglected author; but the physiological principle, the application of which constitutes the soul and essence of the whole system, he lays claim to as an original discovery; and when the credit of this was denied to him, in general terms, by a contemporary critic, he boldly replied by inquiring through the medium of reiterated public advertisement for the title of any book in any language, in which even a hint can be found upon the subject: an inquiry that does not appear to have received any answer. SERIES II.

Principles of Metrical Proportion and of Rhythmus-Definitions-Cadence -Foot-Bar-Analysis of the several kinds of Cadences in common and in triple Time, and of the Feet by which they may be occupied-Denominations of Cadence, with Analyses of the Rhythmus of Dryden, Milton, &c. and of the Quantities of English Syllables, in all the

Varieties of Duration from Eight to One -Laws of Cadential Utterance, and Modifications of Measure, Melody, Euphony and Expression-Definitions and Exemplifications of the Rhythmus of Verse and Prose.

SERIES III.

Impediments of Speech-Organic Defects, with their Remedies-Habitual Impediments-Stammering-Stuttering -Throttling-Constipation, or Suppression of the Voice.

SERIES IV.

Education of the Voice-TonePower, or Force-Compass and Variety -Pitch, or Master Key-Pathetic Flexure, Characteristic Intonation, and Imitative Pathos.

SERIES V.

Management of the Enunciative Organs-1. Distinctness, 2. Articulation (These two terms, frequently confounded, are carefully contradistinguished by this author, and applied to two very different requisites of good enunciation.)

SERIES VI.

Harmonics, or the Laws of Musical Inflexion-Accents-Punctuation-Em

phases-Pronunciation.

CONCLUDING SERIES.

Incidental Accomplishments-Physiognomical Expression-Action-Intellectual and Educational Requisites for Oratorical and Elocutionary Excellence.

Such is the extent of subject of which the author has compressed á brief outline into the introductory pages of this volume; but which will in all probability be hereafter extended in a larger publication. According to the present system of book-making, it would furnish materials for three or four expensive quartos: the single article Action has indeed been already dilated by Mr. Austin through a large quarto volume.

The other publications of this author that have reference to the same subject are : "The Vestibule of Eloquence: Original Articles,

Poetical and Oratorical, intended for Recitation among the Pupils of the Institution."- "A Letter to H. Cline, Esq. on Imperfect Developements of the Faculties, mental and moral, as well as constitutional and organic; and on the Treatment of Impediments of Speech."-" Several Articles, under the letter E, in Dr. Rees's New Cyclopedia." Owing to some misunderstanding between the author and the publishers, the articles promised and referred to under the ensuing letters do not appear in that publication.

THE PEDIGREE of King GEORGE THE THIRD, lineally deduced from King Egbert, first sole Monarch of England. Compiled by R. WEWITZER. Illustrated with Heads. London, Barker. 1812. pp. 34. Pr. 5s.

As this volume cannot be regularly analysed, we shall only give the Introduction and the Table of Contents, for the satisfaction of the curious.

In this memorable age, when a great proportion of the powers and dynasties on the Continent of Europe have been revolutionized, concussed, or subverted, Great Britain, blessed in her insular situation, has by her free constitution and government, with the bravery and loyalty of her subjects, ever repelled her invaders, and been happy enough ultimately to preserve a lineal (though often interrupted) succession of Royalty.

It is not meant, in this little volume, to enter into Historical, or Political investigation, nor to give merely a catalogue of the succession of Sovereigns.

The object in compiling this work was, that (by a regular deduction of the descent of the ROYAL FAMILY from EGBERT, First sole Monarch of England, and in a double line from

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