The theory of elocution, to which are now added practical aids for reading the liturgy

Preface

TO THE WORK AS PUBLISHED IN 1820,

At the commencement of the year 1810, 1 published my Practical Grammar of English Pronunciation, in the Preface to which, I stated my intention of continuing my plan at some future time, by taking into consideration the higher requisites of Delivery. " Young in life, though not new to the business of instruction" I expected " to add some improvement to the method by which Elocution is taught" In the following work I have done my best to fulfil my promise ; but they who are aware how little leisure is afforded to a man dependent on a profession of which the labours must be personal, will not wonder, that an intention formed ten years ago, has been executed in four weeks, determinately snatched, for the purpose, from other avocations.

I am willing to flatter myself, however, a 2

IV PREFACE, that something has been gained by delay. Had I published my Theory of Elocution such as it existed in my mind only three years ago, it would have been very different from the one which I now give to the Public. The truth is. I felt there was something deficient in all the Theories to which the practice of Elocution is referred. — I felt there was a principle by wrjich every speaker is guided, which had never yet been explained; and as I could not explain it myself, I forbore to add to the mass of publications on the subject already in existence. I think I have now discovered that principle; I think that, following the steps of Mr. Walker with less ability but more good fortune, I can furnish a general clue to those intricacies of pronunciation, for which indeed he has given rules founded on theoretical views that apply to a certain extent, but which seem to want the support of a system. And I conceive it to be no mean proof of the soundness of my system, that in every the most minute instance, it embraces the same results ; that what he considers the best mode of pronouncing such and such sentences, I have

PREFACE.

universally found to agree best with those more general principles with which I have started ; and that, even in the explanations he has given, we agree as nearly as two persons can agree, whose views of the nature of language are different. This agreement will more plainly appear, by comparing the following with an ingenious work on the same subject lately published: for it so happens, that wherever the Author of that work has deviated from Mr. Walker (which he has done in some material points), he has deviated from what my inquiries have taught me to consider the true principles of the Philosophy of Elocution. I have the pleasure of being acquainted with the Author, and I am sure he will pardon me for stating this dissent: — our Treatises are before the Public, and it must be his wish, as well as mine, to invite comparison, where any difference exists.

I am to observe, in conclusion, that throughout the work, I have, in the text, avoided all controversy and all incidental remark, and have laid down the principles as scientific facts, that require no other support than to be properly stated. What-

VI PREFACE.

ever objections I have felt necessary to be made to contrary doctrines, whatever is incidental, or merely serves to prevent the text from being misunderstood, I have thrown into notes, which the reader will, of course, neglect, where he finds the text satisfactory.

September 1st, 1819.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following pages, as far as the Appendix, were first published as an Introduction to a Volume of Exercises called The Practice of Elocution ; but the explanatory matter added to the second edition of the Practice having fitted it to stand alone, the Theory, with accessions for the purpose, is now offered as an Introduction to Reading the Liturgy. Thus adapted I am bound to acknowledge the seniority of a similar work — the treatise alluded to in the foregoing preface under the name of The Philosophy of Elocution^which is likewise elucidated and exemplified by Readings of the Liturgy of the Church. My reason for publishing a work, so entirely resembling in plan, will appear by comparing my accentuation of the Liturgy with Mr. Wright's. On this important point I regret to say we com-

Vlll ADVERTISEMENT.

pletely differ. I do not at all admit the propriety of his deviations from Mr. Walker's principles, and am unable to conceive how a sentence can be harmoniously pronounced, without that varied alternation of the two accents which Mr. Wright condemns : — I am clearly of opinion that each accent is frequently used merely as a preparation for following accents, and therefore that the downward accent often occurs while the sense is incomplete. To employ only upward accents during any long succession of words, however dependent, would, in my opinion, be to imitate the Scotch accent; at least I am sure it finds no pattern in the manner of speaking prevalent among the well-educated in London. Lastly, I see no reason for a rule to terminate sentences of supplication, merely on that account, with an upward accent. Differing from Mr. Wright on these points, I could not put his book into the hands of my clerical pupils, and have therefore prepared for them one which agrees with my own practice.

That I may not, however, seem to speak too positively of Mr. Wright's mode of

ADVERTISEMENT. IX

accenting the Liturgy, I acknowledge that a proper judgment cannot be formed without hearing the author read it himself according to his own marks. This is a salvo, the benefit of which I expect to share in common with him. I know that my accents, as well as his, may be caricatured and made ridiculous ; and that the downward accents which occur among my marks while the sense is continuing, will perplex the construction if pronounced like those that signify completion of meaning. He, of course, mutatis mutandis, will put forward a correspondent plea.

Contents

Page

Introduction I

Divisions of the Subject ib.

Nature of Instituted Language 4

Section 1. Pronunciation and its Objects explained .... 25

2. Nature and Classification of Vowels and Con-

sonants 28

3. The Vowels of the English Language 34

4. The Consonants of the English Language... 38

5. Usage the Rule for pronouncing Words .... 40

6. Interjunction of Words 46

7. The Accents or Notes of the speaking Voice 48

8. Variable Number of Accents in a Sentence 54

9. Rhythmus 58

10. Mechanical Structure of English Verse 60

11. Rhythmus of Ballad Poetry 71

Chapter II. Significant Reading, or Reading properly

so CALLED.

Section 1. False Habits of Reading 73

2. Suspensive, Conclusive, Conjunctive, Dis-

junctive, and Harmonic Inflections, and

Continuative Tone 79

3. Pause* 97

4. Parenthesis 99

5. Extra-suspensive and Extra-conclusive In-

flections, and Pronominal Pronunciation... 100

Xll CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Impassioned Reading, or Speaking. Page

Section 1. Effects which the Necessity of employing Artificial Language produces on the State or Temper of the Mind in speaking 121

2. Correspondence of those Effects with the

Signs of natural Expression without 125

3. Cases in which the natural Signs of Expres-

sion do not correspond with the artificial... 128

4. The Narrative Manner of Speaking 130

5. The Argumentative Manner of Speaking... 135

6. The Meditative Manner of Speaking 138

7. Effects produced on the Speaker's Manner of

Delivery, by the nature of the Composition, and by the Relation in which he stands to his Audience 139

8. The Vehement Manner 141

9. The Plaintive Manner \ 143

10. The Gay and Lively Manner 144

11. The Gloomy and Solemn Manner ib.

Chapter IV. Dramatic Reading, or Acting. The Difference between Speaking and Acting 146 Appendix: containing Practical Aids for Reading the Liturgy

Section 1. The Kind of Reading proper for the Liturgy 149

2. Pronunciation of Words occurring in the

Liturgy 150

3. Explanation of the Marks adopted from

page 165 to the end of the Volume 154

4. Remarks on some of the Readings here-

after pointed out 156

7. The Chief Parts of the Liturgy with Marks

to elucidate the Delivery 165

THE

THEORY OF ELOCUTION,

Xntrotiurtum,

DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT.

Exercise for improvement in the art of Oral Delivery can scarcely be conducted with advantage, but by having recourse to written language; and instruction in Elocution, (as modern usage employs the term,) is therefore the same with instruction in Reading.

But the art of Reading aloud varies considerably in manner, according to the office which the Reader proposes to fulfil: — the Requisites which it demands necessarily vary with the same circumstance.

A mere repetition of the words of written discourse in connected succession, when the sense is not in question, as in a sentence quoted merely to exemplify the component sounds, or when the diction is purposely too explicit and too formal to require any illustration from the manner of the Reader, as in a law document — demands little more than that the words shall be rightly sounded, distinctly articulated, and smoothly in-

B terjoined. This mode of Reading may be called

MECHANICAL.

A repetition of written discourse, with the intention of discriminating and enforcing the sense, but without that earnestness, or warmth, or passion, which would imply that the Reader is pronouncing his own sentiments — demands that the relation of the several parts of sentences to each other, and the oblique or referential meaning which some sentences are intended to convey, shall be signified by appropriate inflections of the voice. This is significant reading, or reading, strictly so called.

A repetition of written discourse, with the intention of making it a perfect imitation of good speaking — demands that the tone, the gesture, and the look of the Reader, shall exactly correspond with the subject and the supposed occasion. This may be called impassioned reading, or speaking.

Lastly, a repetition of written discourse undertaken in an assumed character, if the character so assumed is supposed, either from age, or sex, or peculiar habits, to diner in manner of speaking from that which is natural to the Reader — demands the mimickry of that peculiar manner. When characters are thus discriminated, the mode of Reading may be called

DRAMATIC.

Such are the natural divisions of the art of Reading, and the divisions of the following work will correspond with them. The requisites of mechanical Reading may all be comprehended under the term Pronunciation, which will accordingly form the subject of chapter the first. The second and third chapters will respectively treat of Reading, (properly so called,) and Speaking; and the fourth chapter will be a brief explanation of the difference between Speaking and Acting.

The propriety and the utility of this division will be the more sensibly felt when it is considered, that no one can become perfect in any of the higher kinds of reading, who is not previously in full possession of all the requisites belonging to the lower : — a person, for instance, will inflect his voice to very little purpose in trying to read significantly, if his articulation be mumbling, vague, and indistinct ; and he will in vain endeavour to do justice to his subject by appearing to be moved by what he utters, if he fails to mark the sense while he is expressing the passion. As to dramatic Reading, it will probably seldom form an object of the Student's acquirement, the peculiar talent which it demands not being necessary in any of the branches of public Speaking, except that of the Stage ; and not even in that, while the Speaker attempts

b 2

Introduction

no other character than such as his own style of delivery will enable him to support.

But before entering on the subject in any of the details here mentioned, it seems proper to premise a short inquiry into the nature of artificial or instituted language 5 for as this is the subject to which all the rules of Elocution are to be applied, any wrong conceptions of it must materially obstruct the just understanding of the general principles which are to be developed, and on which the rules depend.

NATURE OF INSTITUTED LANGUAGE.

It may not, perhaps, be any where formally stated, yet the common opinion of language seems to be, that every separate word is the sign of a different idea, and that the progress and order of our words in speaking, represents a similar progression and order in our thoughts. But the greater part of words of which language is composed, are general terms, and the human mind is capable of conceiving only particulars : such terms, individually, cannot therefore correspond with our ideas. Let us take, for an example, the following portion of a sentence, — The cathedral church that stands in the midst of our city : —

INTRODUCTION. O

we may conceive the object designated by the whole sentence ; we may conceive the circumstances which serve to point it out ; that object and those circumstances are particular : but let the words be taken individually ; — what can the word the suggest ? what can the word cathedral suggest, if not some particular cathedral, real or imaginary, that is to say, a cathedral of some one size and form ? but the word in an unqualified or unconnected state is general, and stands for a cathedral of any size and form. The same kind of remarks will extend to all the other words in the sentence. Now if none but words which designate particular things can correspond with ideas, while nearly all the words we employ in speech are of a general character, it must appear that the process of putting our thoughts into words, is not a process in which every separate word is the symbol of an idea, but a process in which a number of signs are put together, each having a certain value, and capable, in their col* lective capacity, of conveying the sentiment or recognition of the mind. Hence it is that we are able to convey the same sentiment, or to signify the same thing in so many different ways j for though, in two sentences, each sign separately may have a different value, yet their whole amount may be the same. 6

The truth of this account will best appear by imagining how the different kinds of words employed in language must have originated, taking care to keep clear of the errors which have misled some early inquirers on the subject. " The invention of the simplest nouns adjective," says Adam Smith, in his Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages, " must have required more metaphysics than we are apt to be aware of." Nothing, however, can be more simple. A certain fruit is called a chesnut : a certain animal is called a horse : another animal occurs resembling it in every respect except colour, and that colour is the same as the chesnut. Therefore, to spare the invention of a new name for the animal, we put the two words together, and call it a chesnut horse. Or take it the other way : another fruit occurs resembling the chesnut, but too large and coarse for man's use : a horse is a larger and coarser animal than a man, and therefore, by a natural analogy, we again put the two words together, and call the fruit a horse chesnut. Thus it appears that, even in the present state of languages, we often use substantives for adjectives to express the quality for which, as substantives, they are remarkable ; and this sufficiently shews how the adjective was originally set on foot, without any aid from metaphysics.

" The original invention of prepositions," says the same writer, " would require a yet greater effort of abstraction and generalization." No effort was used — the thing produced itself. Examine the force and import of the word except, in the following sentence : In making up your party, leave out or except me : except is here a verb denoting action, and commanding that action to be done: — Examine it in the following sentence : All were there, except me : the action and the imperative force are lost sight of, and the word, from constant use in a similar mode of connexion, is worn into a mere prepositive sign of a certain value. Again : the word middle or midst is an acknowledged noun; but in the sentence, He walks amid briars, it is a preposition. Yet is it the same word reduced, by frequent use, into a mere sign, and somewhat altered in form. This mode of accounting for the several parts of speech requires the aid of etymology to carry it further, and we possess a work which confirms, by facts, what in these remarks might seem merely hypothetical ; for if Home Tooke's Diversions of Purley be consulted, it will be found that all the parts of speech were originally nouns or verbs. It is not, then, because a thought is made up of many parts that we employ many words to express it, but because language does not furnish a single word to answer the purpose, and we are obliged to modify one by another, till the whole, collectively, amounts to the expression required. Upon this principle we may easily conceive why the same thing is sometimes expressed by a periphrasis, and sometimes by a single word ; why some languages have terms which others have not, and which can be translated only by a circumlocution ; and why a whole phrase can be an equivalent in the grammatical construction of a sentence for an adjective, a noun*, or an adverb. They who are not acquainted with the works of any of our later metaphysical writers than Locke, will not perhaps very easily admit the truth of this statement; but they may be desired, in the words of Home Tooke, (Diversions of Purl ey, vol. i. p. 38.) " to read over the Essay on the Human Understanding with attention, and they will find that all which its immortal author has justly concluded, will be found to hold equally true if we substitute the composition, &c. of terms, wherever he has supposed a composition, &c. of ideas. And if that, upon strict examination, appear to be the

* The Greek language is remarkable for assuming an almost unlimited power in the composition of terms ; the substantiving of whole sentences, by prefixing to them the neuter article, is striking. Thus, in Demosthenes, To psWov ovvoic-m r* 9roA«, To t« t» ffoXE/ny rux v xat xonot xat^oy T^aTTEo-Sat, and Others much longer than these, are continually occurring.

case, no other argument against the composition will be necessaiy, it being exactly similar to that unanswerable one which Mr. Locke himself declares to be sufficient against their being innate j for the supposition is unnecessary."

But in affirming the parts of speech to have no connexion with the nature of our thoughts, and to be only necessary parts of artificial language, one difficulty remains behind, and that is, to account, on the same principle, for the difference between the noun and the verb ; for if the principle is not true with regard to these, it will scarcely be admitted with regard to the others. Unfortunately, Home Tooke here leaves us in the dark ; for after having, with admirable acuteness of inquiry, followed up every other part of speech till he had found it, in its early state, either a noun or a verb ; after he had said, " that a verb, as well as every other word, is a noun, but that a verb is something more than a noun, and that the title of verb was given to it on account of that distinguishing something more than mere nouns convey"* — he still left this question, at the end of his two quarto volumes, unanswered : " What is that peculiar differential circumstance, which, added to the definition of a noun, constitutes a verbt?" All that he added to it

* Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 514. f Idem.

was, a promise to return to the inquiry ; but his promise was never fulfilled ; and if he knew the secret, he carried it out of the world with him. Possibly, however, the metaphysics of Home Tooke were not the soundest, and as the question eluded his research as an etymologist, he might have mistaken his ground by supposing it capable of solution on a principle into which he afterwards found he could not resolve it. He states in one part of his work, (vol. i. p. 51.) " that the business of the mind, so far as it regards language, extends no further than to receive impressions, that is, to have sensations, and that what are called its operations, are merely the operations of language." The direct consequence of this principle is, that the first invented elements of human speech were nouns, that is, words to signify those impressions, or, more properly, the subjects of them ; and this accordingly seems to be Home Tooke's notion, for he supposes that verbs arose, in the progress of improvement from nouns, by assuming that differential something which was found to be wanting. To this conclusion he was possibly led by a too unqualified admission of Locke's doctrine concerning innate ideas : had he given it the same interpretation it has received from the best metaphysicians of the present day, (among whom Mr. Dugald Stewart must be mentioned with peculiar honour,) he would probably have concluded differently. He would then have seen, that to have sensations is not enough, but that the mind must observe and reflect, compare and judge, before any progress can be made in the work of language, and that these are not the operations of language, but the operations of the mind made manifest through language.

The truth is, the powers and affections of the mind belong to it in its own nature, and Locke's doctrine, that it has no innate ideas, must be understood to amount only to this — that in our present state of being, the perception of the objects of sense is the appointed means by which those powers and affections are primarily called forth. Admitting this interpretation, we must also admit that the business of language must, under any circumstances, extend much further than the mere naming of objects : for merely to name a thing is to communicate nothing — is to say neither what we feel nor what we think concerning it; and a noun, in the true sense of the expression, is not a word, (verbum,) but an artificial sign formed, like the other artificial signs or parts of speech, by the division of a word, and serving afterwards in conjunction with the other signs, to form a word or sentence (?*j/"«, dictum) expressive of the speaker's thought. To understand this, let us consider how it is possible for men who have yet to acquire the use of conventional sounds to express their thoughts, to be led to that expedient. They would not begin by giving names to the objects around them, (for that supposes the pre-existence of the very thing they are to invent as the means of coming to a mutual agreement,) but they would begin by signifying their wants, their affections, their desires, by those sounds which Nature taught, and the first steps in artificial language would be slight and imperceptible improvements on the pattern of nature.

The earliest sounds which children utter, the earliest which would be employed in the fabrication of language, are virtual sentences. Even in lisping the sounds of artificial language which he catches from others, it is long before a child uses them in an artificial manner — it is long before he puts two or three together to signify a single thought. When he utters the childish words for father or mother, he always means something beyond the mere act of naming, which something he includes in the word, and the word, in such case, is not a mere noun, but, in the strictness of the term, a word or sentence. The difficulty is to conceive how a mere noun should have originated, since the actual perception or conception of an object necessarily involves a recognition or sentiment, or what would be called a mental proposition, while a mere noun designates the object, but implies nothing further. Yet as the same object is not always recognised in the same relation, nor produces the same sentiment, it is impossible not to know that the object itself exists independently of any recognition, and therefore if we can only suppose a sufficient occasion, we may conceive how a name might be given to the object without regard to the actual recognition. Let us imagine, for instance, that unexpectedly meeting with a ditch, we express our surprise by a natural ejaculation ; that we afterwards recognise the same object in a new relation, not as the ditch that surprises, but the ditch offensive to the smell : this new occasion demands, like the other, an appropriate sound ; but the object is already known in connexion with the former recognition, and not yet in connexion with the latter : therefore, in order to prepare for expressing the latter recognition, we might recal the former, by using the sound that was uttered with it. And if in every future recognition in which the same object was concerned, the same expedient was adopted, namely, of using the sound expressive of the first recognition, it is evident that this sound would become a mere name for the thing itself; — it would cease to awaken in the mind the original recognition, — this ditch surprises me, but would be understood as a mere sign standing indeed for a well known object, but forbidding that any recognition should be understood concerning it till the proper word were added*.

The foregoing example has been fixed upon in preference to any other that might be imagined, because even in the present state of language, a name has actually been formed in the manner here described from a natural exclamation; a ditch which is so placed as to occasion surprise being called an ha-ha; and this example may stand in place of a hundred ; for the principle being once admitted, its further operation may be easily conceived.

The necessity by which men were thus led to signify one recognition or sentiment by two, and finally, by several words, is precisely similar to the necessity which obliged them to signify one word in writing by several characters. No doubt the first idea of the inventors of writing was, to

* It may be objected, that, if merely to be aware that we perceive or conceive an object is a recognition, then naming the object, as it implies the conception of it, implies that recognition. But herein consists the artificial quality of mere names that they do not imply that recognition; for that we merely perceive or conceive the object is seldom the recognition intended; and when it is intended, we generally add a word to the name, to give it such meaning : and if no word is added, but in pointing to the object we only utter the name, then is it more than a name, — it is a word conveying this proposition, I perceive that object, or J know that object by the name I give it.

appropriate a character for every word; and even at this day we are told that something similar is practised in China. But it was soon found the immense number of characters this must require, would soon render the design impracticable, and by degrees, therefore, the expedient was adopted of spelling words. By this expedient, twenty-four characters, by their endless varieties of position with each other, are capable of signifying the almost innumerable words of which language is composed. Just so it was in speech. At first every sound was a sentence. But the infinite communications which the intercourse of life required to be made, would soon have exhausted every possible variety of sounds. It was lucky, therefore, when a necessity arose to give to some of the sounds a less comprehensive force of signification; for then the sentence was expressed by two sounds already in use, and no new sound was required. Thus arose the separation of the noun from the verb. By degrees, as the benefit of this principle was felt, nouns were divided into nouns substantive and nouns adjective, and verbs were worn down into participles, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Thus we may be said to spell our thoughts by words, as we spell our words by letters. Take the most familiar example: — George is not walking with James, but with Harry.

Can the thought present to the speaker's mind be resolved into as many ideas as the sentence is composed of words ? Certainly not: for how can he have an idea of George but in some state or action — standing, sitting, running, or walking? Or how can he have an idea of walking, but with the idea of somebody walking: that George walks with Harry and not with James, are equally parts of his actual thought, and the whole exists in his mind at once. The expressing of this thought or recognition by so many words, is, therefore, the mere contrivance of language. Thus also of an earlier example — " the cathedral church that stands in the midst of our city: 99 no one of the words taken separately denotes the object in the speaker's mind: cathedral means any cathedral, and might be employed in any sentence where such a term was wanted, just as letter a may be employed in any word where such a letter is wanted : the same may be said of the other words ; and some of them, indeed, as of, the, our, which, in, — are among the common materials that serve in all sentences, as certain letters more than others are employed in all words. But when these words are put together, then indeed they express the particular meaning, then the thought is spelt: and thus it might be shewn in any sentence, that the words composing it are on the footing of letters composing a word. The two cases would indeed be exactly parallel, were every person allowed to follow his own fancy in the spelling of words; but the rules of orthography are fixed, and they alone spell correctly who spell in one particular way. But in the spelling of his thoughts by words, every person is allowed to follow his own method. Hence the endless varieties of style, and the possibility of expressing a thought awkwardly or confusedly, though conceived with clearness. If this account of the nature of language be correct, it is evident that Home Tooke never could have explained the difference between the noun and the verb on the principle on which he set out ; nor is it true that the verb arose from the noun, but the noun from the verb. Even the verb, as employed in a sentence in conjunction with other parts of speech, is artificial : the natural verb is itself a sentence, as are the imperatives go, come, forbear ', hark! hist/ &c. ; but in order to suit the purposes of speech, the verb is made capable of being less comprehensive, and instead of being itself a sentence^ it can, when necessary, be a mere sign to indicate a sentence. Thus in the examples, George is tall, George is walking, the artificial verb merely indicates that a thought or judgment is expressed j for the phrases tall George and George walking, sufficiently designate the objects conceived, and