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Harmonic Inflexion.

BESIDES that variety which neceffarily arifes

from an attention to the foregoing rules, that is, from annexing certain inflexions to fentences of a particular import or ftructure, there is ftill another fource of variety, in thofe parts of a sentence where the fenfe is not at all concerned, and where the variety is merely to please the ear. It is certain, that if the fenfe of a fentence be strongly conveyed, it will feldom be inharmoniously pronounced; but it is as certain, there are many members of fentences which may be differently pronounced without affecting the fenfe, but which cannot be differently pronounced without greatly affecting their variety and harmony. Thus in the following fentence:

As we perceive the fhadow to have moved along the dial-plate, but did not perceive it moving; and it appears that the grafs has grown, though nobody ever saw it grow fo the advances we make in knowledge, as they confift of fuch minute steps, are only perceivable by the distance.

In this fentence, provided we do not drop the voice before the end, the fenfe of the fentence is not at all concerned in any of the inflexions, except that on grow in the middle, which muft neceffarily be the rifing, and that on distance at the end, which must be the falling inflexion: if thefe inflexions are preferved on these words, the reft may take their chance, and the sense will be fcarcely affected; but the dulleft ear muft perceive an infinite advantage to the harmony in placing the falling inflexion on grown in the first part of the fentence, and

on knowledge in the laft: and fo natural is this pronunciation, that there are few readers fo bad as not to place these inflexions on these words without any other guide than the ear.

This part of pronunciation, therefore, though of little importance to the fenfe, is of the utmost importance to the harmony of a sentence. Every writer on the fubject has left it entirely to the ear; and, indeed, fo nice are the principles on which harmony and variety in pronunciation depend, that it is no wonder any analysis of it has been fhifted off, and claffed among thofe things for which it is utterly impoffible to give rules. But, as we have often obferved, though the varieties of voice, in other refpects, are almoft infinite, all these varieties are ftill reducible to two radical and effential differences, the upward and downward flide or inflexion; and therefore, though the high and low, the loud and foft, the quick and flow, the forcible and feeble, admit of almost infinite degrees, every one of these differences and degrees must either adopt the rifing or falling inflexion of voice; and these inflexions being more effential to the sense and harmony than any, or all the other differences, we have, in the diftinction of the voice into the rifing and falling inflexion, a key to part of the harmony and variety fo much admired, and, it may be added, a very effential part. If therefore no rules could be given for the application of thefe inflexions to the purposes of harmony and variety, the practicability of marking upon paper those which are actually made ufe of by good readers and fpeakers, would be of the utmost importance to elocution; but in this, as

well as in other cafes, an attempt will be made to mark out fome rules, which it is hoped will not be entirely useless.

Preliminary Obfervations.

When fimilar members of fentences do not run into fuch a feries, as brings them into the enumerative form; the voice, both to relieve the ear, and impress the sense, falls naturally into a fucceffion of inflexions, which is fomething fimilar to that used in the feries, and at once gives force and variety: these inflexions fometimes take place at the beginning of a fentence, where the members are fimilar; but moft commonly near the end, when the fentence is concluding with feveral fimilar members, which, without this inflexion on fome particular words, would disgust the ear by a fucceffion of fimilar founds. This inflexion, from the obvious ufe of it, we may call the Harmonic Inflexion.

Difficult, and, perhaps, impoffible as it is to describe founds upon paper to those who are wholly unacquainted with them, the task is not quite fo arduous when we addrefs those who have a general idea of what we attempt to convey. If the nature of the rifing and falling inflexions has been fufficiently conceived, the ufe of them in this particular will be eafily pointed out. The harmonic inflexion then is, ufing the rifing and falling inflexion of the voice upon fucceffive words, principally to please the ear, and break a continued chain of fimilar paufes; for the rifing inflexion of the

voice has nothing emphatical in it, nor the falling any thing concluding. As this latter inflexion, and the small paufe that accompanies it, often takes place on words that are immediately connected in fense with what follows, it seems barely a refting place for the voice and ear, and fuch an enforcing of the sense as naturally arifes from a more deliberate pronunciation of the words. That the voice may be in the falling inflexion without marking a conclufion in the fenfe, and even while it excites expectation of fomething to follow, is evident from the pronunciation of the first member of a feries; but this falling inflexion of the voice is effentially different from that which we commonly use when we conclude a sentence; for, in the former cafe, as has been already observed, the voice is palpably raised higher than on the preceding words, though ending with the falling inflexion; in the latter, it falls gradually lower on feveral of the preceding words, and may properly be faid to drop. An example will contribute greatly to the comprehending of this marking inflexion, fo neceffary to the variety and harmony of a fen

tence.

We may obferve, that any fingle circumftance of what we have formerly feen often, raises up a whole fcene of imagery, and awakens numberless ideas that before slept in the imagination; fuch a particular fmell or colour is able to fill the mind on a fudden with a picture of the fields or gardens where we first met with it; and to bring up into view, all the variety of of images that once attended it. Spectator, N 417.

We may here observe, that the former part of this paffage has a fucceffion of fimilar pauses

* See Part I. p. 74, 133.

till it comes to the femicolon, (which, from the complete fense it forms, might as well have been marked by a colon), and that the fucceeding part of the fentence runs exactly into the fame fucceffion of fimilar paufes; which, if pronounced exactly alike, would offend the ear by a monotony. A good reader, therefore, folicitous to avoid a fameness of found, throws his voice into the rifing inflexion upon bring, and into the falling upon view, by which means a variety is introduced, and the period ends more harmoniously from the preparation made for it by the harmonic inflexion.

Another inftance where this inflexion may be repeated fucceffively, is, perhaps, better calculated to convey an idea of it:

'We may learn from this obfervation which we have made on the mind of man, to take particular care, when we have once fettled in a regular courfe of life, how we too frequently indulge ourselves in any the most innocent diverfions and entertainments; fince the mind may infenfibly fall off from the relish of virtuous actions, and by degrées exchange that plèafure, which it takes in the performance of its duty, for delights of a much more inferior and unprofitable nature. Spect. No 447•

In this example, we have the fame fucceffion of fimilar paufes as in the laft; and though the voice may very properly fix itself in the falling inflexion on the word entertainments, and by that means occafion fome variety, yet the fubfequent part of the period proceeds by fimilar paufes as well as the former; and therefore, the harmonic inflexion introduced upon the words degrees and exchange, and upon that and pleafure, that is, the rifing inflexion upon degrees and that, and the falling inflexion upon exchange and pleafure; by this means, I fay, the

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