it only developes its ideas very slowly. You will smile at this idea; but try if, in generalizing it, you may not apply it to all the passions.

Choler, which in speech rolls like an impetuous torrent, often bewilders itself in sharp and whistling tones, and takes the highest notes precisely when fury renders it most dangerous or most disposed to an attack; and when it seeks to humiliate an adversary by contempt-how many times does the voice fail in the midst of those cries which ought to be uttered with the greatest vehemence ?

On the contrary, the smile of a soft joy will be light, agreeable, and brilliant. This affection constantly modulates between sharp and shrill tones, because the march of ideas is rapid and animated, but not savage and impetuous. It has the power of elevating and depressing the tone according to the different degrees of its vivacity, without ever giving into the piercing shriekings of choler nor into the grave and solemn intonations of admiration. Equally distant from the two extremes, the voice always balances itself in the medium of its forcé: and this is precisely the reason why the expression of no other passion is so sonorous, so agreeable, so full of grace, for the

middle and moderate tones have more of beauty and concord; although the bad taste of our modern connoisseurs and virtuosos, who use every effort to do away this impression, tends to prove to the contrary.

To these remarks, others might be subjoined, which are intimately connected with them, and which concern certain modifications of the voice, purposely made, whether we wish to afford assistance to the mind, or whether the intention be to smother, excite, or moderate the affections. He who mutters to himself, or recites to others an important and difficult thought, will carefully and more precisely examine and appreciate it; he will give it, not only a slow and distinct phraseology, but he will also make use of a more grave tone; because, accordingly, to the manner in which he is affected, a similar intonation awakens and fixes the attention, and disposes the soul to that calm tranquillity, to that moderate progression of ideas, which so well second research and the most perfect ascertainment of truth. Another, which accumulates ideas to aggrandize the sentiment of respect and dispose the soul to adore the object of its veneration with more fervour and humility, will lower the tone at each word; whilst

that which wishes to reinforce the affections (such, for example, as terror, joy, or choler) will successively elevate the voice. I must here just remark, that the passions, in general, have each their proper gradation, which does not simply consist in elevating or reinforcing the voice, but in the roundness, the most perfect manner of rendering the particular tone which appertains to each. He who proposes to appease a man inflamed with choler, that is to say, to alter the rough and impetuous march of his ideas to a more slow and moderate progression, will guard against taking too elevated a tone, or speaking with too much vivacity, or in a boisterous way; for if he should so act, whatever might be the nature of his remonstrances, far from producing the least effect, the disagreeable impressions which would result from it on the organs of the choleric man would tend more to accelerate than to moderate the march of his ideas, or give them a different direction. The well known pitchpipe of C. Gracchus, perhaps, less indicated the proper intonation for the moment than it guaranteed him from extremes: it moderated the fire of the orator by its grave sounds, and by its sharp notes it roused him when he grew flat and vapid.

T

By examples, taken from many passions, it would be very easy to prove to you the fecundity of the principle of analogy. It would not be less easy to convince you, that, at each small modification of an affection, as at each admixture of one affection with another, the tone of the voice. likewise experiences a change: for example, that veneration, when it ceases to be a pure admiration of moral perfections, and is mingled with fear and shame, loses the gravity, roundness, and equality of tone, that the respiration instantly becomes difficult, and that the phrases are consequently shorter and less connected, &c. But I shall confine myself to the indication of the rout which you may be able to follow in your own proper researches, and it will suffice me to have solely proved to you, by some examples, the possibility of establishing a general theory of the energetic arts.

You will find, perhaps, that what I have referred to analogy may equally be derived, in part, or totally, from physiological causes. In effect, the dilation of the organ of voice can explain the grave tone of admiration, and the contraction of the throat, caused by the blood, pushed with violence into the adjacent vessels, the sharp and cutting tone of choler. You would

then have a new resemblance between the art of gesture and the theory of declamation, but of which the effect would not be an agreeable one. I mean to say, that resemblance which, by the number of phenomena, makes it difficult for us to decide if we ought rather to derive it from one source or from another: for the rest, we shall generally do best in adhering to that which will explain the thing with the greatest perspicuity. This advantage, in my opinion, appertains to the analogy relative to the phenomena reported above, and to others which resemble them. For the rest, it is not difficult to reserve the other modifications of the voice for physiological causes: for examples of this, I shall quote the smothered voice of fury, the profound sighs of sadness and of love, the trembling voice, sobbing and interrupted, of the dejection of grief. I ought still to make a passing remark, i. e. that the elevation of the voice, which ordinarily accompanies the last words of a question, is founded upon an intention or a design with motive. In discourse, there is always something similar to the tones of a chant. After many modulations, the ear is dissatisfied, unless the voice should fall back into this fundamental tone. He who puts a question, by terminating it in a different tone, forces (as one may