RULE IV. Interrogative sentences, and clauses commencing with verbs, require the rising inflection; as,

Are you cóming? Is the wind blowing? Is the rain falling ? Have you recovered your health?

Can a man take fire into his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt?

All questions which may be answered by yes or no come under this rule. In all such cases, an answer is demanded or expected, and the sense is consequently, for the time, interrupted or suspended; and where the sense is incomplete or suspended, the rising inflection should be used.

RULE V. Interrogative sentences, and clauses commencing with pronouns or adverbs, require the falling inflection; as, Why stand ye here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?

Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, this inward horror
Of falling into nòught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?

Questions which cannot be answered by yes or no come under this rule. In such cases, the pronoun or adverb is the emphatic word, which accounts for the change of the inflection.

When questions are followed by answers, the question should be uttered in a high tone of voice, and, after a suitable pause, the answer should be read in a low and firm tone.

INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES.

You have obliged a man: very well! what would you have more? Is not the consciousness of doing good a sufficient reward?

Is there any one who will seriously maintain, that the taste of a Hottentot or a Laplander is as delicate and as correct as that of a Longinus or an Addison? or, that he can be charged with no defect or incapacity, who thinks a common newswriter as excellent an historian as Tacitus?

What shadow can be more vain than the life of a great part of mankind? Of all that eager and bustling crowd we behold on earth, how few discover the path of true happiness! How few can we find, whose activity has not been misemployed, and whose course terminates not in confessions of disappointments!

Can the soldier, when he girdeth on his armor, boast like him that putteth it off? Can the merchant predict that the speculation, on which he has entered, will be infallibly crowned with success? Can even the husbandman, who has the promise of God that seed-time and harvest shall not fail, look forward with assured confidence to the expected increase of his fields? In those, and in all similar cases, our resolution to act can be founded on probability alone.

Suppose a youth to have no prospect either of sitting in congress, of pleading at the bar, or in the pulpit; does it follow, that he need bestow no pains in learning to speak properly his native language? Will he never have occasion to read, in a company of his friends, a copy of verses, a passage of a book or newspaper? Must he never read a discourse of Tillotson, or a chapter of the Whole Duty of Man, for the instruction of his children and servants? Cicero justly observes, that address in speaking is highly ornamental, as well as useful, even in private life. The limbs are parts of the body much less noble than the tongue; yet no gentleman grudges a considerable expense of time and money to have his son taught to use them properly; which is very commendable. And is there no attention to be paid to the use of the tongue, the glory of man?

Are you desirous that your talents and abilities may procure you respect? Display them not ostentatiously to public view. Would you escape the envy which your riches might excite? Let them not minister to pride, but adorn them with humility. There is not an evil incident to human nature for which the gospel doth not provide a remedy. Are you ignorant of many things which it highly concerns you to know? The gospel offers you instruction. Have you deviated from the path of duty? The gospel offers you forgiveness. Do temptations surround you? The gospel offers you the aid of Heaven. Are you exposed to misery? It consoles you. Are you subject to death? It offers you immortality.

Life is short and uncertain: we have not a moment to lose. Is it prudent to throw away any of our time in tormenting ourselves or

others, when we have so little for honest pleasures? Forgetting our weakness, we stir up mighty enmities, and fly to wound as if we were invulnerable. Wherefore all this bustle and noise? The best use of a short life is, to make it agreeable to ourselves and to others. Have you cause of quarrel with your servant, your master, your king, your neighbor? Forbear a moment; death is at hand, which makes all equal. What has man to do with wars, tumults, ambushes? You would destroy your enemy? You lose your trouble; death will do all your business while you are at rest. And, after all, when you have had your revenge, how short will be your joy or his pain! While we are among men, let us cultivate humanity: let us not be the cause of fear or of pain to one another. Let us despise injury, malice, and detraction; and bear with an equal mind such transitory evils. While we speak, while we think, death comes up, and closes the scene.

I hold it to be an unquestionable position, that they who duly appreciate the blessings of liberty, revolt as much from the idea of exercising, as from that of enduring, oppression. How far this was the case with the Romans, you may inquire of those nations that surrounded them. Ask them, "What insolent guard paraded before their gates, and invested their strongholds?" They will answer, "A Roman legionary." Demand of them, "What greedy extortioner fattened by their poverty, and clothed himself by their nakedness? They will inform you, "A Roman quæstor." Inquire of them, "What imperious stranger issued to them his mandates of imprisonment or confiscation, of banishment or death?" They will reply to you, "A Roman consul." Question them, "What haughty conqueror led through his city their nobles and kings in chains; and exhibited their countrymen, by thousands, in gladiators' shows for the amusement of his fellow-citizens?" They will tell you, "A Roman general." Require of them, "What tyrants imposed the heaviest yoke? enforced the most rigorous exactions? inflicted the most savage punishments? and showed the greatest gust for blood and torture?" They will exclaim to you, "The Roman people."

When will you, my countrymen, when will you rouse from your indolence, and bethink yourselves of what is to be done? When you are forced to it by some fatal disaster? When irresistible necessity drives you? What think you of the disgraces which are already come upon you? Is not the past sufficient to stimulate your activity? or do you wait for somewhat more forcible and urgent? How long

will you amuse yourselves with inquiring of one another after news, as you ramble idly about the streets? What news so strange ever came to Athens, as that a Macedonian should subdue this state and lord it over Greece?

To purchase heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life, can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No. All that's worth a wish or thought
Fair virtue gives- unbribed, unbought.

Who taught the natives of the fields and wood
To shun their poison and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,
Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore
Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before
Who calls the council, states the certain day?
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

Wronged in my love, all proffers I disdain;
Deceived for once, I trust not kings again.
You have my answer: what remains to do,
Your king, Ulysses, may consult with you.
What needs he the defence this arm can make ?
Has he not walls no human force can shake?
Has he not fenced his guarded navy round
With piles, with ramparts, and a trench profound?
And will not these, the wonders he has done,
Repel the rage of Priam's single son?

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine ?

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume,
Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in their bloom;

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;
Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie,

And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
"Tis the clime of the East- 'tis the land of the Sun

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?
O, wild as the accents of lovers' farewell

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

'Tis done: dread winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends

His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!

See here thy pictured life; pass some few years,
Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding winter comes at last,

And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled

Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes

Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy, bustling days?

Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?
All now are banished! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man,

His guide to happiness on high.

RULE VI. When a question consists of two contrasted parts, connected by the conjunction or, used in a disjunctive sense, the first has the rising, and the second the falling, inflection; as,

Will you gó or stày? The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?

Will such a law tend to degráde, or to èlevate, the human mind?

RULE VII. A question which admits of the answer yes, or no, has the rising, and the answer has the falling, inflection; as,