408 Whether Music is necessary to the Orator 2” 
Epitrite first .. errr ) 
second .. f c f f rh of as resolvable into” 
third .. fff pak anes ‘ 
fourth . Pay f f f 5 
Doehaesed 2-4te f r r P r [ar o§ “Th resp haiie into > 
rere 
and 
Dispondeus .. .. Bar of = resolvable into=. 
These are the measures or combinations of ¢ime (altogether 
unconnected with forte, or emphatic syllables,) of which the 
writers of antiquity have so familiarly spoken; and I sincerely 
hope that by our collegiate efforts they may ultimately tend to 
the embellishment of that language which has fallen to our in- 
heritance. 
OF FORTE*, 
This topic has been already so amply treated in my late paper 
on time and rhythmus, that very little more than the ordinary 
doctrine of our lexicographers presents itself for discussion. ‘These 
gentlemen may amuse themselves as they please, by insisting that 
this or that syllable only, shall, in their phraseology, be accented 
or unaccented ; or, in plain common English, be articulated or 
muttered: Mr. Sheridan, too, in his “ Art of Reading,” and Dr. 
Blair in his ‘* Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres,” may 
also argue the peculiar propriety of confining the accent (as they 
eall it) to an individual syllable, while every other syllable is de- 
nied even a minor privilege—producing by this wretched maxim 
a sudden and intolerably offensive burst of forte in the midst of 
pianof: but these anti-musical as well as anti-oratorical pre- 
cepts never yet were nor ever will be followed by the cultivated 
speaker. Hence the energetic custom with several good orators 
of laying, in certain cases, a considerable stress on the antepe- 
nult of such words as dictator, representation, &c. analogous to 
the Grecian delivery of aveyaitioes OdAucev, &c. ‘These latter in- 
deed may be so uttered (and with excellent effect) that even the 
* The author of Prosodia Rationalis, for the mere purpose of coining the 
obscure and unmeaning term “ poize,” has introduced a most idle distinction 
between force and loudness. Force may certainly be exerted in whisper 
or suffocated sounds without the production of loudness—but what relation 
has this to the musico-oratorical question of forte? ‘* Pudsation” and ‘ re- 
mission” too, terms equally ridiculous with the word poize, are likewise em- 
ployed by this gentleman as a convenient cloak for musico-physical absur- 
dities. ' 
+ This is the characteristic sign by which our Gothic orators, actors, and 
reciters may be instantly distinguished from their superiors. The second 
sign is the striking of an octave. 
as 
