1808.] 
cal sound depend?* Are not these im- 
pediments, together with the whole class 
of those that affect the tone and tune of 
speech, evidently dependant upon cir- 
cumstances, with which the mode of 
treatment necessary for the deaf can have 
no possible connection? Are not some 
of them the cansequences even of ha- 
bits of imitation, whiclr deafness must of 
necessity preclude, and with which the 
teacher of the deaf can therefore have 
nothing to do? 
I will go further; there are some spe- 
cies. of minor defect and impediment 
(and monotony and offensive peculiari- 
ties of tone and tune are among the 
number) which, without appeal to the 
sense of hearing, can never be removed; 
and with which, accordingly, in the 
speech of the deaf-born dumb, we con- 
tentedly dispense. In such cases, in- 
telligible distinctness is all that we ex- 
pect; and if these be attained, thank- 
ful to that benignant art which has ac- 
complished so much, we rest satisfied 
with the dispensation which precludes 
the higher excellences of a varied and 
expressive modulation. But he who, zz 
case of unpediment, would stop, where 
Nature, with an insurpassable barrier, 
has fixed the limits of vocal attainment 
to the deaf, is not qualifed for this de- 
partment; since there are impediments 
——nay, perhaps, since all impediments 
are best surmounted (even in what re- 
lates to the primary requisites of facility 
and intelligibleness) by aiming at the 
highest graces of rhetorical emphasis and 
harmonic inflection: to which the deaf 
must be for ever as insensible as the 
blind to prismatic colours. 
The deep nasality, for example, of the 
late Mr. Bensley, the sepuichral pectora- 
lism of Mr. Kemble, the overstrained 
mavillarism of Master Betty,} and all the 
* How little the real sources of imvedi- 
‘ment are in general understood, will be obvi- 
ous to those who have had the opporturity 
of observing that even these very impedi- 
ments, so merely and exciusively vocal, are 
seldom if ever found to affect the voice in 
singing. If such imp¢diments were really 
dependent upon mere organic or constitution- 
al defects, these contradictory phenumena 
could never occur. 
+ Iam obliged to make use of new terms; 
because I am treating of a subject that is new 
to critical analysis. The teims nasality and 
pectoralism will speak for themselves. By 
maxillarism, is to be understood the excess of 
that species of tone produced in the cells and 
and of the Deaf and Dumb. 
203 
caricatured defects of their injudicious 
imitators, might be classed among the 
minor impediments of voice; or, at least, 
among those ill habits ef vocal action, 
the excesses of which (like the excesses 
of all other ill habits of utterance) would 
ultimately amount to impediment. 
These, and such like habitual defects, 
in the tone and character of the voiee, int 
all their respective gradations, it is the 
province of the professor who under- 
takes the cure of impediments, to re- 
move: and I shall venture to pronounce, 
that, by means of the inductions of ana- 
tomical analysis, by minute attention to 
the process and modifications of vocal 
action, and by accurate and reiterated 
comparison of other constantaneous sen- 
sations with the perceptions of the well- 
cultivated ear, they might be effectually 
removed: while, at the same time, with- 
eut such comparisons, and such appeals 
te the sense of hearing (with which the 
teacher of the deaf can have no concern), 
no impediment, whatever, if deeply com- 
plicated with such ill habits of vocal ac- 
tion, can ever be effectually aid perma- 
nently subdued.* Thus must the treat- 
ment of impediment frequently begin, 
where nature has fixed the very utmost 
limits of the practicability of instrvc- 
tion to the deat: for it would be wonder- 
ful indeed, if by any practicable applica- 
tion to any or all the inlets of perception 
compatible with deafness, it were pos- 
sible to produce even the restricted mo- 
dulation of a Kemblet or a Bensley. 
Tn 
RR A 
sinuses of the jaws and contiguous parts of the 
head. An excess of this descripcion is the 
more offensive in the age of boyhood, because 
some of the organs that most contribute to 
the pleasing modulation of these tones are 
not then expanded: 
* Cases of this complicated description 
are generally set down to the account of con- 
stitutional defect: a term which, at once, with 
great convenience, covers ignorance, and ex- 
cuses neglect. The unhappy victim is ac- 
cordingly consigned to effortless despair, and 
not unfrequently to consequent vacancy and 
imbecility of mind: for such must be the loc 
ot him who with an impediment in his speech 
is consigned to the superintendence, or rae 
ther to the neglect and mockery, of an ordi- 
nary schoul. 
ft itis hoped that nothing ir this iilus- 
tration will be considered as personally dis- 
respectiul to this great actor, who, in many 
of the highest reyuisites of his profession 
(among his own sex, at least,) stands unri- 
valled in his generation, The defect of his 
¥Olce 
