Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious 'beings for so mean a purpose? can he delight in the production of such abórtive intelligence, such short-lived reasonable beings? would he give us talents that are not to be exérted, capacities that are not to be grátified? Spectator, No. 111.

In the reading of every series here produced, it will be necessary to increase the force at the same time that we preserve the rising inflection on the last word or member of every one.

One exception to this rule is, when a series of questions and answers follow each other: for in this case, though the first is elevated as in other interrogations, not commencing with interrogative words, the rest of the questions assume the declarative tone, and fall gradually into a period.

EXAMPLE.

As for the particular occasion of these (charity) schools, there cannot any offer more worthy a generous mind. Would you do a handsome thing without return ?-do it for an infant that is not sensible of the obligation. Would you do it for the publick good do it for one who will be an honest artificer. Would you do it for the sake of heaven ?-give it for one who shall be instructed in the worship of Him for whose sake you gave it. Spectator, No. 294.

In this example there is evidently an opposition in the interrogations which is equivalent to the disjunctive or; and if the ellipsis were supplied, which this opposition suggests, the sentence would run thus If you will not do a handsome thing without return, would you do it for the publick good? and if not for the publick good, would you do it for the sake of hèaven? so that this exception may be said to come under Rule II. of this article.

in

This rule may throw a light upon a passage Shakespeare, very difficult to pronounce with variety, if we terminate every question with the rising inflection, which, however, must necessarily be the case as the questions do not imply opposition to, or

exclusion of each other. The passage referred to is in Henry V. where that monarch, after the discovery of the conspiracy against him, thus expostulates with Lord Scroope, who was concerned in it :

Oh how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! show men dútiful?
Why so didst thou: or seem they grave and learned ?
Why so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why so didst thou: seem they relígious?
Why so didst thou: or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest còmpliment,
Not working with the eye without the éar,
And but in purged judgment trusting néither?
Such and so finely boulted didst thòu seem.

In pronouncing this passage, it should seem most eligible to use the rising inflection at the end of the several questions: but after the four first, the falling inflection seems very properly adopted on the word diet, as this is the first branch of the last series of questions; and as this series continues for several lines, provided the voice be but inflected upwards on the last member at neither, the rest of the parts may be pronounced as is most suitable to the sense and harmony of the whole, according to Rule III. of this article.

The necessity of attending to the distinction of inflection, when things are distinguished and opposed to each other, will appear more clearly from the fol lowing passage:

See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just;
See god-like Turenne prostrate on the dust;
See Sydney bleeds amid the martial strife;
Was this their virtue or contempt of life?

Pope,

If, in reading this passage, the voice were to adopt the same inflection both on virtue and on contempt

of life, and to end the last branch of the question as well as the first with the rising inflection, the distinction, so strongly marked by the sense, would be utterly lost; whereas, if we end virtue with the rising, and life with the falling inflection, the distinction evidently appears. But in the following passage from Shakespeare we have an instance of the necessity of a contrary mode of pronunciation, arising from a similitude of objects connected by the disjunctive or:

Is this the nature,

Which passion could not shake? whose solid virtue,
The shot of áccident or dart of chánce
Could neither ràze nor piérce?

Othello.

In this passage, the shot of accident and the dart of chance, being only different words for the same thing, the word or conjoins them; and to avoid any implication that they may mean different things, the same inflection of voice ought to be on them both, that is, the rising inflection: but in the last member, where the opposition is evident, both from the sense of the words, and the disjunctive nor, the falling inflection ought to be laid on raze, and the rising on pierce.

For the same reason, in reading the following stanza of Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard, it should seem by much the most eligible method to suspend the voice with the rising inflection on the word death:

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull cold ear of death?

As the sense of the word or, that is, whether it means conjunction or disjunction, is not always very

obvious, it may not be useless to propose the following rule: if we are in doubt whether or is conjunctive or disjunctive, let us make use of this paraphrase-If it is not so, is it so? and if the sense will bear this paraphrase, the or is disjunctive, and the subsequent question ought to have the falling inflection: if it will not bear it, the or is conjunctive, and the subsequent question ought to have the rising inflection. Thus if we paraphrase the stanza just quoted, we shall find the or conjunctive. If storied urn cannot call back the fleeting breath, can animated bust call it back? If Honour's voice cannot provoke the silent dust, can Flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death?

If this paraphrase does not seem suitable to the general import of the sentence, it is because the objects are not put in opposition or contradistinction to each other, and therefore that the or is conjunctive, and, consequently, that the latter question requires the rising inflection as well as the former: but where the or is disjunctive, we find this paraphrase very suitable to the general import of the sentence. Thus in the following sentence:

But should these credulous infidels after all be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable; from believing it what harm could ensue? would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungóvernable, the rich more insolent or the poor more disorderly? Would it make worse parents, or children, husbands, or wives; masters, or sérvants, friends, or néighbours? or would it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently, more happy in èvery situation? Jenyns.

If we try the paraphrase upon the former parts of this sentence, we shall find it as repugnant to the sense as in the former example; but if we apply it to the last member, we shall find it perfectly accord with the meaning of the author. Thus, if we sayIf it will not make worse parents or children, husbands or wives, masters or servants, friends or neigh

bours; will it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently, more happy in every situation?-from whence we may conclude, that in the former part of this passage, the or is conjunctive, and suspends the voice at the end of every member, and that the last or is disjunctive, and requires the sentence to end with the falling inflection.

In passages of this kind, therefore, it seems quite necessary to attend to the distinction of inflection here laid down: and it may be farther observed, that the sense of a passage will always be more clearly understood by attending to this distinction, though there may not be always the same necessity for it. Thus in the following passage:

One great use of prepositions in English, is to express those relations, which in some languages, are chiefly marked by cases, or the different endings of the noun.

Here, though the word cases ends the penultimate member, yet, as the last member must have the falling inflection, the word cases must have the falling likewise; for as here the word or is very different from the or preceded by either in this sentence, All languages express the relations of nouns either by prepositions or cases; so it seems to intimate a different pronunciation: and as in the last example the words preposition and cases are opposed to each other, and for that reason require different inflections; so, in the former, a sameness of inflection on both the parts connected by or, seems better to preserve that sameness of idea which each of these parts conveys.

These examples serve to discover a great and natural source of that variety and precision which we so much admire in good readers and speakers. So many more instances might have been produced, that these remarks might have justly formed a separate article; but they seemed to belong more particularly to the interrogation, as here we view