ous passion; to purify the motives of our cònduct; to form ourselves to that temperance which no pleasure can seduce; to that meekness which no provocation can ruffle; to that patience which no affliction can overwhelm; and to that integrity which no interest can shake: this is the task, which, in our sojourn here, we are required to accomplish. 8. - Not a breeze Flies o'er the meadow; not a cloud im- The setting sun's effulgence; not a strain Fresh pleasure unrepròved. 9. Not youthful kings in battle seized alive; Not scornful virgins who their charms survive; Not ardent lovers robbed of all their bliss; Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die; Not Cynthia when her mantua's pinned awrý; E'er felt such rage, resentment, and despáir, As thou, sad virgin, for thy ravished hair. 10. Though you untie the winds and let them fight Against the churches; though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation-up; Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down; Though castles topple on their warders' heads; Though palaces and pyramids do slope Of nature's germins tumble all together EXERCISE 10. Conjunctive Accents enforcing the connexion of Clauses in Series, followed by the Suspensive and Conclusive Accents. 1. To find the nearest way from truth to truth, or from purpose to effect; not to use more instruments where fewer will be sufficient; not to move by wheels and levers what will give way to the naked hand; is the great proof of a healthful and vigorous mind, neither feeble with helpless ignorance, nor overburdened with unwieldy knowledge. 2. A man whose mind is prone to uneasiness and discontént, who views the happiness of others with envy and repíning, who has few sources of satisfaction within himself, and who looks abroad only for subjects of dislike, anxiety or apprehension, must necessarily be unhappy even under the most prosperous circumstances, and possessed of every other gift that nature and fortune can bestow. 3. Seeing that the soul has many different faculties, or, in other words, many different ways of acting; that it can be intensely pleased or made happy by áll-these-different-faculties-orways-of-acting; that it may be endowed with several latent faculties, which it is not at present in a condition to exért; that whenever any one of these faculties is transcendently pleased, the soul is in a state of happiness; and, in the last place, considering that the happiness of another world is to be the happiness of the whole man : who that has formed an idea of the infinite variety in the pleasures here alluded to, can question but that the fulness of joy, will be made up of all the pleasures which the nature of the soul is capable of receiving. 4. When the gay and smiling aspect of things has begun to leave the passages to a man's heart thoughtlessly unguarded; when kind and caressing looks of every object without that can flatter his senses, have conspired with the enemy within to betray him and put him off his defénce; when music likewise hath lent her aid, and tried her power upon the passions; when the voice of singing men, and the voice of singing women, with the sound of the viol and the lute, have broken in upon his soul, and in some tender notes have touched the secret springs of rápture; that moment if we dissect and look into his heart, we shall see how vain, how weak, how empty a thing it is. 5. Whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the same events, and new combinations of the same ímages: whatever be the reason, it is commonly observed that the early poets are in possession of nature, and their followers of art. 6. Whether Stella's eyes are found F If she strikes the vocal strings, : Parenthesis. A Parenthesis, as it is a sentence within a sentence, must be kept as clear as possible from the principal sentence, by a low tone of voice, by accents approaching a level, and generally by a quicker rate of utterance. The power of lowering the voice, and commencing a sentence or clause of a sentence in a different pitch from what preceded, is a qualification indispensable to a good reader, and the parenthesis affords the best opportunity for acquiring it, because the rule is constant. Let the learner imagine, in pronouncing the principal sentence, he is to make himself heard at a distance-reaching the parenthesis, let him utter it as to some one immediately at hand; and, at its conclusion, again address himself as to a distant auditor. The power of changing the key being thus acquired, it may be employed with propriety and effect not only at the parenthesis, but wherever there is a manifest transition of thought in passing from clause to clause, or sentence to sentence, and frequently in passing from the suspensive member of long sentences to the conclusive. Where such change of voice was proper, the pupil has already been recommended to signify it by an appropriate mark in pencil; but as the voice is always lowered at a parenthesis, no additional mark will be needed. EXERCISE 11. Lowering the voice in commencing a Parenthesis, the previous suspensive, disjunctive, or continuing tone, being repeated in finishing it, and the voice then raised to its former pitch. |