Certainly, on the other hand, in the full desire to be heard, distinctly assumes all the impressiveness of strength.

Anger declares itself with force, because its charges and denials are made with a wide appeal, and in its own sincerity of conviction. A like degree of force is employed in expressing hate, ferocity, or revenge.

All sentiments, unbecoming or disgraceful, smother the voice to its softer degrees, in the desire to conceal even the voluntary utterance of them.

Joy is loud in calling for companionship, through the overflowing charity of its satisfaction.

Bodily pain, fear, terror, when not subdued by weakness, are strong in their expression, with the double intention of summoning relief, and of repelling the offending cause when it is a sentient being; the sharpness and vehemence of the full-strained and piercing cry being universally painful or appalling to the animal

ear.

Thoughts, sentiments, or conditions expressing humility, modesty, shame, doubt, irresolution, apathy, caution, mystery, repose, fatigue, or prostration from disease, require the piano or moderate voice.

""Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow:

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main."

"O precious evenings! all too quickly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages

Pope.

Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,

And giving tongues unto the silent dead!

How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages

Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,

Anticipating all that shall be said!

O happy Reader! having for thy text

The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught

The rarest essence of all human thought!

O happy Poet! by no critic vext!

How must thy listening spirit now rejoice

To be interpreted by such a voice!"

SONNET ON MI S. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM SHAKESPEARE.-Longfellow.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Loud Force.

"Blow wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt couriers to oak-clearing thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!"— King Lear.

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait;

Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,

Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!'
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay,

As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side

He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:

'To arms! cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.'”

"There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat it, Sir, let it come!

"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that the Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"-Patrick Henry.

"Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,

Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts

The gates of honor on me,-turning out
The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?

To fling your offices to every slave!

(Looking round him.)

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome,

Hang hissing at the nobler man below!"

CATILINE.-Croly.

66

Moderate Force.

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

Thou had'st a voice, whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So did'st thou travel on like's common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay."

SONNET TO MILTON.- Wordsworth.

"Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoëns soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned

His visionary brow; a glow worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Fairy-land
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!"

THE SONNET.-Ibid.

"Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man,

Living together under the same roof,

And never can be sundered without tears.

-He that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears
Of angels, to the perfect shape of man."

THE PALACE OF ART.- Tennyson.

"Think of him [Goldsmith] reckless, thriftless, vain if you like - but merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He passes out of our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his grave; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored him; think of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph—and of the wonderful and unanimous response of affection with which the world has paid back the love he gave it. His humor delighting us still; his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it: his words in all our mouths: his very weakness beloved and familiar,-his benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us: to do gentle kindnesses: to succour with sweet charity: to soothe, to caress, and forgive: to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor.”—Thackeray.

"The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doeth set the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy."
99 Portia.- MERCHANT OF VENICE.

"The flowers may fade away, the woods may fall,
The sea may waste the land, the land the sea,

And men may feed the worms beneath the pall,
And time may vanish in Eternity;
Still, ocean-like, the tides of Being lie,

Filled from exhaustless urns;

The flame of life still burns,

And God still sits on high,

And watches Earth below, with his unsleeping eye!"
CARMEN NATURE TRIUMPHALE.-R. H. Stoddard

"Each in his own way; each in his own profession; each through that little spot in the universe given to him. For not only is God everywhere, but all of God is in every point. Not his wisdom here, and His goodness there; the whole truth may be read, if we had eyes, and heart, and time enough, in the laws of a daisy's growth. God's Beauty, His Love, His Unity; nay, if you observe how each atom exists, not for itself alone, but for the sake of every other atom in the universe, in that atom or daisy, you may read the law of the Cross itself. The crawling of a beetle before now has taught perseverance, and led to a crown. The little moss, brought close to a traveller's eye in an African desert, who had lain down to die, roused him to faith in that Love which had so curiously arranged the minute fibres of a thing so small, to be seen once, and but once by a human eye, and carried him, like Elijah of old, in the strength of that heavenly repast, a journey of forty days and forty nights to the sources of the Nile; yet who could have suspected divinity in a beetle, or theology in a moss?". - Robertson.

"We hold the keys of Heaven in our hands,
The gift and heirloom of a former state,
And lie in infancy at Heaven's gate,

Transfigured in the light that streams along the lands!
Around our pillars golden ladders rise,

And up and down the skies,

With winged sandals shod,

The angels come and go, the Messengers of God!

Nor do they, fading from us, e'er depart,—

It is the childish heart;

We walk as heretofore,

Adown their shining ranks, but see them-nevermore!
Not Heaven is gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!"
CARMEN NATURE TRIUMPHALE. Stoddard.