Drowns my spirits, draws my breath? - Wonder. death? "Aspirated Orotund," Intense "Empassioned" Force, "Explosive Radical Stress," "High" Pitch, "Falling Inflection," "Rapid Movement," Brief Pauses, Intense Emphasis and "Expression." "The world recedes! it disappears! Rapture, Exultation, and Triumph. "Pure Orotund Quality," "Empassioned" Force, approaching to Shouting, "Thorough Stress," "High" Pitch, Prevalent "Falling Inflection" of the "Fifth," "Movement" " Rapid" and constantly accelerating in the first three of the following lines, then retarded by the full and prolonged swell of triumph, in the last two lines, -Pauses corresponding to the rate of "Movement," Emphasis intense, "Expression" ecstatic. Heaven opens to mine eyes! - mine ears Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?"* THE ENTERPRISE OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.-Edward Everett. Didactic Sentiment. "Pure Orotund Quality," "Moderate" Force, Unempassioned "Radical Stress," "Middle" Pitch, Varied "Inflection,”—“Moderate" "Movement," Pauses, and Emphasis,-"Expression" rising from moderate to animated. "As in private character, adversity is often requisite to give a proper direction and temper to strong qualities; so the noblest traits of national character, even under the *The above example was selected intentionally, as an impressive lesson on the extent to which lyric poetry,—and, particularly, sacred lyrics, carry the variation of vocal expression. The hymn quoted is the highest flight of the human soul, in this form; and the utterance is necessarily carried to ecstasy, in its effect, if the spirit of the poetry is thrown into the voice. ranks of a protesting Never was this truth freest and most independent of hereditary governments, are commonly to be sought in the minority, or of a dissenting sect. more clearly illustrated than in the settlement of New England. Could a common calculation of policy have dictated the terms of that settlement, no doubt our foundations would have been laid beneath the royal smile. Convoys and navies would have been solicited to waft our fathers to the coast; armies, to defend the infant communities; and the flattering patronage of princes and lords, to espouse their interests in the councils of the mother country. Oratorical Sentiment. - "Pure Orotund Quality," "Declamatory" Force, "Thorough Stress" of moderate energy, “Middle" Pitch, — Varied “Inflection," but prevalent "Downward Slide" of the "Fifth" and "Third,”—“Moderate" "Movement” and Pauses, Energetic Emphasis, Vivid "Expression." "Happy, that our fathers enjoyed no such patronage happy, that they fell into no such protecting hands; happy, that our foundations were silently and deeply cast in quiet insignificance, beneath a charter of banishment, persecution, and contempt; so that when the royal arm was at length outstretched against us, instead of a submissive child, tied down by former graces, it found a youthful giant in the land, born amidst hardships, and nourished on the rocks, indebted for no favors, and owing no duty. From the dark portals of the star-chamber, and in the stern text of the acts of uniformity, the pilgrims received a commission, more efficient, than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in the strange land, was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness, were fortunate; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever memorable parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those who engaged in it, to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause; and if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness? Pathetic Description. "Pure Orotund Quality," "Subdued" Force, "Median Stress," "Low" Pitch, Prevalent "Falling Inflection" of "Minor Third," "Slow Movement, Long Pauses, Softened Emphasis, Grave and plaintive" Expression." "It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters, which the little band of pilgrims encountered. Sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into one vessel; one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the long, cold, and weary autumnal passage; of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season; where they are deserted before long by the ship, which had brought them, and which seemed their only hold upon the world of fellow-men, a prey to the elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, the power, and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled the unexplored continent, upon whose verge they had ventured. Energetic Declamation. “Orotund Quality," "Declamatory" Force, Moderate "Thorough Stress,” “Middle" Pitch, Prevalent " Falling Inflection," "Mod *Here the expression varies suddenly to the style of subdued and gentle appeal. erate" "Movement" and Pauses, Energetic Emphasis, Strong "Expression." "But all this wrought together for good. These trials of wandering and exile, of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, and the savage foe, were the final assurance of success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause, all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to preëminence. No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the pilgrims. No Carr or Villiers would lead on the ill-provided band of despised puritans. No well-endowed clergy were on the alert, to quit their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorado of ice and snow. No, they could not say they had encouraged, patronized, or helped the pilgrims: their own cares, their own labors, their own councils, their own blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all, sealed all. They could not afterwards fairly pretend to reap where they had not strown; and as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely tolerated, it did not fall when the favor which had always been withholden, was changed into wrath; when the arm which had never supported, was raised to destroy. Pathetic Description. Style of elocution, as in the example of the same species of rhetorical style, on the preceding page. "Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route;and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. Awe and Horror. Partially" Aspirated Quality,” “Empassioned" Force, "Thorough Stress," "Low" Pitch, Prevalent "Falling Inflection" of the "Fifth," "Slow Movement," Long Pauses, Intense Emphasis, and "Expression." 66 - The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem strained from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow: the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. Pathetic Description. "I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, -weak and weary from the voyage, - poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, - surrounded by hostile tribes. Oratorical Apostrophe. "Orotund Quality," "Declamatory" Force, "Thorough Stress," "Middle" Pitch, Prevalent "Falling Inflection," of the "Fifth," "Moderate" "Movement," and Pauses, Energetic Emphasis, and bold" Expression." Shut now the volume of history; and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. - Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early |