entrance of Speech, they would have shut-out their hearing from what yet remained within the secrecy of nature: since, with very little further, observation of the simple concrete, they would have perceived that important subdivision of its structure, which we have described as the Radical and Vanish. However this may have been, neither the Greeks nor the Romans, although apparently writing all they knew on the nature and practical uses of the concrete accent, have left the least record of their opinions, their expectations, or their hopes on this subject, beyond the restricted limit of what they already knew. Yet interesting as this fact of the Concrete is, and certain as it is, that they perceived it; it is equally true, they never added to the first and simple idea of this accentual slide, the smallest item of discriminative analysis. The earlier grammarians and commentators of the Alexandrian, and of subsequent schools, in discussing the subject of Greek accent, never extended their ideas beyond the indefinite opinions of ancient writers; while still later authors and teachers, with the determined faith and worship of classical scholarship, believing it was not done by the Greeks, because it really could not be done at all, have at last united in a general persuasion, nay conviction, that any further discovery is impossible.*

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* As Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in his treatise On the Arrangement of Words,' has recorded more of the nature and practical uses of this accent or inflection, than any other Greek or Roman writer, I shall, in order to show how limited and indefinite he is, give from his eleventh section, an extract of all he says on this point; and shall insert in its course some explanatory parenthetic remarks.

There is in oratorical discourse, a kind of Tune, differing from that of Song, and (from the melody) of Music, only in degree, but not in nature or quality.' (We suppose he means that each employs intervals, but speech fewer, and these, of less extent.) Immediately, following-up the idea, he adds: There is in oratorical discourse, the like tune, that charms the ear; the like rythmus, that sustains the voice; the like variety that excites attention; and a like conformity of the whole to its purpose; the only difference being in the more and the less.' (That is, in the number and extent of the intervals.) In oratorical discourse the tune of the voice is restricted to the interval of a Fifth, or thereabouts. That is, it does not vary beyond three tones and a half, (these being the constituents of a Fifth) whether in an upward or downward direction. It is not to be under

If then we have, by any means come to a perception of the nature and uses of the voice, let us endeavor to apply it.

There is, in our first section, a compendious view of the various forms of Pitch, taken in succession, from the minute interval of the tremulous scale, through wider ranges, to the octave, both in their upward and downward direction, together with their union into various forms of the wave. The greater part of these forms, as with those, of Quality, and Time, are employed in the expression of feeling and passion: and but a small part for declaring a simple idea, or for what we called Narrative. It is therefore my design to show how these different

stood that all the words of discourse are to be pronounced with the same accent, (inflection or concrete): for one is to have an acute, (rising) another, a grave (falling) accent, and another, to have both: (that is, the acute, joined in continuation with the grave, on the same syllable) which is called the Circumflex. Again, some words have the acute, and the grave, separately heard on different syllables. In dissyllables, there is no middle place for applying an acute or grave. (Merely a truism, for where there is no middle syllable there can be no middle accent). In poly-syllables of every kind, one of the syllables has the acute accent, and the rest the grave.' 'The tune (say intonation) of instruments and of song, is by no means limited, as in speech, to this interval of the Fifth; but runs through the octave, fifth, fourth, second, semitone, and according to some, the quarter tone.'

Here is all Dionysius says, on what we have been taught to think the profound knowledge and skill of the Greeks, in the philosophy and practice of this singing, - or as we should now call it, intonation-in speech. But we find, that this only attempt to describe, particularly, the melody of Grecian discourse, is directly connected with an equally obscure, and disputed subject, the Accentual stress on syllables; which certainly could not have been the case, had any of the numerous authors on this subject have had the least idea of the natural and comprehensive system of intonation. Indeed the account by Dionysius, and by all the writers on rhetoric and music, seems to have been given only in reference to some vague, and as we must now consider it, absurd notion of the acute, grave, and circumflex accent or inflection, being invariably applied to certain syllables, both when pronounced alone, and in the current of discourse. It would be wrong, to say, Dionysius, and his Grecians did not know their own opinions about the voice: but I must think, a student of nature, in this case will say,they knew almost nothing of its reality. When an error is measured by itself, as happens with systems raised upon authority or fancy, all that is defective, distorted, or superfluous, comes out in perfect accord with its own rule. It is a comparison with the rule of observation, which is found only in nature, that shows its deformity.

purposes of pitch, are applied for declaring these several condi

tions of the mind.

Man is so generally, merely an animal of fierce desires and passions, and so rarely a being of observation and reflection, that we must not be surprised to find the greater number of his vocal signs, expressive of this ardent and predominating complexion of his character. Thus of all the upward and downward intervals of the scale, and all the waves, in their direct and inverted, equal and unequal, single and double forms, there is but one which is not so employed. The simple rise and fall of the second, and perhaps its wave, when used for plain narrative, or for the mere statement of an unexcited idea, is the only intonated voice of man that does not spring from a passionate, or in some degree, an earnest condition of his mind. If we listen to his ignorance, doubt, selfishness, arrogance, and injustice, we hear the vivid forms of vocal expression, proceeding from these, and related passions. Thus we have the rising intervals of the third, fifth, and octave, for interrogatives, not of wisdom but of envious curiosity; the downward third, fifth, and octave, for dogmatic, or tyrannical command; waves for the surprise of ignorance, the snarling of ill-humor, and the curling voice, along with the curling lip of contempt; the piercing hight of pitch, for the scream of terror; the semitone, for the peevish whine of discontent, and for the puling cant of the hypocrite and the knave, who cover, beneath the voice of kindness, the designs of their craft. Then listen to him on those rare occasions, when he forgets himself and his passions, and has to utter a simple idea, or plainly to narrate; and you will hear the second, the least obstrusive interval of the scale, in the admirable harmony of nature, made the simple sign of the unexcited sentiment of her wisdom and truth. In short, man as an Individual, is in his forms of intonation, only the type of an eternal National Character,- always prone to be vividly expressive of its vain-glory, and its contempt of others; unjustly aggressive in its high-toned assumptions and imperative threats; with the piercing and prevailing cry of war, from within and from without, and only

occasionally resting in the quiet voice of moral and intellectual peace, with the Temple of Janus shut.

In describing the radical and vanish, the simple interval of the second was represented as an individual function, under its form of the equable concrete, on a simple tonic element. We will consider in the next section, its application to successive syllables and words, in sentences of continuous speech. This continuous speech, thus formed by the simple second, cannot from the character of that second, have what we call expression. It may therefore seem that nature has designed continuous speech in the second, to be a plain and colorless ground, for the contrasted display of the vivid voice of wider expressive intervals, applied to occasional syllables in its course. And here the reader may perceive one reason for our proposed distinction between the non-expressive, so to call it, and the expressive character of the constituents of speech. It was formerly stated that the notes of the musical scale, under a certain order of succession, constitute the melody of song; and we now have to show how the concrete and discrete intervals of the speaking scale constitute, under a similarity of term, the Melody of Speech.

Since I am about to represent that continuous melody of a second, or tone, as the ground upon which the purposes of other intervals, and of other constituents of speech are to be distributed, I must beg the student to give his deliberate attention. to the subject.

The succession of syllables in plain narrative, or description, being through the intervals of a concrete and discrete tone, the melody is specified as Diatonic.

SECTION VIII.

Of the Diatonic Melody of Speech; together with an inquiry how far the Musical terms, Key and Modulation, are applicable to it.

WHEN the nature of the radical and vanishing movement was described, it was regarded individually, or as applied to a single syllable. But as speech consists for the most part, of a series of syllables, on each of which some form of the concrete instinctively occurs, it is necessary to consider the use and relationships of the radical and vanish, in its repeated application to the successive syllables of discourse.

In plain Narrative or Description, the concrete of each syllable is made through the interval of a tone: and the successive concretes have a difference in the place of their pitch, relatively to each other. The application of these concretes to syllables, and the manner of varying the succession of their pitch, are exemplified on the following sentence.

If these lines and the included spaces be supposed, each in proximate order to denote the difference of a tone in pitch, the succession of the several radicals, with their issuing vanish, will show the places of the syllables of the superscribed sentence,