Specimens of the Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cen- turies, Raleigh, Spenser, Shakspeare, Jonson, Herbert, Milton, Specimens of the Poetry of the Eighteenth Century,...... Young, Pope, Thomson, Gray, Goldsmith, Darwin, Cowper, Jones 294 Adversity,..........Cowper, Southey, Bishop Wilberforce, Mackay 304 Specimens of the Poetry of the Nineteenth Century,......Rogers, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, Campbell, Moore, Byron, EXERCISES ON THE INFLECTIONS OF THE VOICE. THE Voice, in reading, has two essential turns or inflections, the rising and the falling. The rising inflection is that upward turn of the voice which we generally use in asking a question beginning with a verb, and is marked with the acute accent ('). The falling inflection is that downward sliding of the voice which is commonly used at the end of a sentence, and is designated by the grave accent (`). These two inflections have been justly described as the axis on which the force, variety, and harmony of speaking turn. EXAMPLES. The Rising followed by the Falling. Does he talk rationally, or irrationally`? Should we say airy, or airy`? The Falling followed by the Rising. Many rules are given by Mr Walker and his followers for the inflecting of sentences or parts of sentences; but the following comprise all that are essential : I. AFFIRMATIVE SENTENCES. 1. Where the sense is complete, whether it be at the termination of a sentence or of a clause of a sentence, use the falling inflection. 2. In negative sentences, on the contrary, or negative members of sentences, use the rising inflection. 3. When sentences are divisible into two parts, the commencing part is distinguished by the rising inflection. EXAMPLES. 1. It is to the unaccountable oblivion of our mortality, that the world owes all its fascination. You may lay it down as a maxim, confirmed by universal experience, that every man dies as he lives`; and it is by the general tenor of the life, not a particular frame of mind at the hour of death, that we are to be judged at the tribunal of God. 2. I cannot, I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace'. It is not enough that you continue steadfast and immovable'you must also abound in the work of the Lord, if you expect your labours to be crowned with success. 3. If to do were as easy as to know what were good' to do-chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. Your enemies may be formidable by their numbers, and by their power', but He who is with you is mightier than they. To all the charms of beauty, and the utmost elegance of external form', Mary added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. The only exception to these rules worthy of notice occurs in the case of antithetical sentences. When the commencing member of an antithesis is opposed in the concluding member by a negation, the latter has the rising, and the former the falling inflection-as in the following examples: We have taken up arms to defend our country, not to betray it'. The duty of a soldier is to obey`, not to direct his general'. II. INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES. 1. QUESTIONS asked by pronouns generally end with the falling inflection. 2. Questions asked by verbs generally require the rising inflection. 3. When the question affects two objects, taken disjunctively, the former has the rising, and the latter the falling inflection. EXAMPLES. 1. What evil can come nigh to him for whom Jesus died? 2. Shall guilty and condemned creatures appear in the presence of Him, in whose sight the heavens are not clean, and who chargeth his angels with folly'? 3. Are you toiling for fame', or for fortune`? (1.) Who are the persons that are most apt to fall into peevishness and dejection`? (3.) Are they the affluent or the indigent`? (2.) Are they those whom want compels to toil for their daily meal and nightly pillow'-who have no treasure, but the sweat of their brows-who rise with the rising sun, to expose themselves to all the rigours of the seasons, unsheltered from the winter's cold, and unshaded from the summer's heat'? No! the labours of such are the very blessings of their condition. III. PARENTHESIS. THE general rule for the parenthesis is, that it must be pronounced in a lower tone and more rapidly than the rest of the sentence, and conclude with the inflection that immediately precedes it. A simile, being a species of parenthesis, follows the same rule. EXAMPLES. Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that na'ture (who, it seems, was even with the son for her prodigality to the fa'ther) rendered him incapable of improving, by all the rules of eloquence, his own endeavours, and the most refined conversation in Athens. Like the ivy, false friendship rends and ruins the wall which it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and vigour to what it supports, as the stock of the apple tree feeds and fructifies the graft. IV. ECHO. THE title Echo, Mr Walker has adopted to express a repetition of a word or phrase. The echoing word is pronounced with the rising inflection, and a considerable pause after it. EXAMPLE. Newton was a Christian! New'ton! whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature on our finite conceptions-New'ton! who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists. A COURSE OF ELEMENTARY READING IN SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. SECTION I. THE PLEASURES OF SCIENCE. Ir is easy to show that there is a positive gratification resulting from the study of the sciences. If it be a pleasure to gratify curiosity-to know what we were ignorant of-to have our feelings of wonder called forth-how pure a delight of this very kind does natural science hold out to its students! Recollect some of its extraordinary discoveries. Is there anything in all the idle books of tales and horrors, with which youthful readers are so much delighted, more truly astonishing than the fact, that a few pounds of water may, without any machinery, by merely being placed in a particular way, produce an irresistible force? What can be more strange than that an ounce weight should balance hundreds of pounds, by the intervention of a few bars of thin iron? Can anything surprise us more, than to find that the colour of white is a mixture of all others; that red, and blue, and green, and all the rest, merely by being blended in certain proportions, form what we had fancied rather to be no colour at all than all colours together? That the diamond should be made |