the intonation of otherwise judicious and intelligent readers. Verse will not sound like Poetry, if read in persistent violation of the Rule. Never hesitate, however, to end a group, anywhere, in falling intonation, when the sense requires it. AN EXAMPLE OF VARIED MELODY. In the spontaneous, unbridled vocal utterance of mirth, gaiety, and kindred moods, the melody becomes extremely capricious, sometimes made up of emphatic skips; sometimes of wide sweeps, rising, falling, or veering; and now and then running on the monotone for a short succession of words. The pitch range is wide; the stress, varied, but predominantly staccato; volume, slender; quality, prevalent natural and oral, sometimes clear and sometimes aspirated, with occasional falsetto and frequent resort to orotund; movement, varied, but inclining to rapid and very rapid. The vocal rendering of the following lines should dance and sparkle with the antic gaiety of the children. The notation is intended to suggest, rather than to prescribe, a suitable melody. Be sure to speak the words-that is, do not sing them; and yet, as your reading improves, your intonation will have a musical effect more delightful to unperverted ears than any but the very finest singing. THE LITTLE DANCERS. Down the dimpled greensward dancing, Love's irregular little levee! Rows of liquid eyes in laughter, How they glimmer! how they quiver! Sparkling one another after, Like bright ripples on a river! 1. Tipsy band of rubious faces, Flushed with Joy's ethereal spirit, 2. -George Darley. Down the dimpled greensward dancing, Bursts a flaxen-headed bevy! Bud-lipped boys and girls advancing, Love's irregular little lev-ee! Rows of li-quid eyes in laughter, How they 7. glimmer! how they quiver! Sparkling one another after, Like bright ripples on a river! Tip-sy band of ru-bi-ous faces, Flushed with Joy's ethereal spirit, Make your mocks and 12. sly gri-maces At Love's self, and do not fear it! The first three measures of 1, by the do-sol-mi gradation of their accents, the falling concretes, and the symmetrically decreasing falling-sweep impression of the measures themselves, constitute what the ear accepts as a wide aggregate falling sweep: though, if the ear attends at the same time to the pitch succession of the accents and to the unvarying level of the remiss syllables, the voice seems to be playing two tunes at once, that are hastening to converge, ; or, noting the measures in succession, we hear the falling skip of octave, then of fifth, and then of third, producing the effect of regularly diminishing falling phrases, The last measure of the line is a rising ditone, set a fifth above the terminal pitch of the third measure. The line, as a whole, read with the melody notated, and with brisk staccato utterance and rapid movement, is highly imitative of the action described. Another intonation, similar in effect to that given above, and just as good, may be given to 1, as follows: Down the dimpled greensward dancing, The opening syllable of 2 smoothly joins in pitch with the preceding measure, and the first three measures mimic, on a smaller scale, the corresponding measures of 1. ends with the first duad cadence, and in its total melodic impression is a falling sweep (page 391.) Line 3, if read with the zigzag skips of the third, the accents being sharply and equally stressed, is also highly imitative. The line ends with the rising ditone. 'Love's' is the climax word of the first sentence, and line 4 is a vivid falling sweep, ending with the first duad cadence. Line 5 changes to a smooth, implicated expulsive utterance, in light but mellow orotund; the melody is a current of the monotone, ending with a rising ditone or monotone. The playful comments of line 6 are well expressed in a melodic phrase made up of two rising ditones, the second a fourth below the first. In repeating the melody, on the second group, it is set a tone lower throughout, and should be reduced somewhat in force and volume. The playfulness would be missed, if a cadence were made on 'glimmer' and 'quiver'; or if the contour were given to each comment, instead of the melody of the rising-ditone skips. To lines 7 and 8, taken together, the climax sweep,, is allotted. At the end of 7 there is a grouping pause, but the melody should be continuous, the culmination being on 'river'; not on 'ripples', nor divided between the two words. 'On a river' is to be construed as definitive. The first three measures of 9 are similar to the corresponding measures of 1; but the melodic effect of the line, as a whole, is quite different from that of 1; partly through the change in direction and interval of the accents, but especially because the fourth measure, instead of being brightly anticipative, is only continuative, a monotone phrase, or a rising ditone, contiguous in pitch to the preceding measure. Lines 10 and 11 carry the voice in a rising sweep toward the climax word, 'self', in 12. It is a matter of taste, or judgment, or momentary impulse, whether 'Joy's', in 10, shall be strongly emphasized, inflectively, as suggested. The last two measures return to the 'cute' intonation of 'How they glimmer! how they quiver!' A 'HAUNTING' MELODY. The following is a fair notation of the opening lines of 'Curfew Must Not Ring To-night', as pronounced by a wellknown professional reader, some years dead, an Englishwoman of great personal beauty, of exceptional gifts of temperament, talent, and voice, and for many years a popular favorite throughout our country. She had all the endowments of a fine reader, except that her reading was exceedingly bad. Her rendering of verse, especially, was a brilliant and dexterous display of vocal 'ground and lofty tumbling'— laryngeal acrobatics-a medley of Buckstone skips of third and fourth and fifth and octave; and her favorite cadence 'Oh, what a fall was there!' People used to declare her mannerisms of intonation 'very English', without seriously questioning their propriety. Her melodies were restless, showy, tawdry, and, after the first moments of surprise and bewilderment, grew to be wearisome. The notation is given, not as a model of rational and artistic melody, but as an illustration of misapplied dexterityan elocutionary curio. England's sun was slowly setting o'er the hills so far away, Filled the land with misty beauty, at the close of one sad day; And the last rays kissed the foreheads of a man and maiden fair, He with bowed head, slow and thoughtful, she with sunny, floating hair. England's sun was slowly setting o'er the hills so far a-way, Filled the land with misty beauty, at the close of one sad day; And the last rays kissed the foreheads of a man and maiden fair,-He with bowed head, slow and thoughtful, |