and is the most favourable to ease and variety, while the organs from practice are also stronger in this pitch, every speaker should endeavour to deliver the principal part of his discourse in the middle pitch of his voice. This pitch will be found to be nearly that used in common discourse, when we address ourselves to each other at the distance perhaps of twelve or fifteen feet, in an ordinary room. The inexperienced speaker is recommended, then, to endeavour to deliver himself as nearly as possible in this ordinary pitch, and not to think it necessary to seek for some unpractised tones, which might lead him into error and affectation.

The tones of the speaking voice, ascending from the lowest to the highest, may conveniently be considered in the following order: the whisper-audible only to the nearest person; the low speaking tone or murmur-suited to close conversation; the ordinary or middle pitch-suited to general conversation; the elevated pitch-used in earnest argument; and the extreme pitch-used in violent passion. These different tones are sensibly distinct and separated from each other. They may be subject to variation, according to the quantity of voice necessary to be issued, from that which in each case is used in speaking to one individual, to the quantity necessary to be given out in addressing a multitude.

In order to gain a habit of lowering the voice, the speaker should acquire a habit of dropping the voice to a lower key at the end of one sentence, and commence the next in the same low key with which the former concluded. To acquire this, the best method will be to select sentences which naturally require this manner of enunciation, and frequently practise reading them aloud.

The speaker will find that this lowering of the voice will be greatly facilitated by beginning the words, which it is wished to lower, in a monotone or sameness of sound similar to that produced by repeatedly striking the same key of a piano forte. A monotone indeed, though in a low key and without force, is much more sonorous and audible than when the voice slides up and down at almost every word, as it must do to be various. This tone is adopted by actors, when they repeat passages aside. They are to give the idea of speaking to themselves, in such a manner as not to be heard by the person with them on the stage, and yet must necessarily be heard by the whole theatre. The monotone, in a loud key, answers both these purposes. It conveys the idea of being inaudible to the actors with them in the scene, by being in a lower tone than that used in the dialogue, and, by being in a monotone, becomes audible to the whole house The monotone, therefore, becomes an excellent me

dium for such passages as require force and audibility in a loud tone.

The voices of individuals being extremely various in power and in the perfection of their various tones, those which are good in the lower tones being often deficient in the higher, and the contrary,—a speaker should, in his public efforts, keep as much as is consistent with variety to the best tone of his voice. In private, on the contrary, he should endeavour to improve by practice the tones which are most deficient. If he be desirous, for example, to improve his low tones, he ought to practise speeches that require little exertion a little below the common pitch. When he can accomplish this with ease, he ought then to try them in a tone still lower, selecting in preference such passages as require a low key and a full audible tone.

If it be desirable, on the other hand, that some of the higher tones be improved, the same exercises of reading passages in a high key, that naturally require it, will be useful and effective. If the voice be observed to grow thin or approach to a squeak upon a high note, it will be advantageous to swell it or give it a little more force, a little below the note where this begins, and to continue this swell for some time in a sort of monotone, to give it more force and audibility. The frequent pronouncing of a succession of questions that require the rising

¡nflexion will also be an excellent exercise for obtaining the same purpose.

After the voice has been carried to the highest pitch, it will be proper to bring it down to a lower key, by beginning the next sentence in a lower tone; and in extempore speaking this may be managed by the turn of the sentence, or the change of the sentiment, so far as to make the alteration of voice appear natural.

In very spacious rooms, or in large churches or cathedrals, the speaker ought to manage his voice as he would in the open air, in order to make himself audible as much as possible without straining or painful effort. In rooms, again, where the quickly returning echo disturbs the speaker, he must lessen the quantity of his voice till the echo ceases to be perceptible: and if he be disturbed by the slowly returning echo, he must take care to be much slower and distinct in his utterance than usual, and to make his pauses longer. He must attend to the returning sound, and not begin after a pause till the sound has ceased.

The speaker may readily discover whether his voice has filled the room, by the return of its sound to his own ear; and if this returned sound appear strong and forcible, his voice must be too loud for the auditory. The powers of the voice may be estimated from its capability of filling a room of

any particular size by a proportional effort of the lungs.

The attention of the audience is by far the best criterion, both of the audibility of a speaker and of the interest which he awakens; so much so, indeed, that when the hearers are observed to listen with indifference, or to show marks of impatience, the speaker should either change his tone, his manner, or his sentiments, or conclude as speedily as he can.

VI.

ARTICULATION, ACCENT, AND

EMPHASIS.

THOUGH tone may be justly considered the first requisite in a singer, and of great importance to a speaker, yet without a correct and distinct articulation, neither the one nor the other can ever acquire a high rank. Correct articulation, indeed, is the most important exercise of the voice and of the organs of speech, and of the most indispensable necessity; because any imperfection in this respect obscures every other talent in a public speaker; while one who is possessed only of a moderate