general rule, has the falling slide; though at the expense of harmony; as,

Who say the people that I àm? They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say that one of the old pròphets is risen again.—Where is bòasting then? It is exclùded.— Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? The infernal serpent.

The want of distinction in elementary books, between that sort of question which turns the voice upward, and that which turns it downward, must have been felt by every teacher even of children. This distinction is scarcely noticed by the ancients. Augustin, in remarking on the false sense sometimes given to a passage of Scripture by false pronunciation says, The ancients called that question interrogation, which is answered by yes or no; and that percontation, which admits of other answers.* Quinctilian, however, says the two terms were used indifferently.

13] RULE VIII. The language of authority and of surprise, is commonly uttered with the falling inflection. Bold and strong passion so much inclines the voice to this slide, that in most of the cases hereafter to be specified, emphatic force is denoted by it.

1. The imperative mood, as used to express the commands of a superior, denotes that energy of thought which usually requires the falling slide. Thus Milton supposes Gabriel to speak, at the head of his radiant files.

* He gives an example from Paul, with the pronunciation which he proposes;" post percontationem, Quis accusabit adversus elec tos Dei? illud quod sequitur sono interrogantis enuntietur, Deus qui justificat? ut tacitè respondeatur, Non. Et item percontemur, Quis est qui condemnat? rursus interrogemus, Christus Jesus, qui mortuus est? etc. ut ubique tacitè respondeatur, Non."

De Doctrina Christiana, Lib. III. Cap. 3.

. Uzziel! half these draw off and coast the south,

With strictest watch; these other, wheel the north.—
-Ithuriel and Zephon! with winged speed

Search through this garden; leave unsearch'd no nook.
This evening from the sun's decline arriv'd'

Who tells of some infernal spirit seen,

Hitherward bent :

Such where ye find, seize fàst, and hither bring.

Thus in the battle of Rokeby, young Redmond addressed his soldiers;

Up, comrades! ùp!-in Rokeby's halls

Ne'er be it said our courage falls.

No language surpasses the English, in the spirit and vivacity of its imperative mood, and vocative case. These often are found together in the same address; and when combined with emphasis, separately or united, they have the falling slide, and great strength.

2. Denunciation and reprehension, on the same principle, commonly require the falling inflection; as,

Wo unto you, Phàrisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues. Wò unto you, làwyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge. But God said unto him, thou fòol!—this night thy sòul shall be required of thee. But Jesus said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Paul said to Elymas, O full of all subtlety, and all mischief! Thou child of the Devil,-thou enemy of all righteousness!

In the beginning of Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, Marullus, a patriotic Roman, finding in the streets some peasants, who were keeping holiday, for Cæsar's triumph over the liberties of his country, accosted them in this indignant strain;

Hènce!-home, you idle creatures, get you home.

You blocks, you stones! You worse than senseless things!

This would be tame indeed, should we place the unemphatic, rising slide on these terms of reproach, thus :

You blocks, you stónes, you worse than senseless things!

The strong reprehension of our Saviour, addressed to the tempter, would lose much of its meaning, if uttered with the gentle, rising slide, thus; Get thee behind me, Sútan. But it becomes very significant, with the emphatic downward inflection; Get thee behind me,—Sàtan.

3. Exclamation, when it does not express tender emotion, nor ask a question, inclines to adopt the falling slide.

Terror expresses itself in this way. Thus the appearance of the ghost in Hamlet produces the exclama

tion :

'Angels and ministers of grace,-defend us.*

Exclamation, denoting surprise, or reverence, or distress,--or a combination of these different emotions, generally adopts the falling slide, modified indeed by the degree of emotion. For this reason I suppose that Mary, weeping at the sepulchre, when she perceived that the person whom she had mistaken for the gardener, was the risen Saviour himself, exclaimed with the tone of reverence and surprise,-Rabbòni! And the same inflection probably was used by the leprous men when they cried Jesus, Màster! have mercy on us; instead of the collo

The

*The city watch is startled, not so much by the words of distress 'that echo through the stillness of midnight, as by the tones that denote the reality of that distress ;-" help!-mùrder!-help!" man whose own house is in flames, cries, " fire-fire!" "It is only from the truant boy in the streets that we hear the careless exclamation, fire, fire."

quial tone Jésus, Máster, which is commonly used in reading the passage, and which expresses nothing of the distress and earnestness which prompted this cry. These examples are distinguished from the vocative case, when it merely calls to attention, or denotes affection.

14] RULE IX. Emphatic succession of particulars requires the falling slide.* The reason is, that a distinctive utterance is necessary to fix the attention on each particular. The figure asyndeton, or omission of copulatives, especially when it respects clauses, and not single words, belongs to this class; as,

Go and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ;-the blind sèe, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hèar, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached:-Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity ènvieth not; charity vaùnteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly seek-, eth not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil.-Thrice was I beaten with ròds; once was' I stòned; thrice I suffered shipwréck; a night and a day have I been in the deep.

:

In each of these examples, all the pauses, except the last but one, (for the sake of harmony,) require the downward slide. The polysyndeton, requiring a still more deliberate pronunciation, adopts the same slide; as,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heàrt, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strèngth, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.

NOTE 1. When the principle of emphatic series in

*The loose sentence, though it does not strictly belong to this rule, commonly coincides with it; because in the appended member or members, marked by the semicolon or colon, a complete sense, at each of these pauses, is so far expressed as generally to admit the falling slide.

7

terferes with that of the suspending slide, one or the other prevails, according to the nature of the case. When the structure is hypothetical, and yet the sense is such, and so far formed as to admit emphasis, the falling slide prevails, thus:

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all know ledge.; and though I have all faìth, so that I could remove mountains, and have not chárity, I am nothing.

But when the series begins a sentence, and each particular hangs on something still to come, for its sense, there is so little emphasis that the rising slide, denoting suspension, is required; thus,

The pains of getting; the fear of losing, and the inability of enjóying his wealth, have made the miser a mark of satire, in all ages.

NOTE 2. The principle of emphatic series, may form an exception to Rule III. as,

We are troubled on every side, yet not distrèssed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.*

NOTE 3. Emphatic succession of particulars grows intensive as it goes on; that is, on each succeeding emphatic word, the slide has more stress, and a higher note, than on the preceding; thus,

+

* All Walker's rules of inflection as to a series of single words, when unemphatic, are in my opinion, worse than useless. No rule of harmonic inflection, that is independent of sentiment, can be established without too much risk of an artificial habit, unless it be this one, that the voice should rise at the last pause before the cadence; and even this may be superseded by emphasis.