Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

inflections on the same syllable or word, producing a slight undulation or wave of the voice.

RULE 12. The circumflex is used in language of irony, sarcasm, hypothesis, and contrast.

EXAMPLES.

Irony.

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And sûre, he is an honorable man.

Sarcasm.

Hear him, my lord; he's wondrous condescending.
Your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alône.

Hypothesis.

Hume said he would go twenty miles, to hear Whitefield preach.

Contrast.

We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.

What authority surfeits on, would reliĕve us.

NOTE. In some instances it may be difficult to determine whether circumflex, or rising inflection should be employed. Care must be taken not to mistake the one for the other.

Monotone.

MONOTONE is a protracted sameness of sound on successive syllables or words.

RULE 13. Language that is grave, grand, or sublime, generally requires the monotone.

EXAMPLES.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhābīteth ētērnity, whose name is Hōly; I dwell in the high and holy place.

And one cried unto another, and said, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

Blessing, hōnor, and glōry, and pōwer, bē ūnto him thāt sītteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ēver.

The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dūst, and mountains melt away;

QUESTIONS. What is the rule? Give an example where the circumflex arises from irony. From sarcasm. From hypothesis. From contrast. What is monotone? What is Rule Thirteenth? Give an example.

But fixed his word-hīs saving power remains,

Thy realm forever lasts thy ōown Messiah reigns.

All heaven

Resōunded, and hâd earth bẽen thēn, all earth
Had to her center shōōk.

As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful förm,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rōlling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

Soft as the slumbers of a saint förgiven,

And mild as ōpening gleams of promised heaven.

Emphatic Monotone.

Thōu shalt not take the name of the Lord thy Gōd in vain.
Thou shalt not kill.

Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God.
Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

NOTE. MONOTONE is not literally an inflection, but a sameness of sound on the same note. It is not, however, a perfect monotony, but has certain slight variations, peculiar to itself; and is usually numbered among the inflections.

EXERCISES ON INFLECTION.

Exercise 1.-To Illustrate Rule 1, Page 28.

What, then, what was Cæsar's object? Do we select extortioners, to enforce the laws of équity? Do we make choice of profligates, to guard the morals of society? Do we depute atheists, to preside over the rites of religion? I will not prèss the answer; I need not press the answer; the premises of my argument render it unnècessary. What would contènt you? Tálent? No! Énterprise? No! Coúrage? Nò! Reputation? No! Virtue ? No! The men whom you would select, should possess, not one, but àll, of these.

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not sée? He that chastiseth the

QUESTIONS. What rule is the first of the miscellaneous exercises designed to illusrate? What is the rule?

heathen, shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he knów?

Are we intended for actors in the grand drama of eternity? Are we candidates for the plaudit of the rational creation? Are we formed to participate the supreme beatitude in communicating happiness? Are we destined to cooperate with God in advancing the order and perfection of his wórks? How sublime a creature, then, is man!

Where am I? What sort of a place do I inhàbit? Is it exactly accommodated, in every instance, to my convénience? Is there no excess of cold, none of heat, to offend me? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own kind or a different? Is everything subservient to me, as though I had ordered all myself? No, nothing like it-the farthest from it possible. How, then, must I determine? Have I no interest at all? If I have not, I am stationed here to no purpose. But why no interest? Can I be contented with none, but one separate and detached? Is a social interest, joined with others, such an absurdity as not to be admitted?

Do we not only hear but see? are the victims of ebriety in our country, our state, and neighborhood? may they sometimes be found in our houses, at the tables where we sit, among our near connections? have they appeared among the young, who once gave promise of excellence, among the middle-aged and the old, and even in the delicate sex? Has this destroyer brought down the mighty-some who stood high in the world, and had a name for piety as well as talents? and has the evil spread and increased in the body of the community? It is, surely, a cause of solicitude, of grief, and dismay.

Exercise 2. To Illustrate Rule 2, Page 29.

Will the trials of this life continue foréver, or will time finally dissipate them?

Shall we crown the author of all these public calamities with garlands, or shall we wrest from him his ill-deserved authority?

Thou must learn when yoúng, or be ignorant when in old àge.

Was this the calculation of one well versed in public affairs, or was it the dream of a smattering politician?

Had you rather that Cæsar were living, and die all sláves, or that Cæsar were dead, and live all friemen ?

Therefore, O ye judges, you are now to consider, whether it is more probable, that the deceased was murdered by the man who inherits his estate, or by him who inherits nothing but beggary by the same death. By the man who is raised from penury to plénty, or by him who is brought from happiness to misery. By him whom the lust of lucre has inflamed with the most inveterate hatred against his own relátions; or by him whose life was such, that he never knew what gain was, but from the product of his own labors. By him who, of all dealers in the trade of blood, was the most audacious; or by him who was so little accustomed to the forum and trials, that he dreads not only the benches of the court, but the very town. In short, ye judges, what I think most to the point is, you are to consider whether it is most likely that an enemy, or a son, would be guilty of this murder.

Exercise 3.-To Illustrate Rule 3, page 29.

True charity is not a meteor which occasionally gláres, but a luminary which, in its orderly and regular course, dispenses a benignant influence.

But this is no time for a tribunal of jústice, but for showing mercy; not for accusátion, but for philanthropy; not for tríal, but for pardon; not for sentence and execution, but for compassion and kindness.

Howard visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of púlaces, or the stateliness of témples; not to make accurate measurement of the remains of ancient grandeur; not to form a schedule of the curiosities of modern árt; not to collect medals or collate mánuscripts; but to dive into the depth of dimgeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge

1

and dimensions of misery, deprèssion, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend the neglected, to visit the forsáken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men, in all countries.

Exercise 4. ·To Illustrate Rule 4, page 30.

Boys and girls; mén and women; old and yoùng; párents and children; lóve and hatred; hópe and feàr; jóy and grief; wealth and poverty.

What they know by reading, I know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean bírth; I despise their mean chàracters. Want of birth and fortune is the objection against mé; want of personal worth against them.

Mirth is short and tránsient; cheerfulness fixed and pèrmanent. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of clouds, and glitters for a móment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serènity.

cence.

I esteem a habit of benígnity greatly preferable to munifiThe former is peculiar to great and distínguished persons; the latter belongs to flatterers of the people, who court the applause of the inconstant vùlgar.

Dryden knew more of man in his general nature; and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the emotions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller.

« AnteriorContinuar »