the reverse. The neglect of the lower notes of the scale, and, consequently, of the organic action by which they are produced, may render a deep-toned utterance less easy than it would otherwise be. But most teachers of elocution are, from day to day, witnesses to the fact, that students, from the neglect of muscular action, and from all the other enfeebling causes involved in sedentary habits and intellectual application, sometimes commence a course of practice, with a high-pitched, thin, and feminine voice, which seems at first incapable of expressing a grave or manly sentiment, and, in some instances, appears to forbid the individual from ever attempting the utterance of a solemn thought, lest his treble tone should make the effect ridiculous; but that a few weeks' practice of vocal exercise on bass notes and deep emotions, as embodied in rightly selected exercises, often enables such readers to acquire a round and deep-toned utterance, adequate to the fullest effects of impressive eloquence.

The exercise of singing bass, if cultivated as an habitual practice, has a great effect in imparting command of deep-toned expression, in reading and speaking. Reading and reciting passages from Milton and from Young, and particularly from the Book of Psalms, or from hymns of a deeply solemn character, are exercises of great value for securing the command of the lower notes of the voice.

The practice of the following examples should be accompanied by copious exercises on the elements, and on words selected for the purpose. These exercises should be repeated till the student can, at any moment, strike the appropriate note of awe or solemnity, with as much certainty as the vocalist can execute any note of the scale.

("Effusive and Expulsive orotund:" "Subdued and Suppressed" force: "Median stress.")

"It must be so; - Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul.
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us:
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man.
Eternity!-thou pleasing,- dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it."

Awe, Dismay, and Despair.

("Aspirated pectoral Quality:" "Suppressed" force: "Median stress.")

THE PESTILENCE.-Porteous

"At dead of night,

In sullen silence stalks forth PESTILENCE:
CONTAGION, close behind, taints all her steps
With poisonous dew: no smiting hand is seen;
No sound is heard; but soon her secret path
Is marked with desolation: heaps on heaps
Promiscuous drop. No friend, no refuge, near:
All, all is false and treacherous around,

All that they touch, or taste, or breathe, is DEATH!"

Deep Grief.

AFFLICTION AND DESOLATION.-Young.

("Effusive and expulsive orotund:” “ 'Impassioned” and “subdued" force: "Vanishing" and "median stress.")

"In every varied posture, place, and hour,
How widowed every thought of every joy!
Thought, busy thought! too busy for my peace!
Through the dark postern of time long elapsed,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night,
Led like a murderer, (and such it proves!)
Strays, (wretched rover!) o'er the pleasing past:
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,
And finds all desert now!"

IV. "High" Pitch.

The analysis of vocal expression, as regards the effect of "pitch," leads us now to the study of those modes of utterance which lie above the middle, or ordinary, level of the voice.

The higher portion of the musical scale is associated with

the notes of brisk, gay, and joyous emotions, with the exception of the extremes of pain, grief, and fear, which, from their preternaturally exciting power, compress and render rigid the organic parts that produce vocal sound, and cause the peculiarly shrill, convulsive cries and shrieks which express those passions.

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Tracing the voice upward, as it ascends from the usual pitch of "serious "" or of "animated expression," we observe it obviously rise, when it passes from the "animated," or lively, to the " gay or brisk style, which implies a positive exhilaration, or vivid excitement of the animal spirits. Cheerfulness will suffice to produce "animation;" but joy is requisite to cause gaiety." The properties of voice, in the utterance of these feelings, are correspondent to their gradations of sensibility. "Animation" is expressed by "pure tone, unimpassioned radical stress," and "middle pitch :" gaiety, by "expulsive orotund," vivid "radical and median stress, and high pitch.'

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The command over "pitch," in its application to joyous emotions, is not, it is true, of so much importance to the public speaker, as the power of adopting the appropriate tone of serious, grave, and solemn feeling. It is, however, an indispensable accomplishment in elocution, for the purposes of private and social reading; as much of the pleasure, as well as the true effect, of expression, in the reading of pieces adapted to the parlor, and the family or the social circle, depends on the vivid utterance and comparatively high pitch which occasionally prevail in the appropriate style of such reading; since it is not unfrequently marked by gay delineation and high-wrought graphic effect of incident, description, and sentiment.

A "pitch too low for the natural effect of gay and exhilarated feeling deadens the effect of wit and vivacity, and renders, perhaps, a most expressive strain of composition, tame and dull, when it should abound in the tones of life and brilliancy.

Juvenile readers, from diffidence, often withhold the true effect of the voice in the reading of scenes of gaiety and joyousness, by allowing the pitch to remain too low. The gravity and austerity of the student's life, incline him to the same mode of utterance, as a habit, and hence impair that freshness of effect, even in serious communication, which comes from the frequent practice of utterance in strains of joy and gaiety. The proverbial dulness arising from "all work and no play," is felt nowhere more deeply than in the habits of the voice. Long-continued, intense mental application, betrays itself, uniformly, in a tendency to hollow, pectoral" tone; and the uniform" drowsy bass" of some public speakers, is but the unconscious yielding to this natural effect.

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To give the voice suppleness, pliancy, and mobility, much attention must be bestowed on practice for the regulation of pitch. The following examples should be carefully repeated in conjunction with the elements and detached words, till the "high pitch" of joy is perfectly at command.

FROM THE VOICE OF SPRING.-Mrs. Hemans.

("Expulsive orotund:" "Impassioned" force: "Median stress.")

"I come! I come! -ye have called me long:
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

"From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain: They are sweeping on to the silvery main,

They are flashing down from the mountain brows,—
They are flinging spray o'er the forest-boughs,-
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves;—
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!

Exultation.

FROM THE HYMN OF THE STARS.—Bryant.

("Quality," force, and " stress," as before, but more fully given.)

"Away, away! through the wide, wide sky,

The fair blue fields that before us lie,

Each sun with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole,

With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light!

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo! yonder the living splendors play!
Away! on our joyous path away'

"Away, away!-In our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See Love is brooding, and Life is born;

And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice like us, in motion and light!"

V. "Very High" Pitch.

The extreme of the upper part of the musical scale, as far as it is practicable to individuals, in the management of the voice, is the natural range of pitch for the utterance of ecstatic and rapturous or uncontrollable emotion. It belongs, accordingly, to high-wrought lyric and dramatic passages, in strains of joy, grief, astonishment, delight, tenderness, and the hysterical extremes of passionate emotion generally.

As the appropriate utterance of excessive feeling, the “extremely high pitch" is not so important for the general purposes of elocuPassages requiring this mode of expression must obviously be of comparatively rare occurrence. It is not less true, however, that the peculiar beauty, or power, or natural effect, of a strain of poetry, may depend, for its true expression, on the command which the reader or reciter possesses over this element of voice. It is equally certain that practice and discipline on the uppermost notes of the scale, give the voice great pliancy, on the range immediately below; and that the frequent repetition of the highest note which the student can command, is one of the most efficacious means of imparting firm, clear, and wellcompacted tone.

tion, as the "middle or the " high."

The following examples, together with the elements and selected words, should be repeated, as daily exercises, for the purpose of training the organs to easy execution on high notes.

[SONG OF THE VALKYRIUR, OR FATAL SISTERS, TO THE DOOMED WARRIOR.]-Mrs. Hemans.

("Expulsive Orotund :" "Sustained" force of calling and shouting: "Median stress.")

"Lo! the mighty sun looks forth!—

Arm thou leader of the north!