The tones which indicate the various kinds of thought and feeling, are familiar to all. We all are alive to the softened tone of affection, and to the harsh tone of severity. We have a tone for cheerfulness and joy, for sorrow and grief, for anger and rage, for fear and terror, reverence and awe, and for almost every thing we feel. Tones have been justly called the language of nature: the true language of the passions. It is the first understood by children; and even in the absence of words, it is the quickest to waken sensibility, and impel to action. Words may be chosen and arranged ever so skilfully, and expressed ever so well in other respects; yet, if not expressed in nature's proper tones, they are sure to come short of their intended effect. Hence many a well written discourse comes powerless from the lips of the speaker, mainly from this defect in his delivery.

In our colloquial habits, we are all very sure to give the right tones of meaning, though we may not always hit upon the right words; but the moment we attempt the language of another, or even our own from manuscript, we are almost as certain to give it an artificial affected air. So difficult it is to throw the same vivid freshness into language already prepared, as we do into that which is formed at the time of utterance.

Pitch or key-in the language of music-is that particular note in the scale whence all the other notes proceed. The principal key notes are generally reckoned three-the high, the middle, and the low key.

We use the high key in calling to a person at a distance; the middle, in ordinary conversation; the low, when we wish no one to hear except the person to whom

we speak or it is that deep grave undertone which is sometimes used in the solemn parts of a public discourse.

The middle one, we should adopt in public; because it is a point from which we may have the broadest scope to rise and fall as the case may require; and in this key the organs of the voice are stronger and more pliable from constant use; and we can also with greater ease to ourselves, speak louder or softer, in accordance with the space we have to fill, or the sentiments we wish to enforce; and we can the better shift it to the highest, or lowest, or any intermediate pitch we choose. It may be well to interpose a caution here, lest high be considered the same as loud, or low the same as soft. We can speak louder and softer, and still continue the same pitch or key; but we cannot speak higher or lower without shifting the key.

Quantity, it has already been observed, is the term applied to the utterance of long and short syllables; as paper, caper, letter, better. When applied to language, long quantity is an increased swell and fulness of the words; and is of course a slower movement: short quantity is just the reverse or the one consists of a full and slow, the other, a short and quick utterance.

Long quantity is used in dignified and deliberate discourse to express reverence and awe, doubt, grief or despondence, or where great precision is required.

Short quantity is used to express gayety, sprightliness, eager argument, impatience, confidence and courage; or to separate as in parenthetic clauses, the less important from the more important parts of a discourse.

Rate of utterance is so similar to quantity, as just

explained, that I think any farther notice of it is unnecessary.

The following extract from the parable of "The Prodigal Son," if read properly, will show in some degree what is meant by long and short quantity.

"And the son said unto him; (lq) Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

(sq) "But the father said unto his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring forth the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

The Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, and most parts of the Bible afford good examples of long quantity. (lq) "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."

(lq) “Then Jesus answering, said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me."

The other modifications which are of any importance to notice here, are plaintiveness, tremor, increase, decrease, explosive force, suppressed force; and the qualities of the voice, called the orotund, the smooth, the harsh, the aspirated, the guttural, and the pectoral. What they are may be sufficiently inferred from their

names; they need little else than suitable examples of illustration to make them clearly understood; and their initials furnish the best annotations.

The orotund is derived from the phrase, "ore rotundo," with a round mouth; or with a full, clear and distinct articulation. Pectoral is from pectus the chest: in the utterance of deep emotion, we draw or heave the voice from the bottom of the chest. Guttural is from guttur, the throat: aspirated is from aspiro, to breathe forcibly; and tremor is the same in Latin as in English, and means a trembling or shaking. For using all these modifications of the voice properly, no certain reliance can be placed upon any thing but the proper feeling and good sense of the scholar. Some of them belong almost exclusively to the drama; and the employment of them any where else, except in a faint degree, would be thought rather theatrical.

Let any one read the following words of Joseph to his brethren, in tones as soft and tender as the scene was affecting, and he will give a good illustration of plaintiveness. "I am Joseph: does my father yet live?" Or let him read, with the true touch of nature, Eve's lament in Milton's Paradise Lost:

"O unexpected stroke, worse than of death!
Must I then leave thee, Paradise ? "

Or the last line from the Sailor Boy's Dream, carrying
up
the three first divisions high and soft with increasing
movement, and bringing down the three last low and
soft with decreasing, and he will give a tolerably good
illustration of plaintiveness, increase and decrease:

"O sailor boy, sailor boy! peace | to thy soul." Or the lines from Wordsworth's Shepherd Girl, with a shake, or tremulous movement on lovely and pair, and he will somewhat illustrate the tremor; the rest will afford a fair example of short quantity:

""Twas little Barbary Lethwaite, a child of beauty rare; I watched them with delight: they were a (t)lovely (t)pair."

Or the following line from Marullus's speech, with a shake, and full swell of voice, and he will illustrate the tremor and long quantity:

“(t)O, you (t)hard (t)hearts, you (t)cruel men of

Rome!"

Or let him read the stanza from the Destruction of Sennacherib's Host, with voice depressed almost to a whisper, and nearly guttural and monotonous, but full, and heaved up from the lowest part of the chest, and he will illustrate in some degree the aspirate:

"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still."

Speak the two lines from "Marmion taking leave of Douglas," high and loud, with short, quick, percussive force, much like the exploding of crackers, or the crack of a pistol, and you will show a very good example of explosive force, and high and loud:

"Up drawbridge, grooms !—what, warder, ho!
Let the portcullis fall."