voice. For this is the pitch which admits of ascending or descending with the greatest ease; and the organs having more practice in this than any other, they are stronger, and can continue longer without being fatigued.

4th, The speaker must take great care not to run out of breath, which always occasions pain to the audience; except in the expression of some particular passions, and even then he must only seem to be deficient. The lungs should therefore always be inflated to a certain degree, that he may have a plentiful supply always at command.

5th, In rooms or places where the echo from its quick return disturbs the speaker, he must lessen the quantity of his voice till the echo ceases to be perceptible. When he is disturbed by the slowly returning echo, let him take care to be much slower and more distinct in his utterance than usual, and to make his pauses longer. He should attend to the returning sound, and not begin after a pause till the sound has ceased.

6th, In very large buildings, where the speaker has little more advantage than if he were in the open air, he must regulate his voice accordingly, and make it audible as far he can, without straining: in such situations, loudness is preferable to highness of voice.

7th, A speaker, to be well heard by his audience, must fill the place in which he speaks; he will discover that he has accomplished this by the return of his voice to his own ear.-In order to be well heard, distinctness of articulation is the first requisite.

8th, Every speaker should know the power and extent of his voice: of this he is enabled accurately to judge, by the degree of exertion necessary for him to fill a place of any particular size: and also by the degrees of attention in the most distant parts of his audience.

Examples of Modulation.

Low Key.

Son, said the hermit, let the errors and follies, the danger and escape of this day sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day; we rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour, and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with dili gence, and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervor, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolved never to touch. We then enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. There the heart softens and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to enquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure: we approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road to virtue, which for a while we keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees, we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and

wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example not to despair; but shall remember, that, though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errors; and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose; commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence; and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life.

Low and Loud.

The inflexions slightly marked, approaching the Monotone.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou .comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest above; who can be á companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course.When the world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll, and lightnings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern cloud, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west.

But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season: thy years will have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy

E

clouds careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun! in the strength of thy youth. Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; when the blast of the north is on the plain, and the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

Low and Soft.

How the sweet moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

.........0 my dread lord

I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be undiscernable,
When I perceive your power divine,

Hath looked upon my passes; then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,
But let my trial be my own confession :
Immediate sentence then, and frequent death
Is all the grace I beg.-

Middle Key.

:

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on men in such circumstances will act bravely, even from motives of vanity but he who in the vale of obscurity, can brave adversity; who without friends to encourage, acquaintance to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect.

Middle and Soft.

Respect and admiration still possess me,
Checking the love and fondness of a son:

My sentence is for open war.

Of wiles

More unexpert, I boast not: them let those
Contrive who need; or when they need, not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay?—No, let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once
O'er heavens high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder: and, for lightning see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels: and his throne itself
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments.-But perhaps
The way seems steep and difficult to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then.
The event is fear'd. Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction; if there be in hell