Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. Joshua x. 12. But if we were to use the rising instead of the falling inflection, thus, Sun, stand thou still, we should make Joshua ask the sun whether he meant to stand still or not? II. In exhortation. EXAMPLES. getz Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore wisdom : and with all thy getting, get under- | stand ১ ing. Prov. iv. 5. / Awake; awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city ! Shake thyself from the dust; arise and sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. - Isaiah lii. 1, 2. The rising inflection is here given to neck, for the sake of melody, as being at the end of the penultimate clause. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, In peace there's nothing so becomes a man But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger, Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock, O'erhang and jutty his confounded base Swill'd with the wide and wasteful ocean.- --Shakspeare. III. On the auxiliary verb must, or on an emphatic word following it. EXAMPLES. The evils which futurity has in store for us must be endured. If an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of this house, he | must do it | ; he | dares not disobey: immediate death would be the sure consequence of the least grumbling. - Pulteney. In this sentence the word father has the emphasis of sense, and a downward inflection, for even might be supplied; must and dares have the emphasis of force, and death that of sense. If there's a Power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue, ر And that which he delights in must be happy. - Cato. IV. In strong and positive denial or refusal. EXAMPLES. A. Will you not then do what I have proposed to you? B. No, I will not; whatever may have been your expectations with regard to my intentions, you may be assured that I will not do it. This emphasis, like that of sense, often takes place in the beginning or middle of a clause or sentence, which terminates with the rising inflection; thus, You have been long enough employed in driving the cattle over the vast mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia. ر You may strive in vain to catch a breath of enthusiasm to buoy you up in the arms of death. The emphasis of force is sometimes continued on several successive words. Thus when Lucius in Cato seems to have exhausted every topic in favour of giving up a hopeless war, and submitting to Cæsar, he concludes with this emphatic period, What men could do, Is done already; heaven and earth will witness The common manner of pronouncing the clause printed in italics is, to lay an emphasis with the rising inflection on the word must; but if each of these four words be pronounced with a strongly marked emphasis, the first and the last with the rising inflection, and the second and third with the falling, and with a distinct pause after each, very considerable force will be given to them ; thus, If | Rome must | fall, that we are innocent. We have another instance of this continued emphasis in that expostulation in the prophecy of Ezekiel (xviii. 31,) Why will ye die? of which the whole force is lost unless every word except ye be pronounced as a heavy syllable, both will and die having a strong falling inflection; thus, Why | will ye | die, | O house of Israel? Let these words be pronounced thus, and the inferiority of this manner will be very apparent. The fifth and last kind of Emphasis is the Weak Emphasis. As there are many sentences which require the falling inflection to express force, where there is no antithesis either expressed or understood, so there are many which require the rising to express what is weak or inconsiderable, though there is equally an absence of antithesis. It is the judicious application of it for this purpose, which constitutes one of the most striking differences between a good reader and an indifferent one; for we almost uniformly find the latter end every sentence with the falling inflection, while the former carefully considers whether the sense be positive or negative, expressive of strength or weakness, and selects his inflection accordingly. In the inflections of conversation we have nature herself to study, and a very slight observation of these will convince us, that the rising inflection ought to be introduced in reading, at the close of a compact sentence, or in the middle of a loose one, much oftener than it is by the generality of readers. So various are the shades of meaning which may be attached to the same words, and so subtle those operations of the human mind by which this meaning is determined, that it is not always easy to discover the reason why the rising inflection is preferable, although a comparison with the natural tones of conversation convinces us, that it ought to be used. Yet if we only bear in mind that the general force of this inflection is to denote what is weak or negative, we shall soon learn to apply it with propriety. |