to what Extent, and how most readily attainable?” 243 
beating by forte must inevitably produce ;—besides tnat horrific 
extension and inarticulate contraction of syllablesso inappropriate 
to oratory, which must consequently follow ;—besides the im- 
possibility, under regular time, of expressing our emotions by the 
immediate transitions from quick to slow and from slow to quick, 
to which we are instinctively prompted by those emotions * ;— 
besides these and many other objections which may be urged 
with regard to speech—is not the musician himself aware, that 
in proportion as he mechanically adheres to the exact execution 
of his musical time, even in song—in that proportion must he 
necessarily fall short of the admirable expression which distin- 
guishes the celebrated solo singer from the grosser performer ? 
In recitative (the design of which is the imitation of speech), 
how much more the latitude! The performer must be heard; 
and whenever superior energy and expression are intended, he 
must conform in a striking degree to the irregular dimensions of 
our syllables, articulating, with requisite length, 4 considerable - 
number, which the composer, for the preservation of imaginary 
time, has represented as very short; and shortening a number 
of those, especially the particles, which the composer may have 
represented too longt. The performer must also, on several 
occasions, extend for the sake of expression certain notes to 
which too limited duration had been assigned ; and he must con- 
sequently shorten others. He must likewise constantly surpass 
his bars by syncopation: he must considerably derange that order 
-of emphasis which the habitual character of our song prescribes: 
he must constantly pause where the sense requires, and disregard 
imaginary rests: in fine—to excel in recitative, he must wnlearn, 
and with no small share of difficulty, all his previously contracted 
time-beating habits, adopting every method which art or nature- 
may. suggest, for the annihilation of his bars, and the attainment 
of more appropriate expression. 
Against all these objections the advocates of barring will plead, 
and apparently with reason, the necessity of some certain basis 
for the establishment of regular proportion, from which the per- 
former may afterwards more or less depart, as fancy regulated by 
general usage shall invite him. Now with these advocates I 
should probably agree as to the utility of barring, [not in their 
way by constantly commencing forte,] were recitative not speech 
the ultimate object: but with regard to speech, whose latitude 
* The ancients, whose taste in every thing that related to oratory was , 
conspicuous, were particularly attentive to these transitions, Quintilian, 
in the 3d chap. of the xith book of his Institutes, points them out to the 
orator as indispensably connected with expression. 
+ Handel himself, in that superior passage which I have so often quoted, 
has marked equally with a semiquaver the words a, the, I, plung’d, blow. 
compared 
