38  £ssay on the, T. heory of Tnflexion. 
notwithstanding all the warnings and 
commands of his father, would not con- 
sent to go into the ark; saying, he would 
take refuge in the mountains, . where he 
should be. safe from the waters; therefore 
that youth, and his mother, who was 
named Wauilah, not giving faith to 
Noah, were both drowned... vie 
Historians agree in describing the 
inundation as having been so excessive, 
that the waters rose to the height of forty 
cubits above the tops of the most,lofty | 
-duaily conveyed to thé ear, the attention 
mountains ; and they say, that even then 
~they did not reach above the knee-pan 
of Aw} Ben Unuck, although he was not: 
arrived at his full growth, ‘ 
The ark, having gone round the earth ° 
several times, it at last rested on the top 
of mount Ararat. The rain ceased; and 
the earth, after six months, having soaked 
up the water, Noah and all the living 
creatures came out of the ark on the 
second day of the month Ramzan. 
The family of Noah built a city at the 
foot of mount Ararat, and called it Suk- 
el-Samaneen. And it came to pass, after 
2 short space of time, out of those eighty 
persons, there were only left Noah, and 
his three.sons, with their wives. | 
Noah lived two hundred and fifty years 
after the flood ; he was two. hundred and 
fifty years old when he received the gift 
of prophesy ;.and he preached for the 
space of mine hundred and fifty years. 
The days of Noah were one thousand 
four hundred and fifty years. And he 
teft behind him three suns, Japhet, Shem, 
and Ham, from whom the whole human 
race are descended, 
a 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, ai 
S public speaking discovers itself 
A by the signs of voice, countenance, 
and gesture, to be a beautiful copy of 
correct conversation, that system, which, 
by analogous methods, proceeds from the 
best portraits of the original, to explain 
the numeyous successions of these signs, 
must be the most. steady mode by which 
we can attain a just and graceful elocu-. 
tion. Of this nature appears to be the 
study ‘of inflexion. It is lamentable, 
however, to observe, that, notwithstanding 
the very great advantage which such a 
theory must afford to. the admirers of the 
science, its efficacy is not generally un- 
derstood, and, consequently, it cannot 
be properly appreciated. eee 
A slender converse with logical deduc- 
tion, will inform the student, that phra- 
sevlogy 1s made up of certain members, 
[Feb. 1, 
pr clauses, which modify, and of others, 
which are modified ;‘and the same com- 
munication will also. discover to him, 
that the characteristic feature of the 
voice, in the pronunciation of a propo- 
sition, indicates either continuation or 
completion... As therefore the less sig. 
nification of one or more clauses. may be- 
restrained, or altered, by the power and- 
influence of others more significant; so in 
the delivery, that the progress and com- 
letion of a whole passage may be gra- 
must be kept alive, by suitabie degrees 
of suspension in the voice. If from this 
“we take a more enlarged yiew of oral 
sounds, we shall find, that in the ar- 
rangement of diffuse periods, there may 
he members, whose completeness as to 
meaning, have certait degrees of into- 
nation ; and which, to indicate their just 
relations to a whole, terminate with pro- 
portionate qualities ofsound. 
Thus, in the most rude and unculti- 
vated appearance of the subject before . 
us, are we sensible of something like 
leading principle and rule ; but the inde- 
finite idea of sound, and its relation to 
articulate voice, seems to have involved 
the thoughts of those hitherto interested 
in the enquiry, in considerable obscurity. 
For this reason, perhaps, the method of 
conveying information to students in elo- 
cution, have not been sufficiently per- 
tihent. > 4% 
Numerous instances may be adduced, 
whereju the spirit of a proposition, de- 
pends more upon the peculiar turn of 
voice, than.upon that stress which assists 
in placing varieties in contradistinetion 
one to another. This has been success 
fully pointed out by the late Mr. Walker; / 
and what an ingenious writer, in the mid. 
‘dle of the last century, had advanced on 
marks or signs, for the management of 
the voice in enunciation, seems not yet 
to have eluded our enquiry on that sub- 
Ject, nor is the adoption of such minute 
arrangement, considered metaphysical y; 
impracticable. ‘That the Greeks had 
‘Instrumental accompaniment to their 
_tragedy, is adequately attested, and uni- 
versally believed; ‘bat’ whether it’ were 
an exact representation of speaking 
sounds, or whether it were only a mere 
musical modulatiou, cannot accurately - 
be decided upon: we nray, however, - 
conceive, that, had the melody been ay-~ 
propriate to the sounds of delivery, the 
Romans would’ haye adopted “similar 
mivdes, and a plan and scale of” their 
notes, would have been transmitted: to 
