Nor circled with the vengeful band

(As by the impious thou art seen),

With thundering voice, and threatening mien. With screaming Horror's funeral cry,

Despair, and fell disease, and ghastly poverty.

VI. The plaintive and poetical.

O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Poor youth! the cares of the world have

come early upon him,

FORCE OR QUALITY.

Force or Quality, the fifth accident of speech, is the loudness or softness with which spoken sounds are uttered.

It is possible that we may be very soft in a high note, and very loud in a low one; so that, high and low must not be confounded with loud and soft. The quality of spoken sounds must be also distinguished by their weight.

Motion and sound, in all their modifications, are, in descriptive reading, more or less imitated. To glide, to drive, to swell, to flow, to skip, to whirl,

to turn, to rattle, &c., all partake of a peculiar modification of voice. This expression chiefly depends on the loudness or softness, quickness or slowness of the tones, and the forcible pronunciation of certain letters which are supposed more particularly to express the imitation. Thus :

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers

flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent

roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to

throw,

The line, too, labours, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along
the main.

The following is an example of laborious motion: Up the high hill he heaved a huge round stone. Regular movement.

First march the heavy mules securely slow, O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.

Swell of the voice in the sublime.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll,
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.

Vehement and choking passion with determined courage.

Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.

The following is a beautiful example of the gradual increase of softness.

How the sweet moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sound of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Besides the four modifications of voice, viz., loud and soft, high and low, there are four others, viz., quick and slow, forcible and feeble. Forcible and feeble are qualities of voice which are compounded of the other simple states, that is, force is loudness and quickness, either in a high or a low tone; and feebleness is softness and slowness, either in a high or a low tone also.

The different combinations of these states may be thus represented:—

With respect to forcible and feeble, as well as to

loud and soft, there is often an increase or dimi

VOL. I.

F

nution of the quality towards the close of the passage.

PRESERVATION, IMPROVEMENT, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE.

Preservation of the Voice. Many rules have been given, both by ancient and modern writers, for the preservation of the voice, among which are the following:

1st. Temperance in all things should be observed. 2nd. The voice should not be exerted after a full meal.

3rd. It should not be exerted beyond its strength, nor kept too long in the same pitch,

4th. When the voice breaks in youth, no violent exertion should be used. It should rather be spared until it acquires strength and firmness.

5th. One should abstain from everything prejudicial to the voice, in eating or drinking, such as butter, nuts, oranges, and acid liquors; also from cold drinks and dry fruits, considered as injurious by the ancients.

Many things, however, are found serviceable to the voice, as warm mucilaginous and diluting drinks in case of dryness of the fauces or slight hoarseness, barley water, tea, preparations of sugar, and lozenges; a raw egg beat up is considered the best thing for immediately clearing the voice, The ancients made use of warm baths

and the exercise of walking. The Phonasci used a plasma or gargle, probably made of mulled or medicated wine. They confined themselves to a vegetable diet, and particularly valued, for their virtues, onions, leeks, and garlic.

Improvement of the Voice.-The first and great means of improving the voice is constant and daily practice, beginning from the lowest tones, and gradually ascending to the highest, and then again descending gradually to the lowest. Bodily exercise is another great means of strengthening and thus improving the voice. The best time for exercising it is early in the morning, soon after rising from sleep, and before breakfast. For this exercise, a large room is better than a small one, the open air better still, and the sea beach better than all. Wherever the voice is practised, the

* "The laborious profession of the stage," says Mr. Hill, "brings into my remembrance a great and general mistake among the players, at rehearsal, where it is their common practice to mutter over their parts inwardly, and keep in their voices with a misimagined purpose of preserving them against their evening acting, whereas the surest natural means of strengthening their delivery, would be to warm, dephlegm, and clarify the thorax and windpipe, by exerting (the more frequently the better) their fullest power of utterance; thereby to open and remove all hesitation, roughness, or obstruction, and to tune their voices, by effect of such continual exercise, into habitual mellowness, and ease of compass and inflection, just from the same reason that an active body is more strong and healthy than a sedentary one."-Art of Acting.