402“ Whether Music is necessary to the Orator,— 
when compared with each other, as well as the disproportion of 
syllables called short, when similarly compared, was so great, 
that ail our attempts at more minute analysis than that exhibited 
in the foregoing table terminated in disappointment: Neither 
could we pretend to lay down any tolerable set of rules for the 
distinguishment of long syllables from short, every gradation fron 
our inarticulate article a to our longest syllable being constantly 
discoverable in our language. The dowbtful syllables are incre- 
dibly numerous. 
Remarks.—Nothing but the preservation of, our native lan- 
guage from the incroaching barbarism of the day, could have 
warranted the over-minute observations on é2me with which I have 
so long trespassed on the patience of my readers; I must there- 
fore hasten to a conclusion, beginning with the comparative 
lengths of our syllables. 
How widely different in this respect are the taste and judge- 
ment of Handel from those of Joshua Steele, and: the dissemina- 
tors of his new-fangled prosody! Our. immortal composer, for 
such may Handel without exaggeration be called, has for the most 
part limited his numerical relations, even in recitative, to the 
ratio of dwo to one, the crotchet = 4 being the general standard 
of his long syllables, and the quaver the standard of his short. 
The occasional increase and diminution of this ordinary standard 
were, in compliance with modern usage and the character of mo- 
dern language, indispensable, and were introduced accordingly— 
the ratio of four to one being, with very few exceptions, the maxi- 
mum. Let us open his Messiah; and following him throughout 
the whole of that dignified passage ‘* The voice of him that eryeth 
in the wilderness,” we shall find, with the exception of the se- 
cond syllable of ‘ wilderness,” which for musical effect is written 
with a semiguaver, and with the exception of the word ** Lord,” 
which for similar effect (although decidedly unwarrantable in 
speech) is written with a mimim, that the crotchet and quaver 
equivalent to four to two, or two to one, are uniformly preserved. 
Or let us turn to that celebrated passage of his Athalia, in which 
as a highly impassioned and more theatrical subject he has in- 
troduced a more diversified series—and we shall discover, even 
in this instance, a reasonable limitation throughout, four to one 
heing the utmost extent of his proportions. _ 
Messiah. 
Sin, Mega 2) SRA DS, PBC ee i ee 
««The voice of him that cryeth in the wilderness—prepare ye the way 
2.2). = 18 Bi A DP DT 2 2 Di a a | Dae 
of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God.” 
[I have passed over without observation the dotted quaver =3 
assigned to the first syllable of the word wilderness, this ring 
the 
