the pronunciation of every front or back vowel-sound naturally tends to the production of a high or low musical note. Donders first made the discovery that the cavity of the mouth, when whispering each of the different vowels, is tuned to a different pitch. This fact gives the vowel its peculiar quality. Instruments, moreover, have been constructed, by means of which most sounds can be analyzed, and their component tones distinctly and definitely noted; and now the theory is accepted that the voice, when pronouncing vowel-sounds, at whatever key in the musical scale it may start them, has a tendency to suggest-if not through its main, or what is termed its prime tone, at least through associated, or what are termed its partial tones-that pitch which is peculiar to the vowel uttered.

Exactly what this pitch is, in the case of each vowel, it is not important for us to know here. In fact, it has not yet been definitely determined. Helmholtz, in his "Sensations of Tone," says, for instance, that the series, which may be represented in English by a in father, a in man, e in there, and i in machine, forms an ascending minor chord of G"-thus: d'"-g""-b"" flat-d'""'; and the following represents the results of Merkel's experiments with the German vowels given in his "Physiologie der Menschlichen Sprache":

U O Oa A

ÖÜÄE I

But what concerns us, at present, is merely the fact that there is a pitch peculiar to the sound of each letter, and that the pitch of the sounds approximating long u is actually,

and not ideally, lower in tone than that of the sounds approximating the long English e.

With this understanding of the actual connection existing between the sounds represented by certain letters and pitch, it follows, as a matter of natural law, that elocutionary high pitch-to begin with this-should find its poetic analogue in a predominating use of the latter class of vowel-sounds, especially when connected with consonantsounds that cannot be prolonged, and therefore cannot introduce into the tone other strong elements of pitch. Poetic passages, therefore, composed of vowels and consonants of this character are suited, like elocutionary high pitch, to represent light, gay, and lively effects,-a fact which, as will be noticed, sustains and puts upon a scientific basis all that has been said with reference to the unimportant, or— what is the same thing-the light, gay, and lively character of the ideas represented by what are usually the same sounds in short quantity. With these explanations, the reader will understand in what sense the following illustrate high pitch as used in poetry:

He took a life preserver, and he hit him on the head,
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.

-Gentle Alice Brown: Gilbert.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides

And Laughter holding both his sides.

-L'Allegro: Milton.

Vowels of the same kind together with unprolonged

consonant-sounds are used also to imitate sounds that

are high; e. g.:

Then rose the cry of females shrill

As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,

Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammered slow.

A sharp and shrieking echo gave,
Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave,

And the gray pass where birches wave
On Beala-nam-bo.

-Lady of the Lake: Scott.

What news? what news? come tell to me
What news? what news? thou little Foot-page?
I've been whacking the foe till it seems an age

Since I was in Ingoldsby Hall so free.

-Ingoldsby Penance: Ingoldsby Legends.

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet is thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness

Blest be thy dwelling-place!

O to abide in the desert with thee!

-The Skylark: Hogg.

O hark! what mean those yells and cries?
His chain some furious madman breaks.
He comes !-I see his glaring eyes!

Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes.
Help! help!-He's gone-O fearful woe,
Such screams to hear, such sights to see!
My brain, my brain-I know, I know

I am not mad-but soon shall be.

-The Maniac: M. G. Lewis.

Sounds of the nature of ù, ō, â, on the contrary, especially when combined with consonant-sounds that can

easily be prolonged, produce the serious, grave and dignified effects of low pitch, as in the following:

Insulted, chained, and all the world our foe,

Our God alone is all we boast below.

-The Captivity: Goldsmith.

Then dying of a mortal stroke,
What time the foeman's line is broke,
And all the war is rolled in smoke.

-Two Voices: Tennyson.

Or as in these imitative effects:

Thus long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,

Timotheous to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre

Could swell the soul to rage or kindle soft desire.

-Alexander's Feast: Dryden.

And waft across the waves' tumultuous roar

The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.

-Pleasures of Hope: Campbell.

Notice how Swinburne, with his exquisite sense of the meanings of sounds, passes from low pitch to high pitch, or the reverse, in order to bring out the changes in sentiment in the following:

Old glory of warrior ghosts

Shed fresh on filial hosts,

With dewfall redder than the dews of day.

-Birthday Ode.

Being bird and God in one.

-On the Cliffs.

Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred

With wind of mounting music blown more high
Than wildest wing may fly.

-On the Cliffs.

With songs and cries

That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies,

A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began
From all ways round to move in on the man,
Clamorous against him silent; and their feet
Were as the winds' are fleet,

And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet.

-Thalassius.