time; aspirated whispering quality; expulsive initial stress; small volume; short or moderate slides. Thus: What is 't? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, Sir, It carries a brave form: but 'tis a spirit! I might call him A thing divine; for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.-SHAKESPEARE. The preceding passage illustrates the mingling of different emotions, sentiments, and passions. Rarely is one found unmixed; but they are blended in infinite variety. Of course, that which predominates will most color the expression, and much skill may be requisite to rightly adjust the characteristics of vocal utterance so as to represent the ingredients which compose the . passage. From all that has been said, we deduce the following directions for elocutionary analysis:— 1. Ascertain the prevailing tone or spirit of the piece, and adhere to it, adapting the elements of vocal expression to it wherever you perceive no cause for deviation. 2. Ascertain the deviations from the general spirit of the piece, and adapt the elements of expression to the spirit of the individual sentences and words. Be careful, where mental states or acts are blended, to give each its due representation. 3. Make a phonetic analysis of the emphatic words, and practise especially the enunciation of the elements of such words, singly and combined. We subjoin for illustration the following commencement of an analytical examination of the stanzas preliminary to Milton's Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, as a model of elecutionary analysis. The whole ode will be found on subsequent pages. I. This is the month, and this the happy morn, That he our deadly forfeit should release, II. That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. III. Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now, while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright? IV. See, how, from far, upon the eastern road, Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet, And join thy voice unto the angel choir, From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. The prevailing tone of the hymn is serious. Hence it must, for the most part, be read with moderate force, somewhat slowly, in a rather low pitch, with slightly median stress, pure quality, moderate volume, and moderate slides. The first stanza, beginning, "This is the month," has joy as well as seriousness. Joy predominates. Hence it should be read with rather loud force, rather brisk movement, rather high pitch, very pure quality, rather full volume, decided median stress, rather long slides. "peace;" Make a phonetic analysis* of "this,' ," "morn," "redemption," " and then read the stanza aloud.† The next stanza, beginning, "That glorious form," has, in the first four lines, deep admiration blended equally with deep reverence and love. Hence those lines should be read with moderate force, moderate pitch, rather slow time, very pure quality, rather large volume, full median stress, moderate slides. The next three lines, beginning, “He laid aside,” have tenderness combined with reverence; tenderness preponderating in the first two, and reverence in the last. Hence to be read with slight force, slow movement; ‡ moderate pitch, median stress, very pure quality, moderate volume, short slides. Read it aloud. Proceed in this manner with every stanza. * See method of phonetic analysis, p. 62; also list of phonetic elements, pp. 39, 60, 61. "How lond?" Loud enough, whatever the piece may be, to be distinctly heard by all the audience, without the slightest effort on their part; and, in addition, loud enough to sufficiently bring into relief, as it were, the strong features of the passage. The student will do well to consult the admirable Treatise on Elocution by Prof. Mark Bailey, of Yale College. It is prefixed to Hillard's Fifth and Sixth Readers. After the manner of many elocutionists, we have used the words "movement" and "time" as interchangeable. 13 JOHN MILTON. 1608-1674. NOR second HE, that rode sublime The secrets of th' abyss to spy. He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: Where angels tremble while they gaze, Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart : So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay.-WORDSWORTH, O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies! O skilled to sing of time and eternity! God-gifted organ voice of England! Milton, a name to resound through ages.-TENNYSON. JOHN MILTON was born in London, December 9, 1608. His father was a scrivener, or writer of law papers, who had been disinherited for a change in his religion, but by diligence and economy had accumulated a considerable property. A man of learning, and something of a poet and musician, he took extraordinary pains with the education of his son. John probably imbibed on his father's knee that taste for these elegant accomplishments, and that hatred of tyranny, which distinguished him in after life. At the age of eleven his father sent him to St. Paul's school, then under the charge of Alexander Gill, a name somewhat famous among pedagogues. Here the boy made wonderful progress in his studies. One fruit of his youthful genius is a beautiful version, written while at school, of the one hundred and thirty-sixth Psalm, beginning,— Let us, with a gladsome mind, At the age of sixteen his father sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge. He entered as a pensioner, or paying student. It was in the year 1625. In this college he remained four years, until his graduation as Bachelor of Arts; after which he continued at the University three years, pursuing more advanced studies, and finally taking the degree of Master of Arts in 1632. As a college student it is pretty clear, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, that his career was uncommonly successful. He appears not to have liked the curriculum, nor some of the tutors; but the college productions which Masson quotes and translates, to say nothing of the magnificent Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, show a depth of scholarship, and a grasp, a subtlety, a loftiness, We and an intensity of thought, such as the world has rarely seen in one so young. have his own unquestioned testimony to the fact of his great industry. He tells us that, from the age of twelve to thirty, he seldom left his books before midnight. His bodily appearance at leaving the University was of almost ideal perfection. He was a little below the medium stature; his hair was light brown, and, parted in the middle, it hung in rich curling locks down to his shoulders; his complexion a delicate pink and white, rose blending with lily; his eyes clear and of a dark gray; his voice cheery and musical; his form of wondrous symmetry; his movements manly, graceful, and bold. So beautiful and so refined had he been, that he was commonly called "the Lady of Christ's College;" yet his contemporary, Anthony Wood, tells us that, with all his elegance, "his gait was erect and manly, bespeaking courage and undauntedness." His father had removed his residence from London to Horton, Buckinghamshire. Thither our handsome scholar, now about twenty-four years of age, went from Cambridge, and there he made his home for nearly six years. His father and mother would have been glad to see their brilliant son become a minister of the established church. But to his bold and independent spirit, the condition of the church seemed such that he who would take orders must write himself down a slave, and conscientious scruples arose. "I thought," says he, "to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." He engaged at Horton in an almost ceaseless round of reading and study, occasionally dashing off a letter or a poem, or running down to London for books or a visit with friends. Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso, poems that "wear the stamp of immortality" as much as anything in the English language, are among the fruits of these six years of toil. Upon his mother's death, about the beginning of the year 1638, he determined to go abroad. His father furnished him ample funds, and the young man set out, accompanied by a servant, and bearing letters from and to distinguished men. At Paris he saw the great Grotius; at Florence, the greater Galileo, "a prisoner to the Inquisition," says Milton, "for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." At Rome he attended parties given by the famous Cardinal Barberini. Here he saw and heard Leonora Baroni, a sweet singer, whose melody fascinated him, and to whom he wrote three Latin sonnets. He was preparing to cross over into Sicily, and then to Greece; but on learning that civil war was breaking forth in England, he hastened to return. "I thought it base," he says, "to be travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home." He arrived in 1639, after an absence of fifteen months. He was eager to join in the great struggle that had already begun, which was destined to shake off the heavy prelatical and political yoke that Laud and Wentworth had so long been fastening about the neck of the nation. In the great awakening of the English people, Milton thought he saw the way opening to a higher liberty, civil and religious, than England had yet seen, and he threw himself with all his might into the conflict. He was strongest with the pen, and he began those famous treatises on religious reformation, that are so much praised but so little read, of which Macaulay says, "They contain passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery." But he must have an income. He opens a private school, takes a few pupils, and enters heartily into the work of their education. This subject commands his attention; he becomes sensible of its vast importance, and writes his famous letter to Samuel Hartlib, delineating with care the plan of "a complete and generous education, to fit a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, public and private, of peace and war." This treatise is remarkable for its recommendation of certain features which some of the best schools now exhibit, but which were prac tically unknown in his day; such as systematic gymnastic and military drill, original investigations in natural history, object-teaching, business studies, theoretical and practical agriculture, and making language the key to science. In 1643, Milton strolled away from London to Forest Hill, Oxfordshire. It was his spring vacation. "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." His ostensible business was to collect a debt of £500, due to his father from Mr. Richard Powell, a justice of the peace. Whether he knew of the existence of Mr. Powell's daughter Mary, may be questioned; but it would appear that here was a genuine case of love at first sight. The handsome scholar probably encountered no opposition from the young lady, and still less from the father, who saw in the speedy marriage not only a desirable match for his daughter, but a quasi settlement, at least for a time, of the long-standing debt. After a month's absence, says Milton's nephew Phillips, he returned with a wife. Married in haste, he repented at leisure. A few weeks revealed the utter unfitness of the alliance. There was not only nothing in common between the two, but there was an utter contrariety of sympathies and of views on the most important subjects. She hated the studious habits of her schoolmaster husband, and longed for her old home. They do not appear to have parted in anger; but they saw no more of each other for two years, and it is certain that her desertion of him was voluntary. In the early fall he wrote to her to return. It seems a little singular that he did not make the short journey in person to the spot where he had wooed and won her. Had he awakened to the fact that he had been entrapped by the artful debtor, who had palmed off an indifferent daughter upon him instead of paying the old claim in current funds? To his letter, twice repeated, he received no response. He then despatched a messenger to bring the lady, but she refused an interview. Important consequences grew out of this quarrel, if so we may call it. He wrote four long treatises to prove that reason and Scripture justify a divorce from the bands of matrimony, whenever there exists “any cause, in nature unchangeable, hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal society." An avalanche of argument and of obloquy descended upon the head of the bold advocate of divorce. There is no reason to suppose that he ever retracted his views; but his magnanimous conduct in forgiving and receiving back the erring wife, and taking beneath his hospitable roof her father's family, to shelter them from the storm that soon threatened all royalists, shows the goodness of his heart, whatever we may think of the soundness of his opinions. The year 1644 was one of his busiest. In it, while his wife was absent, he wrote his Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. In some respects this is the best of his prose works. We have given it entire. It will be found an excellent discipline and a valuable preparation for public life, for the student to master the argument in all its details. 'Every statesman," says Macaulay, "should bind this treatise as a sign upon his hand and as frontlets between his eyes." His nephew Phillips tells us there was, about the year 1647, some talk of making Milton Adjutant-General, and Masson gives us good reason to believe that Milton had carefully studied military tatics. We know from his own statement that he was an adroit fencer. Conceive of our poet in military uniform! He had doubtless admiraable qualifications, courage, quickness, energy, enthusiasm combined with coolness; but there was one sufficient obstacle; his eyesight was failing. An inherited weakness of vision had been aggravated by intense study in many a midnight. He appears to have continued to teach until about the time of the execution of the king, January 30, 1649. |