changes them to those of chiding! By those the waggoner directs his team, and the herdsman his flock. Even animals of the most savage nature are not proof against the collective tones of the human voice; and shouts of multitudes will put wild beasts to flight, who can bear without emotion the roarings of the thunder.

The circumstance is singular, that the ear, from the influence of tones, should excite and strengthen compassion so much more powerfully than the eye. The sigh of a brute animal, the cry forced from him by bodily sufferance, bring about him all his fellows, who, as has often been observed, stand mournfully round the sufferer and would willingly lend him assistance. Man, too, at the sight of suffering, is more apt to be impressed with fear and tremor than with tender compassion; but no sooner does the voice of the sufferer reach him, than the spell is dissolved, and he hastens to him -he is pierced to the heart. Is it that the sound converts the picture in the eye into a living being, and recalls and concentrates in one point our recollection of our own and another's feelings? or is there, as it may be plausibly conjectured, a still deeper organic cause? At all events, we know that the fact is precisely as we have represented it, and it shows that tone is the principal source of man's compassion. We sympathise less with a

creature that cannot sigh; as it is destitute of lungs, more imperfect, and less resembling ourselves in its organization. Some who have been born deaf and dumb, have given the most horrible examples of want of compassion and sympathy with men and beasts, and instances enow may be observed among savage nations. Yet even among these the law of nature may be perceived: fathers, who are compelled by hunger and want to sacrifice their children, devote them to death in the womb, before they have beheld their eyesbefore they have heard the sound of their voices; and many infanticides have confessed, that nothing was so painful to them-nothing took such fast hold of their memory, as the first feeble voice, the suppliant cry of their child.

THE VARIETY OF TONE.

What has been already said of the inflexions of the voice according to the system of Mr. Walker, is considerably different from what we here mean by the variety of tone, or modulation of the voice, which ought to be so managed as to produce grateful melody to the ear. Upon the modulation of the voice, depends that variety which is so pleasing, and so necessary to refresh and relieve the ear in a long oration. The opposite fault is monotony, which becomes at last so disagreeable,

as to defeat altogether the success of a public speaker (as far as to please is any part of his object), by exciting the utmost impatience and disgust in his audience. To the variety so grateful to the ear, not only change of tone is requisite, but also change of delivery. According to the subject, the rapidity of utterance varies, as the time of the different movements in music. Narration proceeds equably, the pathetic slowly, instruction authoritatively, determination with rigour, and passion with rapidity; all of which are analogous to the andante, the cantabile, the allegro, the presto, and other musical expressions.

Variety, it has been remarked by Quintilian, alone constitutes eloquent delivery; and let it not be imagined, that the equality of the voice already recommended is inconsistent with variety; for unevenness is the fault opposite to equability; and the opposite of variety, is that monotony which consists in one unvaried form or tone of

expres

sion. The art of varying the tones of the voice, not only affords pleasure and relief to the hearer, but, by the alternation of labour, relieves the ́speaker, in the same manner as changes are grateful of the postures and motions, of standing, walking, sitting, and lying,—and we cannot for a long time together submit to any one of them.

The voice, Quintilian adds, ought to be adapted

to the subject and the feelings of the mind, so as not to be at variance with the expressions: this is the great art. We should, therefore, guard against that uniformity of character called by the Greeks monotony; which is an unvarying effort of the lungs and of the tones. But we should avoid not only shouting like madmen, but also that under voice in speaking which is deficient in emotion, and that low murmur which destroys all energy: yet even in the same passages, and in the expressions of the same feelings, there must be in the voice certain nice changes, according as the dignity of the language, the nature of the sentiments, the conclusion, the beginning, or the transitions, require. For, painters who confine themselves to one colour only, nevertheless bring out some parts more strongly, and touch others more faintly; and this they are obliged to do, in order to preserve the just forms and lines of their figures.

It is always considered to be an essential quality of good elocution, both in speaking and singing, that a certain moderate standard of tone be constantly maintained; and increasing or diminishing this tone, or modulating out of it, has the effect of varying the sentiment expressed. In reading, pathetic expression is produced by low, sweet, tremulous tones; and the same is true of singing. In reading, also, a grand, lofty, and swelling tone

confers dignity; the expression of anger is rapid and violent; of joy, light and sprightly. In singing, the same modes of expression are employed, with this difference, that singing admits less of quick and violent utterance, while the tender and pathetic feelings are represented by a more protracted and less interrupted style of elocution. Nature has created so many varieties of intellect and of sensibility, which give rise to so many shades of passion, that although the sources of sensation are the same in all men, we should seem to differ prodigiously in those faculties and powers by which their effects, when elaborated and brought forth in their modified state, are so highly exalted.

Every composition, both of oratory and music, implies a certain character in him who utters the sentiments. For example, when an air belongs to any piece representing an action, it ought to be accompanied with a characteristic variation of tone as well as of deportment. The tyrant and the lover not only require a different style, but a different manner. The dignity or tenderness is so mixed with the effect, that the song has commonly the credit of the whole. In airs unconnected with any story, although the emotion appears to be excited wholly by the composition, the feelings that originate in the song, are perhaps imperceptibly, by ourselves, attributed to the singer. This train of