ment more domestic, more peculiarly feminine? I am far from meaning that it is desirable for a lady to seek for opportunities of display, by an exhibition of her powers of recitation; by no means. HOME, the domestic circle, is the legitimate scene of a woman's accomplishments; and an attainment which can add the charms of intellectual entertainment to the other attractions of her fireside, is certainly worthy of particular attention in a system of female education. No instrument more sweet than the voice of woman. The voice of Eve was the sweetest sound that met the ear of our first parent in the garden of Eden; and when that sweet music of nature's giving, modulated and regulated by art, and instinct with expression, is wedded to the melody of language, and lends itself to give breath to the inspirations of the poet, and the rhythm of his verse, the charm is complete.

Every lady should be able to take up a book of prose or poetry, and read any passage in it smoothly, intelligently, and musically, without aiming at effect or display, but in a sensible, pleasing, and graceful manner.

The capability to do this ought to be so generally possessed as to deprive it of the name of an accomplishment; and yet how rare a one it is! How many ladies there are who can play and sing the most elaborate music of Mendelssohn, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, with taste, elegance, and effect; and yet how few who can read aloud with clearness, sentiment, and expression the musical language of Shakspere, Gray, Campbell, Tennyson, and others

of our native poets. Nay, how few read aloud an ordinary prose-writer, a novel or a history, in a flowing and intelligent style, without trip or hesitation; and how many stumble and confuse themselves and their hearers in reading aloud even a paragraph from a newspaper!

Now this is beginning to be felt as a serious defect in any educational system; and it is to be hoped that an elegant pronunciation of her native language and an intelligent and appreciative style of reading her native authors, in prose and verse, will soon be considered an essential accomplishment to every well-educated Englishwoman.

ARTICULATION.-PRONUNCIATION.

THE most usual, and at the same time the worst fault in young readers, and in many old ones too, is a careless and slovenly utterance, which renders not only their reading, but also their ordinary speaking, indistinct, confused, inelegant, and exceedingly difficult to follow.

A clear articulation is the first requisite in reading, and speaking. Both prose and poetry are maimed if it be neglected. Without it, the metre and rhythm of verse are destroyed; and many words are not distinguishable in sound from others of somewhat similar form, though of widely different signification. With a distinct articulation, a speaker of only moderate power of voice is heard in any place or assembly, much more easily, and with less effort to himself, than one of much greater power of organ, whose articulation is imperfect: for

it has been observed, that loud, confused noise, even though much greater in degree, does not travel as far as pure and musical sound. Hence the necessity, before all other things, of a clear, pure articulation.

To acquire this perfectly, it is necessary to recur to the first principia,—that is, the ELEMENTARY SOUNDS of our language.

Speech is articulate vocal sound. That sound is represented to the eye by signs: these signs are letters, combined into syllables, which syllables are combined into words the perfect signs of things; and the vocal utterance of these signs is speech.

Brutes have vocal sounds, but not speech: for the sounds they utter are not articulate. It is given to Man alone to shape his voice into intelligible articulate sound, which can communicate thought, desire, passion, to his fellow-men.

Perfect articulation, then, depends on the clear enunciation of certain elementary sounds, whose combination forms words.

The signs or letters representing these sounds, and forming the alphabet of our language, have been classified by grammarians, principally as vowels and consonants; and they define a vowel as a simple sound, perfect in itself,—and a consonant, as a sound that cannot be uttered without the addition or help of a vowel.

But this nomenclature and definition is imperfect as a guide and mark of the articulate sounds, whatever may be its value as a classification of the alpha

betical signs of our language. It is true, indeed, that a consonant (so called from its supposed dependence for its sound on an attendant vowel) cannot be individually named without the help of a vowel: that is to say, the sign or letter B is named be, C, se, D, de, and so on; but these consonants, in their combination with other signs, do not require for their perfect utterance the aid of a vowel at all; so that their names as signs are as distinct from their power as sounds, as the names, alpha, beta, theta, of the Greek alphabet, are distinct from the value or power of the sounds of a, ß, 0, when combined into syllables and words.

Again, the SEVEN VOWEL SIGNS in our language,

A, E, I, O, U, W, Y,

represent many more sounds, monothongal and diphthongal, as will be found in the utterance of the following common words:

A-ll a-rm, a-t, a-le, e-ve, e-nd, i-n, i-sle, o-ld, o-n, d-o, u-s, u-nion,

in which the sign A, alone, represents four distinct sounds.

And there are many consonant sounds which are not represented by any single sign or letter, but require the combination of several letters to represent their power: as the sounds ch in church, th (soft) in truth, thin, and th (hard) in that, &c. Yet these are elementary sounds; and this shows the necessity of clearly distinguishing between the

mere alphabetical sign and the elementary sound, or sounds, which it represents.

Now, as the perfect appreciation and utterance of the elementary sounds are necessary to the attainment of a clear and distinct articulation of the language, which their combination forms, it is essential to adopt a classification and nomenclature which shall convey a clear and distinct idea of their value in speech. For that end, none can be found more definite and exact than that propounded by Dr. Rush, in his eloquent and philosophical work on the human voice.

He divides the elementary sounds of our language into

1. TONICS or pure Tones; 2. SUB-TONICS or inferior Tones; 3. ATONICS, or no Tones.

which may be thus briefly defined:

1. TONICS (having tone) — those elementary sounds which have a distinct and perfect tone or vocality, proper to themselves, and capable of being held or prolonged by the voice indefinitely.

Such is the sound of a in a-rm, a-ll, &c., of e in e-ve, of o in o-ld, &c.

By vocality is meant that full, or (as Dr. Rush defines it) "that raucus quality of voice, which is contradistinguished from a whisper or aspiration." This distinction may be illustrated by uttering the exclamations "um!" as an expression of doubt, inquiry, &c., and "sh!" (for hush!) as enforcing silence: in the first of which (um!) there is vocality, and in the second (sh!) merely a whispered aspiration, without tone or vocal sound.