the pitch of the voice. Sir W. Scott, in one of his novels,* has alluded to this fact as well known in mountainous districts,—in the roar of a waterfall or mountain torrent a shrill female voice can be heard where a man's deeper notes are quite inaudible; and everyone must have remarked that in shouting to a great distance notes are used much above the ordinary speaking pitch. The same is true, in a less degree, of speaking to large numbers, or in a large building. It will generally be found that public speakers' voices, when used in conversation, seem to have sunk considerably in scale.

The same influences narrow the range of the upward and downward inflection: persons speaking to large audiences will be found to limit their notes to a comparatively small number; and one of the greatest difficulties in theatrical elocution is said to be the rendering the utterance of various passions and emotions with sufficient emphasis, and variety, without dropping the voice so much in places as to be partially inaudible.

Another musical element concerned is the consonance of the building with the speaker's voice. Every regularly shaped room has some one or two notes which reverberate more freely, and spread more easily through its various parts; and it is of the greatest importance that these should be adopted. For this purpose experiment and practice are probably the best guides. Indeed, to a person of a musical

* Anne of Geierstein.

ear there is a consciousness of concord on the sounding of the consonant note, or one of its near relations.

A convenient practical rule has, however, been given for the guidance of speakers in accommodating the loudness and pitch of their voice to the size of the room in which they have to speak. It consists in fixing the eyes on the farthest corner of the room, and addressing the speech to those who are there situated; commencing rather softly, the voice is gradually raised until it seems to return to the speaker, not with a noisy echo, but with a sensation of its pervading all parts of the building.

Buildings of very large size and of irregular form present a greater difficulty, inasmuch as they reverberate with several notes at a time, and sometimes prolong some one or more in the form of a musical echo. These echoes have been well divided into the quick echoes and the slow. The former immediately reverberate a confused iteration of the sounds; and the latter, which are generally much more distinct and articulate, only repeat after a pause of one or more seconds. The first kind apparently depends on the simultaneous reverberation from several flat surfaces, such as the walls, ceiling and floor, all of which are near the speaker, and whence the sound instantly returns. The second is generally attributable to some one or more distant reflecting surfaces accidentally placed in such a relation to the speaker as to return his words to him, after twice traversing the

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length of the building.* The musical echo seems similar to the ringing sound produced by stamping or clapping the hands in a vaulted building, and probably depends on the reflection of sound from a large number of small surfaces, situated at regular and symmetrical distances beyond one another. Thus the returned wave of sound comes in pulsations following one another at fixed intervals, determined by the distance of each reflecting surface beyond the last. Now as regularity of pulsation above a certain rapidity forms a musical note, this kind of echo is more or less impressed with the same character. There seems no remedy for these difficulties, except a consciousness of their effects with great slowness and deliberation in speech; but high pitch is an important auxiliary. In connection with this point it is curious to notice that in our cathedrals, buildings generally of very large size and irregular shape, and frequently echoing with several discordant musical echoes, the practice of intoning has been preserved. It would appear as if this custom of reciting the prayers to a single high note, with occasional rising and falling inflexions to mark the terminations of the

* The well-known Lurley echo on the Rhine is of this character. It is not necessary that the echo should return to the speaker himself most loudly. In one of the London churches, by a singular echo, the preacher seems to be speaking at the ear of a person directly he enters the door; and in St. Paul's school-room the master of one form could formerly hear the voices from another form at the end of the room more distinctly than those of the boys immediately around his desk.

sense, had at first originated in accident; for it is an indisputable fact that the same voice can be made to travel much farther in a building when it is thus used than when there is much fluctuation of the pitch; indeed, the returning echoes meeting with an incongruous note greatly obscure the sound. Most persons, moreover, who have to read with some rapidity, after a time fall into a monotone more or less perfect, according to the accuracy of their ear and their control of voice. In college chapels the writer has frequently had occasion to notice this; for in them the service is mostly repeated twice a day by the same chaplain.

Even the inflexions used in intoning seem in the same way derived from those natural to the voice. If we read aloud to ourselves the suffrages of the Morning Prayer, or of the Litany, with much emphasis and feeling, we shall often find that we are unconsciously approaching very near to the setting of them in Tallis's Service, or still nearer to those of the common Cathedral Use.

In making the preceding remarks it is far from our intention to consider speech as a branch of music. This has indeed been attempted ;* several learned and ingenious works have been devoted principally to carrying out this theory. But interesting as the subject may be, in the light of a problem of physical

Steele: "An Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, &c. London, 1775." Dr. Rush: "Philo. sophy of the Human Voice, Philadelphia, 1845.”

science, it can hardly be trusted to as a guide for the attainment of correct intonation.

Thus it is not the proper place to go minutely into the doctrine of the rising and falling inflexions, and the modifications of sense suggested by them. These and other questions of accent and rhythm can be as well, or better, investigated apart from musical considerations.

At the same time it seems of the utmost importance to impress clearly on the mind of a learner the fact that the musical inflexions of the speaking voice are very extensive; indeed, they may easily rise or fall through a space of four or five tones at a time. This fact is probably not realized explicitly by the great majority of speakers; for imitation and training develope the use of the voice so early, and so unconsciously, that we get to be ignorant of the processes which we are constantly employing. And here we may meet an objection which will perhaps have risen in the minds of our readers. "If," it will be said, "speech is so early and unconsciously acquired, in a word, so natural, why not leave it entirely to nature, and, by speaking just as our senses or feelings prompt us, encourage a simplicity which is one of the greatest charms of a good address?" The first and easiest answer to this lies in the great rarity of good speakers even among educated men: this has been the subject of so much comment of late that it hardly needs formal proofs. But secondly, it may be added that, even were the number of good