The Ingoldsby Legends afford good practice for singling out particular syllables by the voice to preserve the rhyme. In Hudibras, too, there are many lines that are so loosely constructed as to approach doggerel, but the following are pointed and effective, and the bright rhymes contribute much to the spirit and effect of the composition :—

"He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in analytic ;

He could distinguish and divide

A hair 'twixt south and south-west side,
On either which, he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute ;

He'd run in debt by disputation,

And pay with ratiocination :

All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure, he would do.

For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope;

And, when he happen'd to break off
In the middle of his speech, or cough,
He had hard words ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by ;
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk;
For all a rhetorician's rules

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

But when he pleased to show it, his speech

In loftiness of sound was rich;

A Babylonish dialect

Which learned pedants much affect;

In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater;
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve by lines and tangents, straight
If bread and butter wanted weight;

And wisely tell what hour of day
The clock doth strike by algebra.
Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher,
And had read every text and gloss over;
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood by implicit faith;
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why, he had a wherefore ;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go;
All which he understood by rote,
And as occasion serv'd would quote ;
No matter whether right or wrong,

They might be either said or sung;

His notions fitted things so well,

That which was which he could not tell."-Butler.

Appended are some more curiosities of rhyming :

"Here thou, Great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea.”—Pope.

"Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars,

To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,

Is Reason to the soul."-Dryden.

"You ask'd me where the rubies grew ;

And nothing I did say,

But with my finger pointed to

The lips of Julia."—Herrick.

"Who has not learn'd, fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
Are no rewards for want and infamy?"-Pope.

Alliteration, the repetition of the same consonant, without being essential to poetry, is a great aid to its effect, and should not be lost by the voice in reading. It is in itself a kind of rhythm. Alliteration is as old as English poetry itself, and at one time was its distinguishing characteristic,

before even rhythm or rhyme was applied to the language. Specimens might be taken from almost every English poet. But see the effect of the repeated s in the first line, and of n in the second :—

"Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near."

The following are further specimens :

"And the silken, sad, uncertain

Rustling of each purple curtain.”

“Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”

“Roll on ! thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!”’

“The lustre of the long convolvuluses.”

To apply pause (cæsura) in poetry without interfering with the rhythm or the continuous expression of the sense, but to assist the rhythm and the sense, requires great care. A verse of six accents may be equally divided, but the usual verse of five accents offers greater variety. The pause must not be given at the same place in each line, or monotony will be produced. One of the greatest tests of good reading is the manner in which pause is varied. Pause in poetry must depend, like rhetorical punctuation in prose, upon the opportunities offered by the author's words to group them. In Pope's line of five accents the pause comes very frequently after the second foot or fourth syllable, and often in the very middle of the line. In the following extract a pause after "scornful" exactly divides the line (although the reader would be quite justified in pausing after "him"

and "hate as well); after "wound" and "fault" the pause comes at the close of the second foot :

"View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes,

And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike."

To the elocutionist a pauseless line of five accents is inconsistent with a proper emphatic rendering. In Dryden the opportunities for varying the pause are greater than in Pope, and a successful rendering of the rhythm of Milton's blank verse is almost entirely dependent upon the manner in which the pause is varied. The freedom afforded by blank verse for a long continuous expression of meaning will be noticed. The voice will be sustained therefore at the end of lines, when sense is incomplete, and a pause generally made. In reading blank verse the accents must be strongly marked, or it becomes prose, and the pause must be varied to avoid monotony.

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse!"

"With these that never fade, the spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams.
Now, in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright

Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,

Impurpled with celestial roses, smil’d.

Then crown'd again, their golden harps they took,
Harps ever tun'd, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung, and, with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony, they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high :
No voice exempt; no voice but well could join
Melodious part; such concord is in heaven."-Milton.

SYMPATHETIC ELOCUTION AND GESTURE.

It is desirable to increase the force of the words we speak by a proper use of gesture, and a sympathetic expression of face. The whole body, not merely the voice, must speak. It should be remembered that gesture is strictly subordinate, and should not be made too prominent. An audience must go away impressed with the beauty and the force of the thoughts expressed, not with the idea that the speaker was a good attitudinizer. The true orator should convince the reason and touch the heart; and one great source of his power lies in his earnestness, which, although not perhaps expressed in his words, is more than implied in his delivery. If we see that a man is apparently in earnest, that he fully understands his subject, and appreciates himself the force of what he is saying, we naturally attach greater importance to his speech than if his manner were cold and mechanical. For oratory to be thoroughly effective, an electric current of sympathy must vibrate between speaker and hearers. Without this the exertion of the speaker is painful and thankless-with this the argument gathers strength and volume as it proceeds, until the climax is reached and the object of the speaker gained.