to what Extent, and how most readily attainable?” 168 
their local habits or fanciful chimeras* into the oratorical world 
as the models of perfection? In modern Europe, where every 
desirable license compatible with the character of speech is given 
to the speaker, shall he not be permitted to play off his volun- 
éary as he pleases? Good taste and decorum should be his only 
guides, , 
The exclamation and parenthesis require no comment. But 
not so with our PERIODS, or rather that portion of our periods 
which, in this letter, I have already called the “ final cadence ;” 
the discussion of its peculiarity being important. Our music 
possesses, in this instance, an unbounded latitude; and such la- 
titude being very frequent in our ordinary tunes, must it not ap- 
pear that to the habitude of s¢xging which prevails throughout 
society, may be attributed that imperfection so generally com- 
plained of in our public readers, and even indeed in our extem- 
poraneous orators, of falling immeasurably through the scale at 
the conclusion of their periods? 
Our popular songs, our psalms and hymns, have in all pro- 
bability contributed, particularly in this respect, to the injury of 
our elocution +; the ear, too often habituated to four or five suc- 
cessively descending syllables or notes, being intuitively led, in 
all cases of studied composition, to a similar modulation, of 
which the character of speech can never realise the execution f. 
Hence syllable is tumbled upon syllable; non-articulation is the 
result, and the die-away voice of the speaker becomes inaudible 
to all around him. ‘ 
I know not any song whatever, notwithstanding its five falling 
* At the head of this list I shall place the “ Elements of Elocution,” and 
“ RhetoricalGrammar,” bythe late Mr.Walker. Take one of his own figures ; 
What! Eleven syllables, all descending in succession, and slided too— 
without any intermediate elevation, repetition, or even sustentation! Pre- 
posterous idea! Why did he not consult a musician? No human being, in 
any age or nation, not even Mr. Walker himself, could ever have uttered a 
sentence in such a manner. 
+ Almost all the good singers and good musicians whom I ever knew, 
were indifferent speakers: and | am acquainted with one person in particular, 
whose elocution has been materially injured by the cultivation of the violin. 
The successively ascending intervals with which our music abounds are 
almost equally injurious to oratory. Speech, without sing-song, rather 
rarely exhibits two, and is generally confined to one. 
L2 notes 
