404 “Whether Music is necessary to the Orator,— 
lables, did probably sometimes attain this ratio 3 for although ju- 
diciously founded on the general principle of éwo to one. yet the 
shortest syllable when most unemphatically delivered could not, 
to all appearance, have exceeded the one-third of the longest 
syllable when influenced by particular emphasis. | 
There is another, and in my opinion a still more accurate me- 
‘thod of analysing our song, with reference to the subject of quan- 
tity—which is, the taking into account not the variations which 
any individual syllable may undergo (such variations being equi- 
valent to the simple slide or circumflex in language, as thus: 
Ct >. “a 
ey » thus te or thus e(p)» but the actual duration allotted 
in the aggregate to every such syllable. For curiosity’s sake let 
us subject that chaste and admirable song ** Hope thou nurse” 
to this mode of analysis, and it will be seen that the ratio of two 
fo one, and no more, is simply and uninterruptedly observed. 
Hope thou Nurse. 
BH ry i Sai Ake 48484 848 4 8 
“* Hope thou nurse of young desire—fairy promiser of joy | 
8 48 4 8 4 848 4 3 4a: BU i stay 
Painted vapour glow-worm fire—temp rate sweet that ne’er can cloy.”, 
What wonderful simplicity, and yet how beautiful! Scanned 
after the manner of Dionysius, it consists of alternate Cretics and 
Amphibrachs on/y ; and is consequently much less diversified in 
its arrangement than our ancient Hexameter, as will immediately 
appear by the analysis of the latter. Will our speech-barring 
reformers at length be satished ? or must we at their suggestion 
subvert the decorous usages of our country; and in the delivery 
of our language surpass even the composers of our recitative and 
song ? 
Fortunately for the elocution of these countries, our collegiate 
education, which embraces the languages of antiquity, inspires the 
student with deserved veneration for the poetic and oratorical 
productions of Greece and Rome,—and from these sources he can- 
not fail, after a little application, to derive the most signal ad- 
vantage; for by habituating himself to the recitation—first of 
select Hexameter passages, and afterwards of select passages from 
the orations of Demosthenes*, (a certain rude observance of or 
rather altempt at accent, and a more particular observance of. 
quantity being regarded,) he will sensibly and even speedily ac- 
quire 
* Our present method of reading the Latin language would render the 
orations of Cicaro incligible. We uniformily assign to the Latin position 
vowels a short quantity, regardless of their lengths by nature. The same 
objection indeed will hold good in Greek with regard to the 42¢a and oe 
ut 
