2 A MIDDLE TONE, or medium loudness of voice, is employed in reading narrative, descriptive, or didactic sentences.

EXAMPLE.
I love my country's pine-clad hills,
Her thousand bright and gushing rills,

Her sunshine and her storms;
Her rough and rugged rocks that rear
Their hoary heads high in the air,

In wild fantastic forms.

3. A LOUD TONE, or fullness and stress of voice is used in expressing violent passions and vehement emotions.

EXAMPLES.
Stand! the ground's your own, my braves,
Will ye give it up to slaves ?
Will ye look for greener graves ?

Hope yo mercy still ?
What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal,-
Read it on yon bristling steel,

Ask it-ye who will !
“ Hold !” Tyranny cries; but their resolute breath
Sends back the reply: “INDEPENDENCE Or DEATH!"

PIERPONT

QUALITY.

QUALITY has reference to the kind of sound uttered.

Two sounds may be alike in quantity and pitch, yet differ in quality. The sounds produced on the clarinet and flute, may agree in pitch and quantity, yet be unlike in quality. The same is true in regard to the tones of the voice of two individuals. This difference is occasioned mainly by the different positions of the vocal organs.

The qualities of voice mostly used in reading or speaking, and which should receive the highest degree of culture, are the Pure Tone, the Orotund, the Aspirated, and the Guttural

RULES FOR QUALITY. 1. THE PURE TONE is a clear, smooth, sonorous flow of sound, usually accompanied with the middle pitch of voice, and is adapted to express emotions of joy, cheerfulness, love, and tranquility.

EXAMPLE.

Hail! beauteous stranger of the wood,

Attendant on the spring,
Now heaven repairs thy vernal seat,

And woods thy welcome sing.

COWPER.

2. THE OROTUND is a full, deep, round, and pure tone of voice, peculiarly adapted in expressing sublime and pathetic emotions.

EXAMPLE.
It thunders! Sons of dust, in reverence bow!
Ancient of Days! Thou speakest from above:
Almighty! trembling, like a timid child,
I hear thy awful voice. Alarmed-afraid-
I see the flashes of thy lightning wild,
And in the very grave would hide my head.

3. THE ASPIRATED TONE of voice is not a pure, vocal sound, but rather a forcible breathing utterance, and is used to express. amazemoent, fear, terror, anger, revenge, remorse, and fervent emotions.

EXAMPLE.

Oh, coward conscience, how dost thou affright mei
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight; .

Cold, fearful drops stand on my trembling filesh. 4. THE GUTTURAL QUALITY is a deep; aspirated tone of voice, used to express aversion, hatred, loathing, and contempt.

EXAMPLE.
Tell me I hate the bowl?

Hark is a feeble word:
I loathe, ABHOR, my very soul

With strong disgust is stirred,
Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell,
Of the dark beverage of hell.

NOTATION IN MODULATION. (°) high.

(p. ) soft. (°) high and loud.

(pp.) very soft. () low.

(f. ) loud. (oo) low and loud.

(f) very loud. (=) quick.

(pl.) plaintive. (") short and quick.

( ) increase. (si) slow.

(>) decrease.

EXAMPLES FOR EXERCISE IN MODULATION.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. PJPK

“And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up,

With death so like a gentle slumber on thee!
And thy dark sin !-oh! I could drink the cup,

If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,

My lost boy, Absalom !”

WILLIS

To

On! onward still! o'er the land he sweeps,
With wreck, and ruin, and rush, and roar,

Nor stops to look back .

On his dreary track,
But speeds to the spoils before. MISS J. I. LEWIS.

From every battle-field of the revolution-from Lexington and Bunker Hill—from Saratoga and Yorktown-from the fields of Eutaw-from the cane-brakes that sheltered the men of Marion—the repeated, longprolonged echoes came up-(f.) “ The UNION: IT MUST 3E PRESERVED." (<) From every valley in our land—from every cabin on the pleasant mountain sides—from the ships at our wharves—from the tents of the hunter in our westernmost prairies—from the living minds of the living millions of American freemen—from the thickly coming glories of futurity—the shout went up, like the sound of many waters, (ff.) “THE UNION: IT MUST BE PRESERVED.”

BANCROFT.

Hark!
Along the vales and mountains of the earth
There is a deep, portentous murmuring,
Like the swift rush of subterranean streams,
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air,
When the fierce tempest, with sonorous wing,
Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds,
And hurries onward, with his night of clouds,
Against the eternal mountains. 'Tis the voice
Of infant FREEDOM,--and her stirring call
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones
From every hill-top of her western home;
And lo! it breaks across old Ocean's flood,-
And “FREEDOM! FREEDOM !” is the answering shout
Of nations, starting from the spell of years. Q. D. PRENTION

The thunders hushed,-
The trembling lightning fled away in fear,- ,
The foam-capt surges sunk to quiet rest,
The raging winds grew still,-

There was a calm.

“Quick! Man the boat!" (=) Away they spring

The stranger ship to aid,
And loud their hailing voices ring,

As rapid speed they made.

Hush! lightly tread! still tranquilly she sleeps ;
I've watched, suspending e'en my breath, in fear
To break the heavenly spell. (pp.) Move silently.

Can it be?
Matter immortal ? and shall spirit die ?
Above the nobler, shall less nobler rise ?
Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know? (°<) Shall man alone,
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds ?

POONG.

E 1

23

Away! away to the mountain's brow,

Where the trees are gently waving;
Away! away to the vale below,

Where the streams are gently laving.
An hour passed on ;-the Turk awoke;

That bright dream was his last;
He woke-to hear his sentry's shriek,
" TO ARMS! they come! (.ff.) THE GREEK! THE GREEK !”
He woke-to die, midst flame and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and saber-stroke,

And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,

Bozzaris cheer his band ;-
« Strike—till the last armed foe expires !
Strike-for your altars and your fires !
Strike for the green graves of your sires !
God, and your native land !"

HALLEOK,

He said, and on the rampart hights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, (..) but dreadful as the storm!
Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fiy,
REVENGE, or DEATH!—the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm! CAMPBELL.

(0) His speech was at first low-toned and slow. Sometimes his voice would deepen, (..) like the sound of distant thunder; and anon, in his flashes of wit and enthusiasm would light up the anxious faces of his hearers, (<) like the far-off lightning of a coming storm.