If the reader carefully attend to the sense as he utters the words, the frequent association of the ideas with their articulate signs, whether it be aloud or mentally, will supply him with materials of expression and create habits favourable to speaking. Oral reading has afforded to many the means of obtaining success in public speaking. It is especially when practised in the native tongue that exercises in elocution give that command of voice, clear enunciation, and appropriate emphasis, which add so much force and persuasion to just sentiments and harmonious language.

Singing, practised concurrently with reading and recitation, would not only complete the cultivation of the sense of hearing and of the vocal organs, but would materially contribute in forming pleasing readers and speakers. The melody of speech differs from musical modulation only in degree, not in kind. Such is the immediate connection between language and music, that singing is the more expressive as it is founded on natural declamation. He who does not understand something of musical tone, and has not been accustomed to its variations, cannot fully know the principles of prosody and elocution. Music is a second language, whose dominion commences where that of speech terminates, but which, when associated with speech, imparts to it power, richness, and melody.

Music was an essential element of ancient elocution. The Greeks and Romans attached greater importance to the melody of language than modern nations. In their ordinary conversation pronunciation was governed by strict rules both of intonation and measure: accent determined the first; quantity, the second. "If, on the stage," says Cicero, "a word was pronounced too short or too slow, the whole theatre resounded with the disapprobation of the audience."* Quintilian observes that the Romans were early taught prosodiac distinctions. Among them the science of harmony was not confined to singing and musical composition; it presided over the pronunciation and delivery of the reader, the actor, and even the orator. The celebrated Caius Gracchus never appeared on the rostrum without a musician who regulated his voice by the notes of a flute. In some of the Grecian cities, the common crier who published the laws appears to have been attended by a harper. The fulness of sound of the Greek and Latin words, their varied terminations,

* De Orat., Lib. i. 50.

† Inst. Orat., Lib. i. Cap. viii.

their bold inversions, and their modulated accentuation, greatly contributed to the harmony of ancient eloquence.

SECT. IV.-COMPARATIVE DIFFICULTY OF READING FRENCH
AND ENGLISH.

It is especially in languages, the orthography and pronunciation of which conform to principles of analogy, that a few passages, perfectly read or recited, may serve as a standard for all others. And although, in French, the alphabetical characters do not always, when incorporated into words, correspond to the vocal elements of which they are the signs, yet, as already remarked, the same combinations of letters almost invariably represent the same articulate sounds; and the absence of a syllabic accent imparts so great a uniformity to the pronunciation, that there is not, perhaps, a language in which it could be known with more certainty from a mere inspection of the words. Hence any fifteen or twenty lines of a French book contain all the elements of pronunciation, and the correct reading of them may, by analogy, assist in pronouncing almost all other words. The fixity in the mode of representing sounds and intonations in French, as also in Italian, German, and Spanish, considerably facilitates the complete acquisition of their vocal elements, and proves the necessity which we have urged of attending carefully to the pronunciation of the first words which are heard. In the learning of a foreign language, the periodical lessons of a teacher not permitting the students to acquire its pronunciation altogether through the ear, as in the native tongue, they should have it in their power to infer the manner of pronouncing the new words they meet in books from those they have been taught to pronounce.

In English, the pronunciation presents endless difficulties, owing to the complete absence of analogy in its alphabetical representation; a foreigner would be constantly liable to error, who, naturally following the analogical principle, would pronounce in the same way words similarly spelt, as but and put, done and tone, mature and nature, singer and finger, daughter and laughter, dove, cove and move, does, toes and shoes, beau, beauty, Beauchamp, and a thousand other words dissimilarly pronounced although similarly composed. He requires to hear every word to know how it is pronounced. The English language is one of the easiest to be read mentally, and one of the most, if not the

most, difficult of all to be read orally: the same written syllable most capriciously represents various sounds; as in Chinese, the same words assume different significations by a change of vocal inflection; and the syllabic accent, to which no fixed place is assigned, produces differences of sounds which are not governed by any law,―a double irregularity most perplexing to foreigners. But another very great source of embarrassment, already noticed, is the inconsistency, peculiar to the British nation, of interlarding their discourse with foreign words, the original pronunciation of which they, by a still greater inconsistency, attempt to preserve, instead of adapting it, by rational analogy, to the usage of their own language. By this absurd practice, the great majority of the English people themselves have it not in their power to speak correctly, through ignorance of the pronunciation of the foreign. languages from which the materials of genteel conversation are daily imported by fashionable travellers. Half the elementary sounds of the French language not existing in the English, it is obvious that persons unacquainted with the former language, that is, the great bulk of the British nation, must fail in their attempt to compete with a Parisian in pronouncing English words of French origin. It is not rare for well-educated English people to inquire of a French person how to pronounce words borrowed from the French and long naturalised in the English language; thus establishing this strange anomaly, that foreigners are authorities for a correct English pronunciation.

The extreme heterogeneous and capricious nature of the English pronunciation has given birth to pronouncing dictionaries, indispensable companions of the English who are desirous of speaking correctly, and who, without them, would find it impossible to tell the pronunciation of a word from its orthography, or its orthography from the way it is pronounced. The want of such works is not felt by the French, nor perhaps by any other people; the uniformity of their pronunciation precludes the necessity: all French words and syllables, with very few exceptions, are regulated by fixed principles. Hence it is that, although the English have nine new vocal elements to learn in French, and the French only two new ones to acquire in English, yet this language is, from the irregularity of its pronunciation and accent, far more difficult to the French, than is the French pronunciation to the English. The double difficulty of pronouncing English and of understanding it when spoken will be an obstacle to that language becoming a very general vehicle of communication among

nations. Its use will, out of Great Britain, remain limited to those on whom it is forced by the right of conquest or the spirit of colonisation: these limits, however, may well satisfy a nation's pride; for the by-gone boast of Philip II. of Spain, that the sun never set upon his dominions, truly applies to the vast territories in which the English language is spoken.

199

BOOK X.

THIRD BRANCH-SPEAKING.

"Ici l'application serait meilleure que les règles, les exemples instruiraient mieux que les préceptes."-BUFFON.*

"Savoir par cœur n'est pas savoir."-MONTAIGNE. †

CHAPTER I.

PHRASEOLOGY.

SECT. I.-EXERCISE IN PHRASE-MAKING.

THE arts of speaking and writing a foreign language, although considerably facilitated by the practice of the first two branches -reading and hearing-could never be completely acquired from them alone: they demand particular exercises for their acquisition. But, before we explain the method by which they are learned, we will observe that a knowledge of grammar is an efficient auxiliary in gaining and securing their complete possession. In treating of the first two branches, little mention has been made of grammar, because the study of it is of little assistance towards their attainment: it is only when a learner begins to express ideas in the foreign language that rules may be considered useful. Practice and theory will mutually aid each other, if grammar be studied concurrently with exercises in speaking and writing. It may also be observed that a material difference exists between these two arts in their mode of acquisition: as the audible signs of the spoken language must be acquired through the ear, the assistance of a teacher becomes indispensable;

* Discours de Réception à l'Académie.

† Essais, Liv. i. Ch. 25.