Banished? I thank you for't. It breaks my chain. I held some slack allegiance tih this hour, but now my sword's my own.

PRACTICE ON THE EXTREME SLIDE.

What! Did you mean me? Yes, sir, I meant you.

And reckonest thou thyself with spirits of heaven,
Hell-doomed! And breath'st defiance here and scorn,

Where I reign king; and, to inflame thee more,
Thy king and lord.

A king's son! You! Prince of Wales?

APPLICATION OF THE RISING INFLECTION.

The RISING inflection is applied in the following cases:

1. To the direct question-that which can be answered by yes or no-generally.

2. To words or phrases united by or in a conjunctive sense.

3. To negative sentences, and negative members of sentences.

4. To exclamation, when plaintive or interrogative, and to words or phrases of direct address.

5. To words or phrases introductory to some affirmative or other statement.

6. To the language of condition, concession, and tender emotion.

7. To the pause of suspension, denoting incompleteness of sense-to which some of the

above cases belong-and to the pause next before the period.

8. To the word immediately before a rhetorical pause, in most instances.

EXERCISE.

The numbers refer to the rules.

vaín?

1. Are you a scholar, and shall the land of the Muses ask your help in vain?

1

Grow dim in heaven?

2. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in search of the depths? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the door of the shadow of death?

2.

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust?

Or flattery sooth the dull, cold ear of death?

inite

3. It is not with finite beings like ourselves that we hold intercourse.

3. You would not select the public fire-brand; you would not seek your seconds in the tavern; you would not inquire out the man who was oppressed with debts, contracted by licentiousness and every species of profligacy.

4. What! might Rome then have been taken, if these men who were at our gates had

not wanted courage for the attempt! Rome taken whilst I was consul!

4. Statesmen, scholars, divines, do you want exemplars worthy of study and imitation? Friends of learning! would you do homage at the shrine of literature?

4. Are we to be subjected, Mr. Chairman, to such treatment as this? Is the time of the 1

occasion, sir, to be wasted in this flippant and offensive manner?

5. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptered hermit.

5. Partial and undiscerning in his affections, he was little fitted to acquire general love.

5. To say the least, they have betrayed great want of candor.

6. If all men were upright, if they were just, if they were honest, if they were virtuous, if they were kind, if they were benevolent, we should have a much happier world.

6. Painting, poetry, eloquence, and every other art on which the genius of man has exercised itself, may be abused, and prove dangerous in the hands of bad men; but it were ridiculous to contend that, on this account, they ought to be abolished.

7. The warbling of birds, the murmuring of streams, the enamel of meadows, the cool. ness of woods, the fragrance of flowers, and the sweet smell of plants, contribute greatly to the pleasures of the mind, and the health of the body.

With the bosom of snow, and the motionless wing,
/

Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high,

Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky-
Thou seem'st to my spirit, as upward I gaze,
/
And see thee now clothed in mellowest rays,

Like a pure spirit, true to its virtue and faith,

'Mid the tempests of nature, of passion, and death.

7 I am astonished to hear such principles confessed; I am shocked to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country.

8. The tongue of the sincere | is rooted in his heart; deceit | has no place in his words.

APPLICATION OF THE FALLING INFLECTION.

The FALLING inflection is applied in the following cases:

1. To the indirect question-that which cannot be answered by yes or no-and its answer 2. To words of dengnation and grave address; portions of perfect sense, and the close of

declarative sentences.

3. To the language of command, bold encouragement, denunciation, wonder, fear or terror, and any fervid emotion.

4. To the repetition of emphatic clauses, and emphatic words.

EXERCISE.

The numbers refer to the rules.

1. MR. H. And why are they overworked, pray?

STEW. To carry water, sir.

MR. H. To carry water! And what were they carrying water for?

STEW. Sure, sir, to put out the fire.

MR. H. Fire! What fire?

STEW. Oh! sir, your father's house is burned down to the ground.

Ma. H. My father's house burned down! And how came it on fire!
STEW. I think, sir, it must have been the torches.

MR. H. Torches! What torches?

STEW. At your mother's funeral.

wind,

MR. H. My mother dead!

2. While we were thus engaged a storm came on; the wind, the thunder, the lightning were terrific.

2. I call to witness, you, O ye hills and groves of Alba! you, the demolished Alban altars! I call you to witness-and thou, O holy Jupiter.

2. You have seen the greatest warrior of the age, the conqueror of Italy, the humbler of Germany, the terror of the North; you have seen him once more victim to the fickleness of fortune.

3. Wo unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues. Wo unto u, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge.

3. What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form

and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

3. HORATIO. Look! my lord, it comes!

HAMLET. Angels, and ministers of grace, defend us!

4. The constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of the nation itself is in danger.

4. Ye mourn, O Romans! that three of your armies have been slaughtered-they were slaughtered by Antony; you lament the loss of your most illustrious citizens-they were torn from you by Antony: the authority of this order is deeply wounded—it is wounded by Antony: in short, all the calamities we have ever since beheld, and what calamities have we not beheld?—if we reason rightly, have been entirely owing to Antony.

APPLICATION OF BOTH INFLECTIONS.

1. Or, when used disjunctively, in connecting words, clauses, or questions, generally takes the rising slide before it, and the falling after it.

2. When negation and affirmation are opposed to each other, the former takes the rising, and the latter the falling slide.

3. Antithetic, or contrasted, words and clauses, require opposite slides.

4. The parenthesis and intervening clause, take the same inflection at their close, as that which immediately precedes them.

SERIES. Definition.-The word series, in the sense here used, denotes an enumeration of particulars. When the enumeration consists of single words, it is called a simple series; when it consists of clauses, it is called a compound series. A series which does not end a sentence is styled a commencing series; when it does end a sentence, a concluding series. 5. A simple commencing series is best read with the rising inflection on every particular, except the last but one; a simple concluding with the rising inflection on every particular except the last.

6. The compound commencing series is best read with the falling inflection on every par ticular but the last; the compound concluding with the falling on every particular except the last but one.

NOTE.-Elocutionists vary much in the reading of the series. The great point is to bring out the meaning in the clearest and most pleasing manner. In cases of emphatic force the falling slide will take the place of the rising, above directed.

1. Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.

1.

Was it a wailing bird of the gloom,

Which shrieks on the house of woe all night;

Or a shivering fiend that flew to a tomb?

2. Xerxes did not anticipate the defeat of his army, but was compelled to witness their overthrow. He did not expect to be driven from the Grecian coast as a mere fugitive, but to return to his capital a proud conqueror-not deserted by his friends, but surrounded by captives in chains.

2.

A stranger's purpose in these lays

Is to congratulate, and not to praise.

3. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist; in the one we must admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity, 1 Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty.

3.

But of the two, less dangerous is the offence

To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.

4. ""Tis Maria," said the postillion, observing I was listening. "Poor Maria," continued he (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line between us), “is sitting upon a bank, playing her vespers on a pipe, with her little goat beside her."

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