All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head;
Steeped me in poverty to the very lips :

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some part of my soul
A drop of patience: but alas ! to make me
A fixed figure for the hand of Scorn
To point his slow, unmoving finger at
Yet I could bear that too well-
very well;
But there where I have garnered up my heart,
Where either I must live or bear no life ;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up, to be discarded thence!

MODULATION OF THE VOICE.

AFTER a perfect idea is attained of the pause, emphasis, and inflection, with which we ought to pronounce every word, sentence, interrogation, climax, and different figure of speech, it is necessary to become acquainted with the power, variety, and extent of the instrument through which we convey this idea to others; for unless the voice be in a proper pitch, whatever we pronounce will be feeble and unnatural; as it is only in a certain pitch that we can command the greatest variety of tones, so as to utter them with energy and ease.

Every one has a certain pitch of voice, which is most easy to himself, and most agreeable to others; this may be called the NATURAL PITCH: this is the pitch in which we converse; and this must be the basis of every advantage which we acquire from art and exercise for such is the force of exercise upon the organs of speech, as well as every other organ of the human body, that constant practice will strengthen the voice in any key to which we accustom it, even though this happen not to be the most natural and easy at first.

As constant exercise is of such importance in strengthening the voice, care should be taken that we exercise it where it has naturally the greatest power and variety, viz., on the MIDDLE TONE; the tone we habitually make use of, when we speak to persons at a moderate distance; for if we call out to one who is so far off as to be almost out of hearing, we naturally raise our voice to a higher key, as well as swell it upon that key to a much greater degree of loudness; so, on the contrary, if we wish to be heard only by a single person in company, we naturally let our voice fall into a low key, and abate the force of it, so as to keep it from being heard by any but the person to whom we are speaking.

In this situation nature dictates what is necessary. But the situation of the public speaker is a situation of art; he not only wishes to be heard, but to be heard with energy and ease; for this purpose, his voice must be powerful in that key which is easiest to him, in that into which he will most naturally fall, and which he will certainly have the most frequent occasion to use; and this is the middle tone.

But before we enter farther on this subject, it seems absolutely necessary to correct a very common mistake with respect to the voice, which may lead to an incurable error; and that is, the confounding of high and low with loud and

These plain differences are as often jumbled together as accent and quantity, though with much worse consequences.

Those who understand but little of music, know that high and loud, and soft and low, are by no means necessarily connected; and that we may be very soft in a high note, and very loud in a low one; just as a smart stroke on a bell may have exactly the same note as a slight one, though it is considerably louder. But to explain this difference to those who are unacquainted with music, we may say, that a HIGH TONE is that which we naturally assume when we wish to be heard at a distance, as the same degree of force is more audible in a high,

than in a low tone, from the acuteness of the former, and the gravity of the latter; and that a LOW TONE is that which we naturally assume when we are speaking to a person at a small distance, and wish not to be heard by others; as a low tone with the same force is less audible than a high one. If, therefore, we raise our voice to the pitch we should naturally use if we were calling to a person at a great distance, and at the same time exert so small a degree of force as to be heard only by a person who is near us, we shall have an example of a high note in a soft tone; and, on the contrary, if we suppose ourselves speaking to a person at a small distance, and wish to be heard by those who are at a greater, in this situation we shall naturally sink the voice into a low note, and throw just as much force or loudness into it as is necessary to make it audible to the persons at a distance. This is exactly the manner in which actors utter the speeches that are spoken aside. The low tone conveys the idea of speaking to a person near us, and the loud tone enables us to convey this idea to a distance. By this experiment we perceive that high and loud, and soft and low, though most frequently associated, are essentially distinct from each other.

ous.

Such, however, is the nature of the human voice, that to begin in the extremes of high and low is not equally dangerThe voice naturally slides into a higher tone, when we wish to speak louder, but not so easily into a lower tone, when we would speak more softly. Experience shows us, that we can raise our voice at pleasure to any pitch of which it is capable; but the same experience tells us, that it requires very great art and practice to bring the voice to a lower key when it is once raised too high. It ought, therefore, to be a first principle with all public readers and speakers, rather to begin under the common level of their voice than above it. The attention of an auditory, at the commencement of a lecture or oration, makes the softest accents of the speaker audible, at the same time that it affords a happy occasion for introducing

a variety of voice, without which every address must soon tire. A repetition of the same subject a thousand times over, is not more tiresome to the understanding, than a monotonous delivery of the most varied subject to the ear. Poets, to produce variety, alter the structure of their verse, and rather hazard uncouthness and discord than sameness. Prose writers change the style, turn, and structure of their periods, and sometimes throw in exclamations, and sometimes interrogations, to rouse and keep alive the attention; but all this art is entirely thrown away, if the reader does not enter into the spirit of his author, and, by a similar kind of genius, render even variety itself more various; if he does not, by an alteration in his voice, manner, tone, gesture, loudness, softness, quickness, slowness, adopt every change of which the subject is susceptible.

Nothing but good articulation will make a speaker audible in any situation, and a judicious attention to that tone of voice which is most suitable to the size and imperfections of the place. If the place we speak in be but small, it will be scarcely necessary to observe that the loudness of the voice should be in proportion. Those who have not ears sufficiently delicate to discern the true quantity of sound necessary to fill the place they speak in, ought to take every possible method to acquire so essential a qualification.

Walker's Elements of Elocution.

TONES OF THE VOICE.

Ir now remains to say something of those tones which mark the passions and emotions of the speaker. These are entirely independent of the modulation of the voice, though often confounded with it for modulation relates only to speaking loudly or softly, in a high or a low key; while the tones of either

:

the passions or emotions mean only that quality of sound that indicates the feelings of the speaker, without any reference to the pitch or loudness of his voice; and it is in being easily susceptible of every passion and emotion that presents itself, and being able to express them with that peculiar quality of sound which belongs to them, that the great art of reading and speaking consists.

Tones expressive of sorrow, lamentation, mirth, joy, hatred, anger, love, pity, &c., are the same in all nations.* They are the language of Nature, the expression of the feelings of the heart, and, whether accompanied by words or uttered by inarticulate sounds—by sighs and murmurings, in love; sobs, groans, and cries, in grief; or shrieks, in terror-they are always nicely proportioned to the degrees of the inward emotions of the individual, and are universally understood. If, therefore, we would use the proper tones in reading, we must

UNDERSTAND WHAT WEe read, and FEEL WHAT WE EXPRess.

The following extracts, illustrative of the passions, will furnish exercises upon modulation and the tones of the voice.

CHEERFULNESS.

Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference; as the icy fang,

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
This is no flattery; these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in its head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunts,

*See Sheridan's Lecture on Tones.