the first syllable (fare) is long in quantity, and the second (well) is also long; for you can dwell on the two final liquids for an indefinite time.

The ordinary dictionary accentuation of the word is farewell, with an accent on the first syllable. But there is no settled accentuation of the word; which arises from the two long syllables being in succession: and whether the speaker throw the force (which is the accent) on the first syllable or the second, depends very much on the feeling, condition of mind, or degree or quality of the excitement or emotion, or the absence of it, under which he speaks. When a speaker says—

Well, farewell,

as a form of saying good bye merely, he usually throws the accent on the first syllable, and deprives the second of force.

If he say farewell sprightlily and in an encouraging manner, he will probably throw the force (the accent) on the well, in which word seems to lie the expression of his good wish.

If, on the other hand, he speak it despondently, in a tone of sad regret at leaving a beloved object or a lost treasure, he will put the force of accent and quantity on the first syllable, with the grave accent thus-Fare-well, and deprive the second syllable of force.

If, finally, his Farewell is to an enemy, and implies a threat instead of a good wish, on his departure, he will probably throw all force on the second syllable, and give its long quantity with the grave accent, weakening the first syllable, and making it (by the relative force of the second) almost a short syllable—

Fare-well.

Now in the following lines of Cardinal Wolsey

'Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!' the tone is of regret, sadness, depression; and those conditions of feeling demand, among other elements of expression, long quantity: and in this case on both syllables. But as two accented or two heavy syllables cannot be uttered in succession without rest or remission of force, the first long syllable (fare) will diminish in force as it is lengthened in prolonged utterance till it almost vanishes; and that diminution, marked thus in music >, will have the same effect of remission or intermission as a rest or a light syllable interposed between it and the next syllable; which will commence its radical sound with less force than the first syllable, and grow up to the full sound by increase thus marked <. I will represent the word farewell, so uttered, by a double line, with the radical swell at the commencement, the diminution and the force in the closing liquids ll thus

Fare-well!

So uttered, the word gives almost the effect of a sigh ; which is just the effect intended to be produced. You see, then, of what value quantity is in speech.

Now, understand: your future power as a reader and speaker very much depends on your acquiring a ready and easy mastery of quantity. Abrupt and excited speech runs. generally on abrupts, or immutables, and mutables; grand and dignified speech runs on the indefinites. This knowledge with facility of execution, is one of the first elements of the ex

pression of energy and emotion, of rapidity in action, or of repose and sublimity of scene or feeling.

For example, mark the number of abrupts and mutables, or semi-abrupts, in Hotspur's energetic outburst:

Let them come!

They come like sacrifices in their trim ;

And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war

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All hot and bleeding will we offer them.

Quick time and abrupt accentuation should mark such animated and energetic passages as that.

On the other hand mark the indefinites—the long tonic sounds—in the following, which, being given with long quantity, produce a dignified and powerful effect :

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

SHAKSPEARE.

And in the following the long quantities must be observed to produce the full effect intended.

All are but parts of one harmonious whole

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.-POPE.

The effect of these long quantities, or indefinites, and due quantity on the mutables, is to give dignity and largeness to the expression.

So in the celebrated passage from the 'Paradise Lost,' the indefinites, to be marked with long quantity, very much aid the grandeur of the description, when read aloud.

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold,
Satan exalted sat.

In fine, Time, or Quantity, is one main constituent of the Orotund which is the appropriate voice and method for the reading of the Scriptures, Milton, Shakspeare, and all that is grand, impressive, and sublime in prose and poetry.

Time or Quantity, then, is the first accident of speech that you are required to understand and master. Do so.

Now give me your attention.

PHRASING.

Speech is vocalised breath; breath made into voice by the action of the vocal organs.

I need not stop to define how the voice is formed; that is nature's affair, not ours. Our business is to use it on a good system of art.

This is clear, that we cannot speak without breathing, is it not?

The voice is our organ; the lungs are its bellows. If the bellows do not work freely, easily, and regularly, the power and action of the organ will be, to the extent of the impediment, marred or diminished.

The first step, then, towards good and effective speech or reading aloud, is to acquire a just economy and regulation of the lung-power, the orderly and, let us call it, rhythmical action of the bellows.

This is effected by a just system of phrasing, as I call it; a system which, by regulated rests, as in music, gives us breathing-places; that is, places for taking breath momentarily, without making a breach in the continuity or progress of the sense.

This system is essential to the economy of breath in speech. It enables us to supply respiration by in-spiration; that is, to recover by breathing in what we have expended in breathing out, and so keeping our lung-power constantly at full tide.

At the same time that by these regulated rests, or suspensions of utterance, differing in

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