250 Whether Music is necessary to the Orator 2” 
Let us reduce this passage, as nearly as we can, to some mu- 
sical standard; and the mixed characters of time will be more 
conspicuous. Suppose thus: 
A a eal A a 
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 
Or even thus: 
al bye) | ab [eb [| 
Things unattempted yet im prose or rhyme. 
Does not this experiment throw a considerable light upon our 
subject? Here may be discovered that the rhythm of language 
is governed as it should be, by éime and not by noise: that con- 
siderable deviations from all rhythmical regularity are necessary 
to the sublime: that barring in the ordinary way, by perpetually 
commencing forte, even in song, but especially in recitative, is 
unscientific * in the extreme: that speech, without torturing the 
character of words, has its own proportions, employs its synco- 
pations, and commands its crescendo as well as diminuendo par- 
titiens: that silence, according to ancient conception as well as 
modern experience, must necessarily constitute a portion of the 
rhythmical whole: and finally, that ¢ime of the common, triple, 
and even quintuple character is so frequently and peculiarly 
blended, that no musical annotation can represent it. 
What argument can our speech-barring advocates oppose to 
such undeniable facts? Of these gentlemen, then, | shall-for 
this time take my leave, by obtruding upon their notice an esta- 
blished maxim of my assocraTE, who was literally born a musi- 
cian; that as the most grovelling of all musical performers is 
the country fiddler who employs the agency of force to designate 
his bars—so the most contemptible of all reciters is he who 
marks the boundary of his measures by the instrumentality of 
accent. 
[To be continued. | 
* Slovenly and imperfect too in its result—a certain habitual crowding 
of the several integral parts within the given boundary, and not the rela- 
tive proportions of those integral parts themselves, being the principal re- 
quisite for the preservation of modern time. In proof of this assertion, de- 
prive any ordinary tune which the musician has not previously heard, of 
his perpendicular guides called bars—and so far from playing such tune in 
concert, he will be incapable of playing it at all. Roussrau has given us, 
under the article Barres, a curious anecdote confirmatory of my assertion: 
“‘Auparavant la musique €toit simple: cependant j’ai vu nos meilleurs mu- 
siciens embarrassés 4 bien exécuter l’ancienne musique d’Orlande et de 
Claudin, Ils se perdoient dans Ja mesure, faute des barres, et ne suivoient 
qu’avec peine des parties chantées autrefois couramment par les musiciens 
sde Henri III. et de Charles IX.” 
XL. A Method 
