1825.] 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
The Anatomy of SPEECH. 
MR. THELWALL’S SECOND LECTURE ON 
THE STRUCTURE AND OFFICES OF THE 
ORGANS OF VOICE. 
I. Complication of Sounds in the Voice— 
IJ. Do.in the Tones of Musical In- 
struments—III. Secondary or Inter- 
mediate Organs of Voice, Roof, Nos- 
trils, Mavillaries, $c., Frontal Sinus, 
Skull, Fibres and Integuments of the 
Head; Discoveries of Mr. Gough ; 
Cavity, Cartilages, and Fibres of the 
Chest ; Experiments and Conclusions ; 
Theories of Compounded and Co- 
_alescent Sounds; and of Simple Im- 
perfect Unisons, 
I. CoMPLICATION OF THE SOUNDS OF 
Vorce.—The complicated apparatus of 
the larynx is capable, as has been al- 
ready shewn, of producing a very ex- 
tensive variety of tuneable sound. But 
neither the apparatus nor the varieties 
heretofore enumerated, constitute the 
whole of the complication, either of the 
causes or the effects. The action of the 
larynx alone will not account for all 
the phenomena of the modulations and 
diversity of human voices. Those al- 
ready specified are such as might be 
produced, principally, from the me- 
chanism of a single instrument; the 
sounds proceeding from which may be 
rendered, at pleasure, either strong or 
weak, loud or soft, heavy or light, or high 
or /ow, through all the gradations of a 
given scale. Individual instruments of 
the same general structure, may be, 
also, in their tone, like individual 
voices, thin or full, clear or husky, from 
particular circumstances in the texture 
of the materials of which the resound- 
ing parts are composed. 
But there are other differences aris- 
ing from other causes, that contradis- 
tinguish voice from voice, among beings 
of the same species: nay, there are 
other varieties in the intonations, even of 
the same individual voice—differences 
almost illimitable in characteristic ex- 
pression, in the voice especially ; that is 
duly trained and disciplined to elocu- 
tionary accomplishment, or obedient to 
the dominion of sympathy and feeling. 
In short, the human voice is not so 
properly to be compared to a single in- 
strument, as to a concert of various 
instruments; the different stops, and 
strings, and keys of which, to a certain 
degree at least, are subject to the con- 
trol of volition: the judgment or the 
sensibility of the speaker, mingling their 
The Anatomy of Speech. 
397 
different tones in a smaller‘or greater 
degree, and with more or less effect, in 
proportion to the skill, the taste and 
the feeling of the performer. Hence 
the various tones of various passions } 
Hence the boundless variety. of indivi- 
dual voices: a variety so incalculable 
and so contradistinguishing, that man 
is known from man, by his intonation, 
as distinctly as by the features of the 
face: the diversities and peculiarities 
of the former being as marked and as 
extensive as of the latter. 
“ The varieties of voices,” says Mr- 
Gough, in one of his communications to 
the Philosophical Society of Manchester 
(See his “‘ Essay on the Variety of Human 
Voices”), is perhaps as great as the variety 
of features; and, like the countenance, it 
serves as a personal distinction, to which 
all men have recourse, under certain cir- 
cumstances; and those that are deprived 
of sight, by cultivating a more delicate 
sense of the modification of sound under - 
consideration, acquire a facility in discri- 
minating between man and man, in their 
intercourse of the world.” 
Were the organ of voice so simple 
and incomplicate as is generally sup- 
posed—did its tones depend upon the 
vibrations and impulses of the larynx 
and trachea alone, this infinite variety 
could never be accounted for.* The 
differences of length and diameter in 
the trachea would, indeed, account for 
the different degrees of pitch and loud- 
ness ; the strength of the cartilages, and 
firmness of the muscles, for the force 
and continuity of the vibrations; and 
other circumstances of the texture of 
the parts, for their clearness, or the re- 
verse; while the different degrees of 
opening in the larynx itself, would be 
admitted as satisfactory causes of all 
the varieties that have reference to the 
gamut. But in all these particulars, 
voices might happen to accord, and yet 
their characteristic differences be suffi- 
ciently obvious, 
* An acquaintance,” as Mr. Gough has 
observed, ‘is easily recognized by his 
speech, whether he speak vehemently or 
softly, in a high or low key; and the voice 
of two singers may be made to sound in 
unison, though they be in other respects 
very dissimilar.” TI. 
* “ The effect produced by a single vi- 
brating body,” says Mr. Gough, “ being 
determined by the force of the pulses of 
air, and the celerity with which they follow 
each other, the only modifications that can 
be inferred from any conjunction of these 
properties are comparative degrees of loud- 
ness and acuteness.”” 
