dominates, or as in admiration, which is uttered with a fuller mingling of the head voice in the sound.

The property of voice defined by the term "orotund" exists, also, in certain physical and mechanical relations of the corporeal organs. Thus we hear it in the audible functions of yawning, coughing, and laughing; all of which, when forcibly performed, are attended with a sudden and powerful expansion of the organic parts, and a ringing fulness, roundness, and smoothness of sound.

The effect of "effusive orotund" on the voice is identical in its quality with the soft, but round and deep tone of a prolonged yawn, a form of voice which comes, obviously, from the peculiarly wide and free position of the organs in that act. Hence arises the suggestion to repeat voluntarily the effort of loud and prolonged yawning, and watch its peculiar effect on the sound of the voice, and continue and prolong the sound in the form of the yawn, till it can be executed at pleasure; and practise, also, upon the tables of the elements.

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I. EFFUSIVE OROTUND."

This designation is applied to that species of utterance in which the voice is not sent forth from the organs by any obvious voluntary expulsion, but is rather suffered to effuse itself from the mouth into the surrounding air. It resembles the insensible and unconscious act of tranquil breathing, as contrasted with the effort of panting. "Effusive pure tone" is obtained chiefly by skilful withholding of the breath, and using the larynx so gently and so skilfully that every particle of air passing through it is converted into sound. "Effusive orotund" demands a wider opening of the organs, and a freer and firmer use of them, so as to produce a bolder and rounder tone, with a gentle and sustained swell of utterance, as contrasted with the "expulsive" and "explosive" forms of this quality.

The modes of feeling or emotion which are expressed by "effusive orotund voice" are pathos, when mingled with grandeur and sublimity, and solemnity and reverence, when expressed in similar circumstances. Pathos, divested of grandeur, subsides into "pure tone," merely. The same result takes place in the utterance of solemnity, if unaccompanied by sublimity. But reverence, always implying grandeur or elevation in its source, is uniformly uttered by the "orotund" voice.

Gray's "Elegy," for example, if read without "orotund,” becomes feeble and trite in its style; Milton's "Paradise Lost," if so read, becomes dry and flat; and the language of devotion, uttered in the same defective style in prayer, or in psalms and hymns, becomes irreverent in its effect. The mode of securing the advantages of "orotund" utterance is, in the first place, to give up the whole soul to the feeling of what is read or spoken in the language of grave and sublime emotion. The mere superficial impression of a sentiment is not adequate to the effects of genuine and inspiring expression.

But few readers seem fully to feel the difference between the quiet and passive state, in which we sit and give up our imagination to be impressed by the language of an author, and the communicative and active energy requisite, to stamp even such an impression on the minds of others. In the former case we are but involuntary, or at the most consentaneous recipients; in the latter we are the positive and voluntary creators of effect.

EXAMPLES OF "EFFUSIVE OROTUND."

1. Pathos and Gloom, or Melancholy, united with
Grandeur.

OSSIAN'S APOSTROPHE TO THE SUN.- Macpherson.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting

light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty: the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll and lightnings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. - But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair floats on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the But thou art, perhaps, like me, - for a season: thy years will have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning.

west.

The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,
While I look upward to thee. It would seem

As if God poured thee from his "hollow hand,"
And hung his bow upon thine awful front;

And spake in that loud voice, which seemed to him
Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake,
"The sound of many waters ;" and had bid
Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch his centuries in the eternal rock!

Deep calleth unto deep!

And what are we,

That hear the question of that voice sublime?

Oh! what are all the notes that ever rang

From war's vain trumpet, by thy thundering side?
Yea, what is all the riot man can make,

In his short life to thy unceasing roar?

And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to IIim

Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far Above its loftiest mountains? a light wave, That breaks, and whispers of its Maker's might!

O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! and control
In their shut breasts, their petty misery.

What are our woes and sufferance? - Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
Whose agonies are evils of a day : —

A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her withered hands,
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago;
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: :- dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress!

4. Solemnity and Sublimity combined.

MILTON'S INVOCATION OF Light.

Hail! holy Light, offspring of Heaven, first-born,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light,

Dwelt from eternity,

- dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright Essence increate!

Or hear❜st thou, rather, pure ethereal stream,

Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and, at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle did'st invest

The rising world of waters, dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

For description of expulsive utterance, see page 41.

"Expulsive orotund" belongs appropriately to earnest or vehement declamation, to impassioned and poetic excitement of emotion, and consequently to whatever language is uttered in the form of shouting. It arises from the forcible action of the abdominal muscles, added to a full expansion of the chest, and deep inspiration.

-

The first-mentioned of these styles, the declamatory, is exemplified in public address or debate, on exciting occasions. The second is heard in the utterance of the lighter degrees of passion.

The third form of "expulsive orotund" is the impassioned and the voluntary burst of emotion, which transcends the customary forms and effects of speech, and, in the spirit of enthusiastic excitement, utters itself in shouts and exclamations.

The forcible and manly eloquence of Demosthenes, or of Chatham, divested of the full "expulsive" utterance of deep and powerful emotion, would become ridiculous in its effect on the ear and the imagination. The same would be true of the style of our own eminent countryman, Webster. Depth, weight, and fulness of tone formed a powerful effect in all his utterance on great and exciting occasions, in marked contrast with his impassive and almost apathetic utterance when not aroused by interest or feeling.

To form the voice to the extent of the full property of "expulsive orotund," care should be taken to maintain a perfectly erect attitude of body, the chest fully expanded