correct delivery, as to furnish every necessary facility for taking breath even in the most hurried utterance. It is only from their disregard, that injury or even inconvenience can arise to the speaker from too great an expenditure of air from the lungs.

There is another pause connected solely with rhetorical delivery, for the purpose of adding force to the expression of the emotions, and which may be called the Rhetorical or Emphatic pause. This pause, made immediately before or after the utterance of some striking thought, commands the special attention of the hearer, at the same time that it gives him time to fix the thought more deeply in his memory. It also indicates feeling on the part of the speaker. It is a means of enforcing sentiment, which requires to be used with caution, but which in the hands of a master is an element of great power. Its effect is well understood in music.

In the following examples this pause is marked by a dash.

1. Alexander wept: the great and invincible Alexander-wept at the fate of Darius.

2. Industry-is the guardian of innocence.

3. Mirth-I consider as an act, cheerfulness-as a habit of the mind. Mirth-is like a flash of lightning, that glitters for a moment; cheerfulness-keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind.

4. Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; any thing but-live for it.

5. 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.

6. America—is full of youthful promise; Europe is rich in the

accumulated treasures of age; her very ruins-tell the history of times gone by, and every mouldering stone-is a chronicle.

7. Let not a monument-give you or me hopes,

Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops.

8. Contemporaries-appreciate the man, rather than the merit; but posterity-will regard the merit, rather than the man.

9. On whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us, is-his wonderful invention.

10. It is an honor to a man to cease from strife; but every fool -will be intermeddling.

11. Some place the bliss in actions, some-in ease;

Those call it pleasure, and contentment—these.

The Pause which marks the Transition from one paragraph or division of discourse to another is too important to be overlooked. This may be called the Paragraphic pause. As a mere pause, it is sufficient to remark that it is longer than that which marks the division of periods, which are more closely related to each other. It is however accompanied with several other agencies.-1. It is preceded by the Prepared Cadence. 2. It is followed by a change in Pitch and usually by some change in the Phrases of Melody. 3. It is the place where the Transitions most frequently occur, which mark the changes of sentiment in discourse, and which were made the subject of a section in the last chapter.

In practice this pause will be found to furnish to the speaker a very convenient occasion to return to a lower note, a slower utterance, or a freer movement of the voice, when he finds himself speaking on too high a pitch, too rapidly, or in a monotonous and constrained manner.

There are two pauses which belong exclusively to verse,

and are hence called Musical Pauses; the cesural pause which divides the line into two parts, and the final pause at the end of the line.

1. The cesural pause is not essential to verse, as the shorter kinds of measure do not recognise it; but in our heroic and blank verse, consisting of five feet, it can never be omitted in reading, without destroying its euphony. This pause may exist in any part of the line, but is most agreeable when found in the middle; that is, in the middle of the third foot, as in the first five lines of the following:

... •

Can that arm measure with an arm divine?
And canst thou thunder. with a voice like mine?
Or in the hollow.... of thine hand contain

....

The bulk of waters, . . . . the wide spreading main,

....

When, mad with tempests, . . . . all the billows rise
In all their rage,
and dash the distant skies?

....

The cesural pause may be found at the end of the first, second, or third foot, or in the middle of the second or fourth. The euphony is diminished as the place of this pause departs from the middle of the line-but is greater when it occurs before the middle than after it. It is however for the writer to determine the place of the cesural pause, and for the reader to observe it, and mark it with his voice.

2. The other pause peculiar to poetry occurs at the end of the line, and is hence called the final pause. When not coincident with the Grammatical pause, it is introduced. by the phrase of the monotone or the rising or falling ditone, with no downward slide of the voice. In the reading of verse, the end of every line should be marked by such a rest, unless forbidden by the closeness of the gramma

tical connection with the following line. As regards rhyme, there is no doubt but the end of each line should be made quite perceptible to the ear; and if the same is not done in blank verse, it often differs but little from prose. On the stage, however, where the appearance of speaking in verse should always be avoided, this resemblance to prose is not a defect; and the ends of the lines, where the sense does not require it, need not be marked by a rest.

Great care should be taken by the reader in determining the proper place of the cesural pause; and the length to be given to this, as also to the final pause, will furnish a good exercise for his judgment, as it will afford a good test of his taste. If made too long, or if accompanied with any error of intonation, it gives a mechanical stiffness to the movement of the verse, and passes into a decided fault.

SECTION III.

OF THE READING OF POETRY.

THE principles which are laid down in the several sections of the second chapter of this manual, are as applicable to the reading of poetry as of prose; but in their application, there are some slight differences which need to be noticed.

I. As regards Accent, we have made no difference between prose and poetry. In either case, the laws are determined by usage. But,

1. The poet may violate these laws in the expression of some harsh sentiment, for the purpose of making the sound to correspond with the sense. Thus Milton,

On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil, and jarring sound,
The infernal doors; and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.

The reader in such a case should yield to the preference of the writer, in violation of usage.

2. Where, without any particular reason, the poet has done violence to the laws of accent, there may in general be a compromise of the jarring requisitions of the metrical and the common accent, so as to avoid any considerable harshness, by accenting both the syllables. Thus

Our supreme foe, in time may much relent.
Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate.
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing.

3. Where this compromise cannot be effected the cus tomary accent is to take precedence.

4. When the rhythm of verse seems to require an accentual stress on unimportant words or syllables which would have no such stress in prose, it should not be given. Thus the and of, and the other particles with which our language abounds, should never (except in rare cases where they are made emphatic) be considered as long, or accented.

5. In poetry, the Temporal accent should be given on all syllables of indefinite quantity; and the Radical specially avoided, except on the most abrupt syllables.

II. The principles of Emphasis, of the Drifts of Melody, of Expression, and of Transition, are applied, in all respects, the same in poetry as in prose. The learner however may be informed, that in poetry he will find a more comprehensive field for their employment. Poetry is the language of feeling.