The lady's reader: with rules for a good style of reading aloud

general landmarks in view, I close these preliminary instructions, and invite both to diligent practice on the prose exercises which are selected for reading. I have a few special remarks to make on the

READING OF POETRY.

In the reading of poetry, we must be careful to preserve the RHYTHM of the verse.

RHYTHм is metrical order of arrangement; it is as pleasing and indeed necessary to the satisfaction of the ear, as symmetry and regularity of form are to the eye. In music, rhythm governs the leaping or gushing of the sound; in dance, it regulates the beating of the feet; in language, it directs or arranges the pulsations or strokes of the voice upon words or syllables; or, as it is called in music, the accentuation. I have before observed, that there is a rhythm even in prose; but it is uncertain, irregular, and fickle. Verse is the music of language; rhythm is its essential quality; the regularity and perfection of which distinguish it from prose. Verse is addressed to the ear; its music is not received through the eye (although a regular marginal blank may seem to mark the versification on paper); and, therefore, it is as requisite, in reading verse, to mark the rhythmical accentuation of the line, as it is, in playing or singing, to observe due time. That is, we must regulate the pulsation and movement of sound by

the voice, to the regulated metrical accentuation (or rhythm) of the verse.

English verse consists of the arrangement, at regular intervals, of accented and unaccented,— or, more properly speaking, of heavy and light syllables.

This regular arrangement, or order, constitutes the rhythm of the verse,—whether that verse be blank or in rhyme. Rhyme is the coincidence of sound in the closing cadence of one line with that of another; it has no reference to or influence upon the rhythm, from which it is perfectly distinct, nor is it an essential constituent of English poetry.

English verse may be divided into common time and triple time: the first being the pace of a man's walk; the second of a horse's canter. The accentuation is, as in music, always on the bar; that is, the accented note, or heavy syllable, must commence the bar, or its place must be supplied by a rest, which counts for it; for rests are as essential to rhythm as the notes themselves.

Thus we can divide or bar for accentuation, all English verse. Take the following three examples, as timed, barred, and accented: the two first are in common time, the third is in triple time :

A present | deity they | shout a | round

bound |

Softly sweet in | Lydían | measures |

Soon he soothed his soul to | pleasures. I

I ~ And the | kíng seized a | flambeau with | zeal to de- |

stroy.|

The pulsation of voice, and the classification and division of the syllables, as accented and arranged in the preceding couplets, distinctly mark their different rhythm.-To illustrate this further, read the second line of the third couplet as if it were thus divided and accented :

And the king | seized a flambeau | with zeal | to destroy. I

Thus read, the verse becomes prose; for, by false accentuation, its musical movement is lost, and the rhythm is destroyed.

At the same time be careful not to fall into that sing-song style of reading verse, which is produced by the accentuation of little and insignificant words; which should, as a rule, be uttered without accent.

The time, either triple or common, is denoted in the following examples for practice by the figure 2 (common), or 3 (triple).