CHAPTER V.

HARMONY-RHYTHM.

$260. RHYTHM in style is founded on accent; and requires that the succession of accented and unaccented syllables be such as will produce an agreeable effect on the ear in the pronunciation of the discourse.

Among the ancients rhythm was regarded as the prominent thing in harmony of style; and much attention was given to it in the study of oratory. The structure of the Greek and Latin languages admitted, to a much greater degree than our own, the application of the principles of rhythm to the formation of style. Yet in the English language rhythm plays an important part; and in no point are the writings of different men more easily distinguishable from one another than in respect to rhythm, nor is there scarcely any other property more missed in oratory, when wanting.

The ancient rhetoricians endeavored earnestly to ascertain and settle the laws of rhythm; that is, determine in what particular successions of accent, or in what feet oratorical rhythm consists. The endeavor seems to have been fruitless; as the results of their investigations were widely variant. Indeed, from the very nature of oratory as distinguished from poetry, and yet proceeding from a mind formed in feeling and taste as well as in intelligence, aside from the nature of harmony as representing the form of expression yet as not independent of the thought expressed, we might have anticipated a failure in such an effort. The rugged oak, with its heavy, abrupt and open arms and its scanty spray and foliage has a harmony, so to speak, of its own; and there is, too, a harmony peculiar to the willow with its

long and slender branches and pendent foliage. The diverso character of the thought gives a diverse character to the rhythm. Strength and vehemence delights in the frequent concurrence of heavy accents; tenderness and familiarity avoid them. Yet the oak is not all heavy, jagged boughs; nor the willow all twig and leaf. There are extremes in both directions; and against these the following rules are given as the only ones which the nature of the case allows.

It should be ever borne in mind that while there is such a thing as rhythm, it is ever determined by the character of the thought; else rhythm would be mere euphony. The rhythm of Demosthenes would not be rhythm in Cicero.

§ 261. Rhythm forbids the excessive recurrence both of accented and also unaccented syllables.

This rule is founded in the very nature of rhythm which is constituted of an intermixture of accented and unaccented syllables. A style that offends against this rule must be pronounced to be so far wanting in rhythm. The writings of Tillotson, generally characterized for want of harmony, furnish abundant exemplifications of this fault in style. It will be remarked in the following extracts from this, in many respects, excellent writer, that the ear demands a heavy accent on the italicised words so much that such an accent is thrown on a word which should not regularly receive it. In this we find a proof that harmony ever respects the thought, and not the sound merely in which it is embodied.

Consider that religion is a great and a long work; and asks so much time, that there is none left for the delaying of it.

But then I say withal, that if these principles were banished out of the world, Government would be far more difficult than now it is, because it would want its firmest basis

and foundation; there would be infinitely more disorders in the world, if men were restrained from injustice and violence only by humane laws, and not by principles of conscience and the dread of another world.

If the word humane in this last extract be pronounced as it is here spelt, the ear will instantly detect the want of rhythm in the sentence. The offense is indeed so great that we cannot doubt the word was pronounced in the time of Tillotson as it is now with the accent on the first syllable, and that we have only conformed the orthography to the pronunciation.

In striking contrast with the style of Tillotson in respect to all the oral properties, and particularly that of rhythm, is the style of Milton, of which the following are beautiful exemplifications.

I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hillside, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education, laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

By a slight change in the rhythm without affecting the sense, this sentence may lose all its beauty. By substituting, for instance, in the last part of it" at first" for "at the first ascent"; on all sides” for “on every side”; and “sweet” for "charming," the rhythm is greatly marred; as will be seen from a mere perusal of it as thus altered:

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I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education, laborious indeed at first, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on both sides, that the harp of Orpheus was not more sweet.

When a man hath been laboring the hardest labor in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle

ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valor enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of truth. For who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings, to make her victorious. Those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power.-Of Unlicensed Printing.

§ 262. Rhythm also forbids an excessive recurrence of metrical feet which shall suggest the suspicion that the speaker has become poet.

This is a fault in style into which immature writers are liable to fall; especially if accustomed much to the exclusive recitation of poetical compositions. While it implies a musical car, it is yet a fault of excess; and in pure oratory is inadmissible. The fault more commonly appears in the more elevated parts of discourse, when the speaker, as it were, absorbs the audience into himself, and imagines himself no longer an orator, in address to others, but their mouth-piece in the mere utterance or pouring out of their common thoughts and feelings. As words of foreign origin do not readily fall in with those of native stock in rhythmical harmony,* writers who are liable to this fault of excess in rhythm are generally characterised for their preference of Anglo-Saxon words.

The following passage, from a popular author in the

*In the last extract from Milton, it will be seen at once that "ambushments" mars the rhythm. And in the next quotation, under this section, the phrase "assurances of immortality" is almost the only one that interrupts the poetical structure.

lighter departments of literature might be reduced to the form of regular blank verse.

Then when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place-when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all, it seemed to them, upon her quiet grave-in that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them—then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away and left the child with God. Oh! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach, but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a mighty, universal truth. When death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. the destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven.

In

$263. A correct or faulty rhythm appears most conspicuous at the termination of sentences or phrases, as the character of a strain of music is most affected by the cadence.

In the cadence of a sentence, or member of a sentence, is concentrated its entire musical effect. Hence, in the study of rhythm, the chief attention has been given to the construction of the cadence.

The style of Addison owes its easy flow in a great measure to the fact that, while trochaic cadences, or such as end with an unaccented syllable, predominate, the heavy effect of an invariable sameness is avoided by a due interspersion of iambic endings. A spondaic cadence rarely occurs in the compositions of this author.