166

FOR PRACTICE IN INFLECTION.

ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S

EXHIBITION.

AND thou hast walked aboút (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years àgo,
When the Memnonium was in all its glòry,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those témples, pálaces, and piles stupéndous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous!

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dúmmy;
Thou hast a tongue; come, let us hear its túne;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, múmmy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied créatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and féatures.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recolléct—

To whom should we assign the Sphynx's fáme? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Hómer?

Perhaps thou wert a máson, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy tradeThen say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise play'd? Perhaps thou wert a priést-if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

Perchance that very hand, now pinion'd flat,

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pháraoh, glass to glass,

ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S EXHIBITION.167

Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,
Or doff'd thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hánd, when árm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'd and knuckled,
For thou wert déad, and búried, and embálm'd,
1 Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begún

Long after thy primeval race was rùn.

Thou couldst devélope, if that wither'd tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have séen,
How the world look'd when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it grèen;
Or was it then so old, that history's pages
Contain'd no record of its early áges?

Still silent, incommunicative élf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vòws; But pr'ythee tell us something of thyself; Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumber'd, What hast thou sèen? what strange adventures nùmber'd ?

Since first thy form was in this box exténded,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutà

tions;

The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risèn-we have lost whole nations,

168ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S EXHIBITION.

And countless kings have into dust been húmbled, Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crùmbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thine héad,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread, O'erthrew Osiris, O'rus, A'pis, I'sis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asùnder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be conféss'd,
The nature of thy private life unfòld:

A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have ròll'd :
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd that

fáce?

What was thy nàme and stàtion, age and ràce?

Statue of flèsh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanèscence!

Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow béd,
And standest undecay'd within our présence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment mòrning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warn.
Ing.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure,
In living virtue, that, when both must séver,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloòm.

Horace Smith.

ON INFLECTION.

169

MUCH of the force, variety, and harmony of reading depends on those risings and fallings of the voice, of which we are treating.

But as they are not marked in books, and as consequently you must exercise your own knowledge and judgment in making them, a few rules are here given for your guidance, which, with a little careful practice, will enable you to apply the various inflections with correctness and good taste.

1. Every simple affirmative sentence requires the falling inflection at its close.

A soft answer turneth away wràth.

Trials are the lot of màn.

Sincerity and truth form the basis of every virtue. The acquisition of knowledge is one of the most honourable occupations of yoùth.

Disappointments are often blessings in disguise.
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom.

Change and alteration form the very essence of the world.

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

2. Negative sentences require the rising inflection at the end, but the falling inflection on the negative word. Thou shalt not steal.

Entreat me nòt to leave thee.

Remove not the old lánd-marks.

The quality of mercy is nòt stráined.
Rejoice not when thy enemy fálleth.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow.

170

WHEN THE VOICE RISES OR FALLS.

3. Wherever words or phrases are used as antithetic, that is, opposed to each other, or in contradistinction, they must have opposite inflections.

Paúl, the Apòstle; or, Paùl, the Apóstle.
What is doné, cannot be undone.

Religion raises men above themselves; írreligion sinks them below the brutes.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption; this mortal must put on immortality.

Religion is the best ármour in the world, but the worst cloak.

Death to the wicked is all lóss; to the righteous all gain.

The difference between a madman and a fool is, that the former reasons justly from false data; and the latter wrongly from just data.

All nature is but árt, unknown to thee;

All chance, diréction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, hármony, not understood;

All partial èvil, universal goód.

4. Interrogative sentences take the rising inflection.

Did you gó?

Are you going home?

Have you learned your lesson?

King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?

Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?