244 * Whether Music is necessary to the Orator,— 
compared with recitative is undoubtedly greater than that of re- 
citative compared with song, is there not a more simple and less 
objectionable method of cultivating proportion, by which the 
speaker shall neither misspend his valuable hours in learning the 
mechanical operation of beating our various species of time ; 
nor acquire, in the remotest degree, any habit that shall endan- 
ger his delivery and cost hin much subsequent trouble to re- 
move ? 
T'o this simple method our attention will speedily be directed. 
But although it were ever so necessary, and even practicable, for 
the oratr to improve himself by speaking in barred productions— 
where, as I already observed, is the master capable of composing 
and teaching them? In what species of time, ¢ , 8, or even 3, 
separately or mixed, shall they be written? And although this 
question which appears unanswerable should be solved—shall the 
orator even then sacrifice his own, and in all probability superior 
ideas of beauty, to the ultimate setting of a Joshua Steele? 
The total impracticadility, however, of executing speech, even 
with folerable accuracy, in any species of musical time, is in my 
opinion self-evident. Nothing for the ascertainment of this fact 
has on my part, or on that of my assocraTe and other musical 
assistants, been left undone. Various passages were selected, 
and all equally failed. At length we confined ourselves to that 
passage which Joshua Steele had intentionally chosen in the out- 
set of his work as the foundation of his theory, ‘ Oh happiness, 
&e.” and which I have already given as set by that fanciful gen- 
tleman. This passage was separately taken up by each indivi- 
dual, and set in that form which in his opinion was most ana- 
logous to the delivery of our chastest speakers, and at the same 
time consonant, as much as possible, with musical usage :—all 
these settings were compared ; and after mature discussion, the 
following was preferred : 
— 
6 . r . 
Pole alae ots Popes ompeulen 
Oh happiness [our being’s end and aim. | 
8 owkii dl do 7i2, 2a Ziwith 3 
12 444 4 8 8 4 8 4 12 
Or= 
The exact musical execution of this piece now followed: the 
time was regularly beat, and the relative proportion of every 
note observed as systematically as in concert: but the result was 
intolerable :—it was any thing but speech. 
A reader of the superior order attended our consultation. He 
slowly recited the passage. Some trifling defects were observed, 
especially in the execution of the last word, which by over-ex- 
tension produced too much the effect of an independent line 
without 
