And hurrying and skurrying,
And glittering and frittering,

And gathering and feathering;

And clattering and battering and shattering,

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing;
And so never ending but always descending,
Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending."

V.-"Humorous," or Playful, Style.

Exercise.

[In the reading of the following scene, the tone of humor is exemplified in the laughing and bantering utterance in which the audience make their remarks on the absurd attempts at sublimity, solemnity, and pathos, which are made by the clownish amateur actors. These worthies have, it may be recollected, volunteered a play on the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, for the entertainment of the court of Theseus, “duke" of Athens, during a season of festivity.]

(Tone smooth, but in laughing utterance, in the italic passages.) [SCENE FROM THE MIDSUMMER NIght's Dream.]—Shakspeare.

"Enter Lion and Moonshine.

“Lion. You ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know, that I, one Snug, the joiner, am,

No lion fell, nor else no lion's dam ;

For if I should as lion come in strife

Into this place, 't were pity of my life.

Theseus. Demetrius.

--

A very gentle beast, and of good conscience.1

The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw. Lysander. This lion is a very fox for his valor.

Thes. True; and a goose for his discretion.

Dem. Not so, my lord: for his valor cannot carry his discretion; and the fox carries the goose.

1 The remarks which exemplify the mode of utterance mentioned above, are distinguished by italics.

1

Thes. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valor; for the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion; and let us listen to the moon.

6

Moon. This lantern doth the horned moon present:

'Myself the man i' the moon do seem to be.'

Thes. This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' the moon?

Dem. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff.

Hippolyta. I am aweary of this moon: would he would change! Thes. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane: but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time. Lys. Proceed, moon.

Moon. All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.'

Dem. Why, all these should be in the lantern: for they are in the But silence! here comes Thisbe."

moon.

EXERCISES IN "OROTUND" UTTERANCE.

To young persons whose organs are yet pliant, and susceptible of the full effects of cultivation, and to students who are desirous of acquiring a perfect command over the vocal organs, for the purposes of effective public speaking, as well as to persons who wish to attain facility in the strong impassioned expression of vocal music, as exemplified in occasional passages of the oratorio and the opera, the power of orotund utterance, in all its extent, is indispensable as an accomplishment. Capacious and vigorous organs, a high state of health, an energetic will, a deep and quick susceptibility of the inspiration of poetic passion, enable some individuals to become powerful vocalists and speakers, with comparatively little training or express practice. But the vast majority of human beings cannot attain the effective expression of intense emotion, without the aid of systematic culture and persevering application; and, to all classes of students, such assistance is of immense advantage: the more regular and extensive the discipline, the greater is always the result in power of voice.

For these reasons, it will be of the utmost service, as an efficacious mode of training, to repeat, with due frequency, previous to commencing the following exercises, the organic functions of breathing, in its different forms, as before suggested, and the yawning, coughing, crying, and laughing modes of utterance, on the "tonic elements," and on words selected from the "exercises in enunciation."

22

1.- 66 EFFUSIVE OROTUND."

I.-Pathos and Gloom, or Melancholy, united with Grandeur. 1.-[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 But thou thyself moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. 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 west. 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."

2.-[MILTON'S ALLUSION TO HIS LOSS OF SIGHT.]
"Seasons return: But not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds or human face divine;
But cloud, instead, and ever-during dark
Surround me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out!"

3.- [FROM THE ODE ON THE PASSIONS.]-Collins.
"With eyes upraised as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired,

And from her wild, sequestered seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound:

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole ;

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,

In hollow murmurs died away."

II-Solemnity and Sublimity, combined with Tranquillity.

[FROM THE THANATOPSIS.] — Bryant.

"Yet not to thy eternal resting place

Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,
with kings

The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good,
Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past, -

All in one mighty sepulchre. — The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun, the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;
The venerable woods, - rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, -

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man.

The golden sun,

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes

That slumber in its bosom. - Take the wings

Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings, yet the dead are there;

And millions, in those solitudes, since first

The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep: the dead reign there alone."

III.-Reverence, and Adoration.1

1.- [FROM THE MORNING HYMN IN PARADISE.]-Milton.
"These are Thy glorious works, Parent of Good,

1 The appropriate tone of devotion is uniformly characterized by "effusive orotund" utterance.

Almighty! Thine this universal frame
Thus wondrous fair, - Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens

To us invisible, or dimly seen

'Midst these thy lowest works.

Yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought

2.-[ADORATION OFFERED BY THE ANGELS.]- Milton.

"Thee, Father, first they sung, omnipotent,

Immutable, immortal, infinite,

Eternal King: Thee Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyself invisible

Amidst the glorious brightness where Thou sitt'st
Throned inaccessible, but when Thou shad'st
The full blaze of thy beams, and, through a cloud
Drawn round about Thee, like a radiant shrine,
Dark with excessive bright, thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle Heaven that brightest seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes."

[AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS.] - Burke.

"By the order of the House of Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.

"I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.

"I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.

"I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted.

"I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

"I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in the world."