In this example the word pure must have the falling inflexion, whether we make any pause at it or not, as this is the inflexion the word would have if the sentence were pronounced prosaically. For the same reason the words retir'd and went, in the following example, must be pronounced with the rising inflexion.

At his command th' uprooted hills retir'd

Each to his place; they heard his voice, and went
Obsequious; Heav'n his wonted face renew'd,

And with fresh flow'rets hills and valleys smil'd. Milton. RULE VIII. Sublime, grand, and magnificent description in poetry requires a lower tone of voice, and a sameness nearly approaching to a

monotone.

This rule will surprise many, who have always been taught to look upon a monotone, or sameness of voice, as a deformity in reading. A deformity it certainly is, when it arises either from a want of power to alter the voice, or a want of judgment to introduce it properly; but presume it may be with confidence affirmed, that when it is introduced with propriety, it is one of the greatest embellishments of poetic pronunciation.

I

EXAMPLE.

And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world,
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God:
All this dread order break!-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-oh madness! pride! impiety!

Pope.

The series of grand images which commences at the fifth line fills the mind with surprise

approaching to astonishment. As this passion has a tendency to fix the body, and deprive it of motion, so it is best expressed in speaking by a deep and almost uniform tone of voice: the tone indeed may have a small slide upwards at sky, world, and God, but the words fly, hurl'd, and nod, require exactly the same monotonous sound with which the rest of the line must be pronounced.

.

What has been just observed in the last Lesson leads us to another rule in reading verse, which, though subject to exceptions, is sufficiently general to be of considerable use,

RULE IX. When the first line of a couplet does not form perfect sense, it is necessary to suspend the voice at the end of the line with the rising slide.

EXAMPLE.

Far as creation's ample range exténds,

The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends.
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial ráce,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass.

Pope.

This rule holds good even where the first line forms perfect sense by itself, and is followed by another forming perfect sense likewise, provided the first line does not end with an emphatic word which requires the falling slide.

EXAMPLE.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.

All nature is but art unknown to thée,

All chance, direction which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood,

All partial evil, universal good:

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spíte,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Pope.

In all these couplets, except the last, the first line forms perfect sense by itself, but the variety

and harmony of the verse require they should be all equally read with the rising slide on the last word. But if the first line ends with an emphatical word requiring the falling slide, this slide must be given to it, but in a higher tone of voice than the same slide in the last line of the couplet.

EXAMPLE.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

But where th' extreme of vice was ne'er agreed;
Ask where's the north, at York 'tis on the Tweed:
No creature owns it in the first degree,
But thinks his neighbour further gone
than he.
E'en those who dwell beneath its very zone,
Or never feel the rage, or never own;
What happier natives shrink at with affright
The hard inhabitant contends is right.

Pope.

In the first line of the last couplet but one, the word zone is emphatical, and requires the falling slide; but this slide must not be in so low a tone. as it is in the last word of the next line.

But when the first line of a couplet does not form sense, and the second line, either from its not forming sense, or from its being a question, requires the rising slide; in this case, the first line must end with such a pause as the sense requires, but without any alteration in the tone of the voice.

EXAMPLE.

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,

Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god.

Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end:
Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd-and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

In this passage the words restrain and clod ought to have no inflexion, and plains and god the rising.

In the same manner, if a question requires the second line of the couplet to adopt the rising slide, the first ought to have a pause at the end, but the voice, without any alteration, ought to carry on the same tone to the second line, and to continue this tone almost to the end.

EXAMPLE.

Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?
On air or sea new notions be impress'd,
O blameless Bethel, to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, while you go by?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?

In this passage the three first couplets are questions requiring the rising slide at the end, and must therefore have the first lines end with a sameness of voice, which sameness must begin each succeeding line, and continue till it approaches the end, which adopts the rising inflexion. The last couplet is of exactly the same form as the rest; but, as it ends a paragraph, it must, both for the sake of variety and harmony, have its first line end with the rising, and its last with the falling slide.

The same principles of harmony and variety induce us to read a triplet with a sameness of voice, or a monotone, on the end of the first line, the rising slide on the end of the second, and the falling on the last.

Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.

This rule, however, from the various sense of the triplet, is liable to many exceptions. But, with very few exceptions, it may be laid down as a rule that a quatrain, or stanza of four lines of alternate verse, may be read with the monotone ending the first line, the rising slide ending the second and third, and the falling the last.

EXAMPLE.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flow'r is born to blush_unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

On Blank Verse.

Gray's Elegy.

THE structure and punctuation of blank verse are vast sources of error and perplexity to young readers. Writers of blank verse affect to end the line without any pause, or with as small a pause as possible; and readers are too apt, where they see no pause at the end of the line, to run the lines together, without attending to such pauses as they would make in prose, for fear we should suppose they do not know how to read blank verse: this makes them frequently pronounce the words at the end of one line and the beginning of the next much more swiftly than any other part of the verse, to the utter ruin of the harmony for all verse requires a stated regular march of the syllables, and it is in this march the grandeur and beauty of the verse consists. In reading blank verse, therefore, care must be taken to steer between the one extreme of ending every line with a pause; and the other, of running one line into another more rapidly than if they were prose.