Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

EXAMPLE.

Queen. Hamlet, you have your father much offended.
Hamlet. Madam, yoû have my father much offended.

Both these circumflex inflections may be exemplified in the word so, in a speech of the Clown in Shakspeare's As You Like it.

I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If; as if you said so, then I said sô: O ho! did you so? So they shook hands and were sworn brothers.

CLIMAX,

OR A GRADUAL INCREASE OF SIGNIFICATION, Requires an increasing swell of the voice on every succeeding particular, and a degree of animation corresponding with the nature of the subject.

EXAMPLES.

1. After we have practised good actions a while, they become easy; and when they are easy, we begin to take pleasure in them; and when they please us, we do them frequently; and, by frequency of acts, a thing grows into a habit; and a confirmed habit is a second kind of nature; and, so far as any thing is natural, so far it is necessary, and we can hardly do otherwise; nay, we do it many times when we do not think of it.

2. "Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all,
When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud;
And following slower in explosion vast,
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
At first heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven,
The tempest growls; but, as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise astounds; till over-head a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts
And opens wider; shuts and opens still,
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze:
Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal
Crushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.

B 2

ACCENT.

RULE.-Emphasis requires a transposition of accent, when two words which have a sameness in part of their formation, are opposed to each other in sense.

EXAMPLES.

1. What is done', cannot be un'done.*

2. There is a material difference between giving and for'giving.

3. Thought and language act' and re`act upon each other. 4. He who is good before in'visible witnesses, is eminently so before the visible.

5. What fellowship hath right'eousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

6. The riches of the prince must increase or decrease in proportion to the number and riches of his subjects.

7. Religion raises men above themselves; ir'religion sinks them beneath the brutes.

8. I shall always make reason, truth, and nature, the measures of praise and dis`praise.

9. Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the in'convenience of it is perpetual.

10. The sense of an author being the first object of reading, it will be necessary to inquire into those divisions and subdivisions of a sentence, which are employed to fix and ascertain its meaning.

11. This corruptible must put on in'corruption, and this mor'tal must put on im'mortality.

12. For a full collection of topics and epithets to be used in the praise' and dis praise of ministerial and un'ministerial persons, I refer to our rhetorical cabinet.

13. In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion

*The signs (' and ') besides denoting the inflections, mark also the accented syllables.

Whatever inflection be adopted, the accented syllable is always louder than the rest; but if the accent be pronounced with the rising inflection, the accented syllable is higher than the preceding, and lower than the succeeding syllable; and if the accent have the falling inflection, the accented syllable is pronounced higher than any other syllable, either preceding or succeeding.

or dis' proportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, consists the propriety or im'propriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the consequent action.

14. He that compares what he has done with what he has left un'done, will feel the effect which must always follow the comparison of imagination with reality.

Note 1.-This transposition of the accent extends itself to all words which have a sameness of termination, though they may not be directly opposite in sense.

EXAMPLES.

1. In this species of composition, plau'sibility is much more essential than prob`ability.

2. Lucius Catiline was expert in all the arts of simulation and dis`simulation; covetous of what belonged to others, lavish of his own.

Note 2.-When the accent is on the last syllable of a word which has no emphasis, it must be pronounced louder and a degree lower than the

rest.

EXAMPLE.

Sooner or later virtue must meet with a reward'.

EMPHASIS

Is that stress we lay on words which are in contradistinction to other words expressed or understood. And hence will follow this general rule; Wherever there is contradistinction in the sense of the words, there ought to be emphasis in the pronunciation of them.

All words are pronounced either with emphatic force, accented force, or unaccented force; this last kind of force may be called by the name of feebleness. When the words are in contradistinction to other words, or to some sense implied, they may be called emphatic; where they do not denote contradistinction, and yet are more important than the particles, they may be called accented, and the particles and lesser words may be called unaccented or feeble.

EXAMPLES.

1. Exercise and temperance strengthen the constitution. 2. Exercise and temperance strengthen even an INDIFFERENT Constitution.

The word printed in Roman capitals is pronounced with emphatic force; those in small italics are pronounced with accented force; the rest with unaccented force.

Emphasis always implies antithesis: when this antithesis is agreeable to the sense of the author, the emphasis is proper; but where there is no antithesis in the thought, there ought to be none on the words; because, whenever an emphasis is placed upon an improper word, it will suggest an antithesis, which either does not exist, or is not agreeable to the sense and intention of the writer.

The best method to find the emphasis in these sentences, is to take the word we suppose to be emphatical, and try if it will admit of these words being supplied which an emphasis on it would suggest: if, when these words are supplied, we find them not only agreeable to the meaning of the writer, but an improvement of his meaning, we may pronounce the word emphatical; but if these words we supply are not agreeable to the meaning of the words expressed, or else give them an affected and fanciful meaning, we ought by no means to lay the emphasis upon them.

EXAMPLE.

3. A man of a polite imagination is led into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving; he can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a

statue.

In this sentence an emphasis on the word picture is not only an advantage to the thought, but is in some measure necessary to it: for it hints to the mind, that a polite imagination does not only find pleasure in conversing with those objects which give pleasure to all, but with those which give pleasure to such only as can converse with them.

All emphasis has an antithesis either expressed or understood: if the emphasis excludes the antithesis, the emphatic word has the falling inflection; if the emphasis does not exclude the antithesis, the emphatic word has the rising inflection. The distinction between the two emphatic inflections is this: "The falling inflection affirms something in the emphasis, and denies what is opposed to it in the antithesis, while the emphasis with the rising inflection affirms something in the emphasis without denying what is opposed to it in the antithesis: the former, therefore, from its affirming and denying absolutely, may be called the strong emphasis; and the latter, from its affirming only, and not denying, may be called the weak emphasis. We have an instance of the strong emphasis and falling inflection on the words despite and fear, in the following sentence, where Richard the Third rejects the proposal of the Duke of Norfolk to pardon the rebels.

4. Why that, indeed, was our sixth Harry's way, Which made his reign one scene of rude commotion : I'll be in men's despite a monarch; no,

Let kings that fear' forgive; blows and revenge

For me.

The paraphrase of these words, when thus emphatical, would be, I'll be, not in men's favour, but in their despite, a monarch-and let not me who am fearless, but kings that fear, forgive.-The weak emphasis,

with the rising inflection, takes place on the word man in the following example from the FAIR PENITENT, where Horatio, taxing Lothario with forgery, says,

5. 'Twas base and poor, unworthy of a man', To forge a scroll so villanous and loose,

And mark it with a noble lady's name.

If this emphasis were paraphrased, it would run thus: 'Twas base and poor, unworthy of a man, though not unworthy of a brute.

The first of the following examples is an instance of the single emphasis implied; the second, of the single emphasis expressed; the third, of the double emphasis; and the fourth, of the treble emphasis.*

1. Exercise and temperance strengthen even an indifferent' constitution.

2. You were paid to fight against Alexander, and not to rail' at him.

3. The pleasures of the imagination are not so gross' as those of sense, nor so refined' as those of the understanding'. 4. He raised a mortal to the skies',

She' drew an angel' down'.

SINGLE EMPHASIS.+

nega

RULE.—When a sentence is composed of a positive and tive part, the positive must have the falling, and the negative the rising inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. 2. None more impatiently suffer' injuries, than they who are most forward in doing' them.

3. You were paid to fight against Alexander, and not to rail' at him.

4. Hunting (and men', not beasts'), shall be his game.

In these examples of emphasis the emphatic word alone is printed in italics; the marks above them denote the inflections.

+ When two emphatic words in antithesis with each other are either expressed or implied, the emphasis is said to be single.

To this rule, however, there are some exceptions, not only in poetry, but also in prose.

« ZurückWeiter »