walk before we run. But Intonation is so connected with, and necessary to the reading and delivery of verse and poetic language, that it is now a proper time and place to introduce some observations on

POETICAL ELOCUTION.

It is first to be observed, that the general style of reading or reciting verse and poetic language, should be higher and more exalted than that of prose: for poetry is a more exalted style of composition than prose; and the elocution must keep pace with the subject or matter. The voice must flow more softly; must undulate gently, and not jump or jerk on the inflections; so that the verse may run smoothly and without jar upon the ear. Intonation must be particularly attended to in poetical delivery; so that the music of the voice being fully brought out, it may aid and give echo to the music of the language.

This style I call the imaginative style of Elocution: because it is the style to be adopted in the delivery of all imaginative composition, whether in prose or verse. For, I need not remark that there is poetical prose, which must be delivered in the imaginative or poetical style; and we all painfully know that there is poetry-or rather verse-so irredeemably prosaic, that no reading or Elocution could possibly invest it with the attributes of poetry: the best way is not to read it at all.

As an example of poetic prose, take the following

EXTRACT FROM OSSIAN.

As Autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, so to

ward each other approached the heroes. As two dark streams from high rocks meet and mix, and roar on the plain; loud, rough and dark, in battle met Lochlin and Innisfail; chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man. Steel clanging sounded on steel. Helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle. The groan of the people spreads over the hills. It was like the thunder of night when the cloud bursts on Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind.

Such language as this must not be delivered as common prose; but the speaker's Elocution must be swelling, exalted, dignified; in fine, elevated to the level of the composition. In the same manner, in the delivery of any figurative passage in an ordinary discourse or oration,-where the orator, borne aloft on the wings of his imagination, quits the common track of language and soars in the regions of fancy,-the Elocution must also rise, and sustain a flight equal in loftiness and ambition to the elevation of the orator's diction and style. As in the following

EXTRACT FROM BURKE.*

In the course of all this proceeding, your lordships will not fail to observe, he is never corrupt but he is cruel: he never dines with comfort, but where he is sure to create a famine. He never robs from the loose superfluity of standing greatness; he devours the fallen, the indigent, the necessitous. His extortion is not like the generous rapacity of the princely eagle, who snatches away the living, struggling prey; he is a vulture who feeds upon the prostrate, the dying and the dead. As his cru

* Impeachment of Warren Hastings.

elty is more shocking than his corruption, so his hypocrisy has something more frightful than his cruelty. For whilst his bloody and rapacious hand signs proscriptions, and sweeps away the food of the widow and the orphan, his eyes overflow with tears; and he converts the healing balm, that bleeds from wounded humanity, into a rancorous and deadly poison to the race of

man.

Every one feels how much this passage rises above the ordinary diction of prose,-that it is, in fact, a flight of oratory. The Elocution must keep pace with it; that is, the imaginative style must be adopted.

One of the main characteristics of this lofty style is what is called the orotund voice; that is, that full and swelling tone which is produced by the same organic form and action of the mouth as are necessary perfectly to enunciate the tonic o, as in o-ld, as in o-ld, c-o-l-d, &c. To utter this tonic perfectly, the mouth is kept in a rotund form, and the tone produced is called orotund (ore rotundo.) By carefully reading the following lines, with particular attention to the enunciation of the tonic o, and swelling the voice upon it, the pupil will attain a clear perception of the orotund voice.

7

Oh holy Hope that flows thro' all my soul!

From pole to pole the deep-toned thunders roll.

Low hollow moans proclaim his deep-souled woe.

7

Now, the form of the mouth in uttering these lines, must, from the prevalence of the tonic o, be rotund ; and the quality of voice must be orotund.

The art is

to be able to preserve that quality of voice in other passages in which that tonic sound of o does not prevail; but which, nevertheless, require, and are capable of receiving, on the tonics which they do contain, the full swelling tone of the oro-tund, as in the following

PRACTICE ON OROTUND.

And all the clouds that lower'd upon our house,

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

All are but parts of one harmonious whole,

Whose body nature is and God the soul!

Shaks.

Pope.

སྐ

With woful measures, wan Despair,

Low sullen sounds, his grief beguiled.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself

Collins.

Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;

But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth

Unhurt amidst the war of elements

The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.

Addison.

To Scriptural reading, and prayer, the orotund is most appropriate; for its full swelling tone lends depth and solemnity to the delivery, and is strongly expressive of reverential feeling. The acquisition and command of the orotund, therefore, is essential to the

The

clergyman, whose voice is required to fill a large building, not only so as to be audible, but with a deep and solemn effect that shall secure the attention, respect and sympathy of his auditors. The figurative and sublime language of the Old Testament must not be uttered, (as it too frequently is,) in the familiar and undignified tone in which we would deliver an ordinary lecture, or make a statement of finance; and even the beautiful simplicity of the New Testament must not be vulgarised and degraded to the familiar tone of common-place conversation or narration. dignity of his subject, his office, its high aim, the place, the occasion, all demand from the clergyman, dignity of style and manner; and the orotund voice, with its full swelling stream of sound, is the one adapted to that end. It should, therefore, be a great and constant object of the clergyman to educate his voice and utterance upon this point. More than these few hints on Scriptural reading I cannot give here; it is a style of itself, which requires considerable practice, and cultivation of voice, so as to avoid, on the one hand, meanness, and familiarity in aiming at simplicity; and on the other, to escape bombast and turgidity, while aspiring to dignity and power.

READING OF VERSE.

In

The previous observations apply to the general style of poetical Elocution, whether in prose or verse. the reading of verse, we must, moreover, be careful to preserve RHYTHм and MELODY.

G*