LESSON 119. The Human Voice. Epiglot'tis, a small and thin piece of cartilage, placed at the back of the tongue, and having the office of closing the glottis, when the food is passing. THE parts employed in the production of the voice are three in number, the trachea, or wind-pipe, by which the air passes to and from the lungs; the larynx, which is a short cylindrical canal at the head of the trachea; and the glottis, which is a small oval opening between two semicircular membranes. The glottis being very narrow compared with the size of the trachea, the air can never pass through it without acquiring a considerable degree of velocity; so that the air thus compressed and forced on communicates, as it passes, a vibratory motion to the particles of the two lips of the glottis, which produces the sound. The sound thus produced is reverberated through the different parts of the mouth; and it is the mixture of different reverberations, well proportioned to one another, which produces in the human voice a harmony, which no instrument can equal. The most wonderful part of the mechanism of the voice is the contraction and dilatation of the glottis. It is these changes which produce all the variety of tone. The diameter of the glottis never exceeds one tenth of an inch: now suppose a person capable of sounding twelve notes-to which the voice easily reaches, there must be the difference of the hundred and twentieth part of an inch for each note. But if we consider the subdivision of notes of which the voice is capable, the motion of the sides of the glottis appears still more minute. Suppose that a voice can divide a note into one hundred parts; it will follow that the different openings of the glottis will be twelve hundred in one tenth of an inch, and it is known that each of these will produce sounds perceptibly different to a good ear. But the movement of each side of the glottis being equal, it is necessary to double this number, and the side of the glottis, therefore, actually divides the tenth of an inch into twenty-four hundred equal parts. Speech is articulated voice, that is, voice modified by the action of the palate, teeth, tongue, and lips. All animals have a voice, but man alone speaks in the sense now alluded to. Some animals, it is true, have been taught to pronounce a few words; but they express no thoughts by these sounds. It is believed that no sufficient reason can be drawn from mere organization, why man invariably should possess, and animals invariably want the power of speech. If we consider speech simply as a medium of the reciprocal expressions of present feelings to the little society of citizens and friends of which we are a part, even in this limited view, of what inestimable value does it appear! To communicate to every one around us, in a single moment, the happiness which we feel ourselves,-to express the want, which we have full confidence, will be relieved as soon as it is known, -or to have the still greater privilege of being ourselves the ministers of comfort to wants, which otherwise could not have been relieved by us, because they could not have been discovered,-when the heart which we love is weighed down with imaginary grief, to have it in our power, by a few simple sounds, to convert anguish itself into rapture,-these are surely no slight advantages; and yet compared with the benefit which it affords to man as an intellectual being, even these are inconsiderable. By means of language, spoken or written, the opinions which are perishing in one mind, are rising in another; and often, perhaps, at the last fading ray of the flame of genius, that may have almost dazzled the world by excess of brilliancy, some star may be kindling, which is to shine upon the intellectual universe with equal light and glory. QUESTIONS.-1. What are the parts employed in the production of the voice? 2. How is the sound produced? 3. What is the most wonderful part of the mechanism of the voice? 4. What is said of the divisions and subdivisions of the glottis in sounding twelve notes ? 5. What is speech? 6. What is said of the voice of animals? LESSON 120. The Ear. Trun'cated, divided. Sen'tient, perceiving. THE ear is adapted in an eminent degree to the purposes. it is designed to execute; and it offers an inviting subject to such as are disposed to investigate the minute mechanism of an organ, which contributes remarkably to some of our most exquisite and refined enjoyments. Though the rapid glance of the eye, and the immense distance to which it enables us to carry our perceptions have given rise to some of our most pleasurable and magnificent sensations, still the sense which we are now considering has contributed most efficiently to the daily happiness of life. It enables us to hold communication with our fellow creatures; to improve and exalt our understandings by the mutual interchange of ideas; and thus to increase the circle not only of our physical, but of our moral relations. The charms of eloquence and the pleasure resulting from the concord of sweet sounds are other sources of intellectual enjoyment, which contribute to place this sense among the most delightful as well as the most important we possess. The organ of hearing, in its simplest form, consists of the expansion of a nerve, gifted with its peculiar sensitive qualities, over the surface of a delicate membrane. In man and the more perfect animals, there is an additional apparatus connected with this, the design of which is to collect and modify those pulses of the air which are finally to be impressed on the nervous membrane. In man this apparatus consists of a piece of cartilage, seated externally to the head, which contracts into a tube leading to the internal parts. The bottom of this tube is truncated obliquely, and its aperture closed by a firm membrane stretched across it, called the drum of the ear, which separates the external part from the succeeding, or middle portion of the organ. Beyond, or on the opposite side of this membrane, we meet with a small cavity, hollowed out in bone. Of the several openings into it, there is one more particularly demanding attention. It is the internal aperture of a tube, the other extremity of which opens behind and above the palate. By means of this communication, the external air is admitted into the cavity, and equipoises the weight of the atmosphere on the other side of the membrane. Across the cavity there is extended, though by no means in a straight line, a series of little bones, the exterior one of which is attached to the membrane we have just mentioned, the most internal set being firmly connected with another membrane, which, in conjunction with it, shuts up the entrance to a still more deepened cavity, called the labyrinth of the ear. This last hollow, excavated as it were in the solid bone, consists of a middle portion of irregular figure, and of different channels, which proceed from it in various directions, and, finally, return, with one exception to the same chamber. All these passages are lined by a membrane, on which the sentient extremity of the auditory nerve is expanded in different shapes; from these it is collected into one trunk and goes on to join a particular part of the brain, and thus completes the communication between the external agent and the sensorial organ. QUESTIONS.-1. What is the organ of hearing in its simplest form? 2. What apparatus is connected with this in man? 3. Describe the tube and cavity beyond it. 4. What opening deserves particular attention? 5. What is the use of it? 6. What extends across the cavity? 7. Of what does the labyrinth consist? 8. On what is the auditory nerve expanded? and what does it join when collected into one trunk? LESSON 121. Music, MUSIC is the art of combining tunable sounds in a manner agreeable to the ear. It is an expression of feeling, which, almost like verbal discourse, may be said to be a language, since it is the utterance of thought and emotion from heart to heart. But music has a voice, as independent of the mere arbitrary forms of speech, as the tears of gratitude, or the smiles of love, that may indeed, give eloquence to words, but require no words to render them eloquent. Though, when very strictly considered, even the pure and almost spiritual delight of music, may perhaps be counted only a pleasure of sense, yet it approaches, by so many striking analogies, to the nature of our intellectual enjoy ments, that it may almost be said to belong to that class. In its relation to the general pleasures of common minds, it is not to be considered as a mere pastime or relaxation; it assumes a far higher character, and it may be said, at least, to be the intellectual luxury of those, who are incapable of any other luxury that deserves so honourable a name. And it is well, that there should be some such intermediate pleasure of this sort, to withdraw for a while the dull and the sensual, from the grosser existence in which they may be sunk, and to give them some glimpses, at least, of a state of purer enjoyment, than that which is to be derived from the sordid gains, and sordid luxuries of common life. Of the influence, which music has upon the general character, when cultivated to great refinement, there are different opinions. But of its temporary influence, as a source of tranquillizing delight, there can be no doubt. Who ne'er has felt her hand assuasive steal Her eye looks heaven-ward, for from heaven she came. The phenomena of music, in addition to their general in, terest, are truly worthy of our astonishment, from that striking diversity of organic power in the perception of melody and still more of harmony which they exhibit in different individuals, in whom all other circumstances are apparently the same. This diversity has often attracted the attention of philosophers, and has led even those who have no great tendency to speculation of any kind, to wonder at least, which is the first step of all philosophizing. In the present instance, however unfortunately, this first step is the only step which philosophers have been able to take. the want of a musical ear had involved either a general defect of hearing, or a general slowness of discrimination in other cases of nice diversity, the wonder would not have been great. But those who are without ear for music perceive as readily as others the faintest whisper ;-they distinguish like them, the faintest shades of difference in the If |