To welcome your new guests, your Danish visitants?
To stretch your supple necks beneath their feet
And fawning lick the dust? Go, go, my countrymen,
Each to your several mansions, trim them out,
Cull all the tedious earnings of your toil,
To purchase bondage.-O, Swedes! Swedes!
Heavens! are ye men and will suffer this?
There was a time, my friends, a glorious time!
When, had a single man of your forefathers
Upon the frontier met a host in arms,

ye

His courage scarce had turned; himself had stood,
Alone had stood, the bulwark of his country."

Example for the 'short' slide, or the "Minor Third."

"Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bírd,—a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed, was stirring nimbly in its cáge, and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever!

"Sórrow was déad, indeed, in her; but pèace and perfect happiness were born,-imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repòse.

Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was at beautiful mùsic, which, she said, was in the air! God knows. It máy have been.

"Opening her eyes at last from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man, with a lovely smile upon her fáce, such, they said, as they had never séen, and never could forgét—and clung, with both her arms, about his nèck. She had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet mind, and mánner quite unáltered, save that she every day became more eárnest and more grateful to them, faded like the light upon the summer's evening."

PITCH.

1. The standard pitch' or 'key-note.' 2. The 'relative pitch' or 'melody.'

The middle pitch is the natural key-note for unemotional,' 'bold,' and 'noble' pieces. A higher pitch is the natural key-note for animated and joyous,' 'subdued or pathetic,' and 'impassioned' pieces. A lower pitch is required for grave' pieces.

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The middle or conversational pitch must be used for all 'kinds' when pupils have not the requisite compass or cultivation of voice to read naturally on a higher or lower 'key.'

But appropriate variety of pitch on the successive words and syllables, is one of the most essential and beautiful parts of good reading. In perfect elocution, it adds to the eloquence of expressive emphasis, the musical charm of 'natu ral melody?

NATURAL MELODY

Is produced in part by that agreeable modulation of all the elements of expression, which the varied sense and feeling demand, yet it chiefly depends on a pleasing variation of the radical or opening pitch, on successive syllables.

PRINCIPLE.

1. Not more than two or three consecutive syllables should be given on the same tone of the musical scale.

2. Natural melody demands that this frequent change of pitch on the unemphatic syllables shall be only one tone at a time.

The unemphatic syllables form a kind of flexible ladder connecting the emphatic ideas, up and down which we must glide tone by tone, so as to be in the right place to give the longer slides on the emphatic words without an unmelodious break in the natural current of the voice, which should flow on smoothly through all changes, (unless there is an abrupt break in the ideas), just as a good road runs on over ever-varying hills and vales without once losing its smooth continuity.

Melody demands that the pitch on consecutive emphatic words also be agreeably varied. Our limited space will not allow us to mark the many possible permutations of pitch, which may constitute natural melody. We will only repeat the important general directions. Avoid monotony, by giving at most only two or three consecutive syllables, on the same tone.

Avoid making unnatural changes of pitch, of more than one tone at a time.

Glide up the scale on the negative ideas, so that you will have room above the key-note, to slide down easily on the positive ideas.

COMPASS.

The compass of voice which should be used also depends on the 'spirit' of the piece.

The most 'joyous' and most impassioned' demand the widest range of pitch, and the greatest natural variety.

The unemotional' demands only moderate compass. The 'grave' demands still less variety and compass. And when the 'grave' deepens into supernatural awe or horror, by the same analogy, we may infer that natural variety or melody gives place to an unnatural sameness of utterance, with just that little variety of all the vocal elements which is necessary to express the sense at all.

Example for middle pitch' and moderate compass.'

"It is these which I love and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In an American, it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful, to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow without emotion the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakespeare and Milton."

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'Joyous' example for higher pitch' and 'wider compass?

"There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gathered then

Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily, and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.”

'Grave' example for lower pitch' and less than 'moderat compass.'

"And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, -say I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in,
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's: then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell!
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!"

VOLUME.

'Full volume' is the most essential element in the truthful expression of noble' sentiment.

1. "MIND is the NOBLEST part of man; and of mind, vìrTUE is the NOBLEST distinction. HONEST MÀN, in the ear of Wisdom, is a grander name, is a more high-sounding title, than peer of the réalm, or prince of the blood. According to the eternal rules of celestial precedency, in the immortal heraldry of Náture and of Heaven, VIRTUE takes place of all things. It is the nobility of ÀNGELS! It is the MAJESTY of GOD!"

In addition to 'full volume,' 'noble' pieces demand slow time, or long quantity and pauses, long slides, and loud but smooth-swelling force on the emphatic words. Full volume distinguishes manly sentiments from the thin or fine tone of child-like emotions.

2. "But strew his ashes to the wind,

Whose sword or voice has served mankind.
And is he dead whose glorious mind

Lifts thine on high?

To live in hearts we leave behind,
Is not to die.

"Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And Murder sullies in Heaven's sight

The sword he draws:

What can alone ennoble fight?

A noble cause!"

STRESS.

Stress is not the degree but the kind of emphatic force we use. The same degree of loudness may be given to a syllable abruptly and suddenly, as in sharp command, or smoothly and gradually, as in the noble examples given above. This sudden and harsh kind of force we will call abrupt stress;' the other smooth stress.'

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PRINCIPLE.

'Abrupt stress' should be given to all abrupt or harsh ideas, and pleasant or 'smooth stress' to all good or pleasant ideas.

Mere command is abrupt; indignation, anger, defiance, revenge, &c., are all abrupt in their very nature; and, therefore, must be read with the abrupt stress.'