&c. No. 15. Support of a table, with a Victory hollowed out between the volutes. No. 16. A colossal kead of Minerva ; a specimen of very early Greek work. This head is very fine. Artists should recollect, that Minerva's portrait is one of the Têtes données. The finest por trait, supposed to be a copy of the Pallas of Phidias, is in the Pierres de l'Empereur, pl. xviii. As to statues of Pallas, Mr. Dallaway (Arts, 246) notes, that she is distinguished by the straight plait of the inner vest in the centre. T. D. FOSBROOKE. Report of G. GRANGER, presented to the House of Representatives of the United States, 29th of April, 1810, exhibiting a view of the Post-Office Establishment. from the commencement of the year 1789 to the 1st of October, 1809. 5,305,093 00 2,866,764, 97 to Oct. 1 Remarks. The blanks are, in consequence of the imperfect state of the books arising from the infancy of the establishment. The nett revenue of the post-office establishment from its commencement, D.8765,521 81cts. A reduction of revenue took place, in consequence of the depression and suspension of commerce, and the expenses of this office for the year 1808; and the three first quarters of 1809, exceeded the amount of postage due to the United States; the sum of D.86,706 33cts. which was defrayed out of the funds arising from previous years. The increased expenditure beyond the mileage, has arisen from the increased number and speed of the mails, More than 100 Postoffices have been established since October, 1809, and by a late law of congress, the extent of post roads is increased more than 4000 miles; I doubt not, bu by the 1st of next January, the number of post-offiecs in the United States, will amount to sear 2,500. For For the Monthly Magazine. be admitted that the hue and cry of pla giarism has frequently been raised upon much slighter grounds of suspicion or provocation. The work, upon the whole, DURING the ten years in which I (though I have controverted several pas have been professionally engaged in inculcating what appear to me to be the correct principles of English Elocution, and in exploding what I regard as the mischievous errors of established theories relative to that art, I have been so constantly solicitous for the diffusion of my science, and so little jealous of the advantages or reputation that other professors or other writers, might derive from my discoveries, that I have omitted no opportunities, which professional engage ments would permit, of putting the public in possession of the results of my en quiries and experiments. Time, indeed, has not hitherto been found for any systematic or methodical work, even upon any single branch of this extensive subject; and, in my recent" Letter to Mr. Cline," circumstances have been explained, which throw additional obstructions in the way of such an undertaking: but my brief and occasional communications to your respectable miscellany, and some other periodical publications, have been, I trust, sufficiently explicit on some of the most difficult parts of my system, to shew that I was superior to the little selfishness of mysterious quackery; and when I propounded, as I did for several years successively, in my public lectures, (first in all the principal towns of the North, and afterwards, through two successive seasons, at my institution in London,) the whole scheme and theory of my system, not only to subscribers but to casual auditors, it was of course both in my calculation and in my wish, that my principles should be adopted, and acted upon by others. When, therefore, in the year 1806, after the promulgation of my lectures in London, Mr. Odell published his " Essay on the Elements, Accents, and Prosody of the English Language," (although I could not but think that I discovered in that book, not only the acknowledged as sistance derived from the invaluable work of Joshua Steele, but many traits of striking coincidence between the systems of the essayist and of the lecturer, which the mere perusal of that book could not account for,) I did not pertinaciously in. quire, whether this coincidence were more likely to have arisen from acciden. tal sympathy of judgment, or unacknowledged imitation; though I believe it will sages in the margin of my copy) was ably executed; and I was not so pertinacious as to be angry that another had executed a useful task, which it was probable I should myself never have the opportunity of performing. I could not, indeed, but accuse the writer, in my heart, of some little want of ingenuous liberality when I read the following paragraph, with which he concludes his work: "I may be permitted, in my turn, to express my surprise, that to this day," (and he adds in a note, 25th November, 1802,') "the true nature of accent, explained nearly thirty years ago by Mr. Steele, appears to have been misunderstood or overlooked by all our writers, Mr. Walker himself only excepted." With respect to Mr. Walker, perhaps, the expression ought not to have been only, but not excepted: for surely in the full extent and precise limitation of sig nification, in which Mr. Odell as well as myself uses the term accent, Mr. Walker cannot be said accurately to have understood the true nature of that property of speech; on the contrary, he is perpetually using the term in that vague and inapplicable way, which has been the source of so large a portion of the confusion in the modern systems of elocution, That Mr. W. did not understand the system of Mr. Steele, he has himself acknowledged in the following note, p. 138, Key to the Clas. Pron, of Gr. and Lat. Prop. Names: "The attempt of this gentleman is not so much to illustrate the accent and quan tity of the Greek language, as to prove the possibility of forming a notation of speaking sounds for our own; and of reducing them to a musical scale, and accompanying them with instruments. The attempt is undoubtedly laudable; but no farther useful than to show the impossibility of it, by the very method he has taken to explain it. For it is wrapped up in such an impenetrable cloud of music, as to be unintelligible to any but musiciaus: and the distinctions of sound are so nice and numerous, as to discourage the most persevering student from labouring to understand him." I should be sorry to be suspected of injustice to the memory of Mr. W. whose merits in certain departments of elocution, and whose diligence, general ac curacy curacy and nice precision, in all that relates to what, in the nomenclature of essential contra-distinctions, I should call enunciation, cannot be too highly applauded, and to whom I owe a personal obligation from his having, at the very outset of my institution, recommended pupils to me, who had applied to him for instruction. But, in justice to Mr. Steele, I must be permitted to say, that without being a musician, I found the "Prosodia Rationalis," (though requiring, indeed, reiterated reading and profound investigation) ultimately much more intelligible (because more correct in its principles, and more accurate in its discriminations) than the "Elements of Elocution." But why did Mr. Odell, who published his “Essay" in 1806, after my lectures had acquired some notoriety even in London, introduce the saving clause of the" 25th November, 1802," and nothing more? Would not that ingenuous liberality which should ever distinguish the man of science (and such Mr. O. most unquestionably is) from the designing empiric, have suggested the propriety of announcing, without reserve, the demonstrated existence of a parallel discovery, rather than have satisfied itself with the silent evasion of a charge of imitation or plagiarism? But even for the latter purpose, if I had been disposed to captious controversy, the cautious date of 1802, could not have been sufficient; for my lectures began in the principal towns of Yorkshire, in November 1801, in which my theory of ac cents and emphases, and indeed the general outline of my whole system, were promulgated. In March 1802, my system was not suggested but confirmed, by my becoming acquainted with Mr. Steele's book; and ever since that time, I have been labouring incessantly to bring it into notice. : I should not, however, have troubled you, Sir, or the world, with these circumstances, if my attention had not been called to the subject by a more recent occurrence, in which the interests of science are more deeply concerned than my personal feelings or reputation for the Essay of Mr. Odell being, upon the whole, a valuable and useful work, I rejoiced in its publication; and I am not at all apprehensive that it should not be ultimately known what share I have had in restoring the neglected science of Joshua Steele, the further development of the principles of English accent, rhyth mus, and prosody, and the super-addition pediments.) This plan," proceeds I shall not stoop at present to the critical enquiry, what specific impediment is to be considered as understood and referred to by the specific article the, in this instructive paragraph. But by whom does Mr. S. mean to insinuate, that the idea in question has been conceived and brought to the test of successful experiment? Was it by the compiler of the Practical Grammar of English Pronunciation? If not, why was not the author of the discovery fairly and candidly quoted? If Mr. S. can point out a single authority or suggestion on the subject, prior to the delivery of my lectures, and meation an individual who is known to have tried the experiment, prior to myself, he will confer an obliga tion upon me, which I shall thankfully acknowledge; because it will open to me fresh sources of information, upon a topic relative to which I find that there is yet much to learn. The only writers I know I know of, prior to the recent publication by Mr. Odell, that seem to have had any idea of the genuine principles of musical proportion, as applicable to the rhythmus of spoken language, are Mr. Steele in his Prosodia, and my enlightened friend and correspondent, Mr. Richard Roe in his Elements of English Metre: the latter of whom I hope will yet be prevailed upon to oblige the world with an improved and more ample development of his system. But neither of these, as far as I can remember, had any idea of applying their principles for the remedy of impediments of speech, and, indeed, as neither of them seem to have bad any conception of the physiological facts and principles out of which the laws of musical proportion have, perhaps, arisen, (and with the necessities of which those laws must, in their application, so exactly coincide, if they are to produce any operation in cases of serious impediment,) if they had conceived any such idea, it must of necessity, have been exceedingly dim and imperfect. But I repeat it: whatever contempt I might have felt for the individual who could condescend to the disin genuousness of such a passage, as well as to the multiplied plagiaries with which the book abounds, if Mr. S. had really so illustrated what he has made free with that his publication had been likely to be assistant in the prevention or the removal of impediments, I should readily have pardoned the action, though I despised the actor; and have exulted in the prospect that my principles, however surreptitiously purloined, were in the way of obtaining a wider diffusion among mankind than I have leisure or opportunity to give them. So far, indeed, did the tendency to this sort of feeling operate upon me, that the report of the plagiary was reiterated from several quarters, before I had even the curiosity to enquire into the extent to which it had been carried; nor did I, at last, give myself the trouble of perusing the work, till the intelligence that an erroneous and mischievous application was made of my stolen goods, roused me to a sense of the duty I owed to society, and called upon me to examine whether what began to be talked of as a transcript of my system, was, in reality, such as ought to be laid, by popular rumour, at my door. I have examined accordingly; and that I may keep myself as much aloof as possible from the uncandid meanness of Mr. S. I will do him the justice to admit, that there are parts in his compilation that are well arranged, tolerably digested, and intelligibly explained. But to no part of this praise can I admit that his system of rhythmus and musical proportions, (if proportions they can be called), or his practical applications of what he has pur loined to the treatment of impediments, are in any degree entitled. At least, I must be permitted to declare, that his mode of practical application is not my mode; and that if, by such an admeasurement of speech as he dictates, he can cure even the solitary disease of stam mering (for this is the only species of im pediment which he seems to regard as capable of any remedy) I give him joy of the discovery; for my own part, if I comprehend at all his system of admeasurement and notation, I should sooner have suspected it of having been invented for the purpose of teaching the fluent to stammer, than of enabling the stammerer to be fluent and emphatic. I say nothing at present of the gross, but popular error, of ineasuring the cadences from light to heavy, Resound ye woods resound | my mourn ful lay | instead of from heavy to light: Relsound ye woods re-sound my | mournful lay a principle, which, if admitted, would throw our rhythmus into all the confusion it has been taxed with; and justify the else most untenable hypothesis of our mere finger-counting critics, that there is no such thing as admeasurable quantity in the prosody of the English language. Neither shall I pause for any considerable time, at present, upon the strange assertion, that it is a mere matter of election, on the part of the hearer, whether the measure shall be considered as proceeding from light to heavy (or as Mr. S., by another misnomer, which betrays his imperfect acquaintance with the subject, denominates the metrometic qualities, weak and strong) or from heavy to light; only, I shall just observe, that this is so far from a mere fanciful election of the ear, that it is a matter of practical election on the part of the reader or reciter; that the superior effect produced by the latter mode of admeasurement, is one of the most positive discriminations of a good style of utterance; that as far as relates to the effect upon the hearer, it were better that the speaker had no idea of systematic admeasurement whatever, than that his imagination should be m pressed with the opposite mode; and finally, finally, that an acute and accurate comprehension of the practical difference of these two modes of admeasurement, is One of the most indispensable requisites in the treatment of every species of impediment, and in the attainment of the higher accomplishments of an harmonious elocution. But what shall we say to the "octasyllabic feet" of this profound prosodist-and one of his octasyllabic feet (if my fingers can enable me to count so far) tras actually nine syllables! See p. 360. 123 5 6 7 8 9 "Intimacy with the superintendant." What is the stammerer; what is any speaker, who has the superfluous ambition of being intelligible; what is the time-beater to do with such feet as these? How shall we measure, by what denominator shall we appreciate, the proportions of their integral parts? How shall we bring them into comparison; by what procrustean artifice, distort or contract them into equal quantity, (while toe or finger beats the time, according to the direction of Mr. S.) with his dissyllabic, and monosyllabic, feet? Let us, for the sake of illustration, bring two of Mr. S.'s own feet of these latter descriptions, into immediate association with this nine-syllabled octasyllabic. The palé moon is in intimacy with the superinten dunt. Perhaps I might have found a more proper person than the superintendant, to bring into such intimacy: but let us take it as it is. What shall be the denominator of the quantity of the syllable moon-minim, semibreve, or breve? and what of the nine integers of its octasyllabic companioncrotchets, quavers, or semi quavers? or shall quater, semiquaver, demi-semiquaver, and double-demi-semiquaver, be mingled together in decimal variety, to torture them into proportioned quantity? who The author, however, admits, that there may be "some readers," though of their presumption, it is evident, he cannot by any means approve, "would probably" venture to divide some of his heptasyllabic and ectasyllabic feet into two; as, for example, opportu nily of retaliation," into "opportu' nity of retaliation;" and the above beautiful nine-syllabled octasyllabic into intimacy with the superintendant.' It must be confessed, that this would not be any very great improvement; at least in the former instance: and I cannot but suspect that the two little syllables i-á, if thus divided, under the strict regulation of the time-beater, must be disposed to stare a little, at finding themscives thus miraculously extended to an equal dimension with their five heretofore not less athletic brethren. My objections to several other parts of the prosodial scheme of Mr. S. are not a whit less serious; and to his notions concerning the blank verse of Milton, and his proposed method of reading the divine verses of that immortal author, in particular: backed though he is, to a certain degree, by the high authority of Mr. Walker. In short, notwithstanding the reports that have gone abroad, and the claim I lay to the subject matter, and modes of reasoning and illustration in several of the earlier pages of his volume, I must entirely exonerate Mr. S. from any sus picion of having purloined from me any part of his concluding chapter, "ON QUANTITY, OR PROSODIACAL ADMEASURE MENT;" or of his "Method of Curing Stammering." His principles, in these respects, are not my principles; and either he, or I, know very little of the matter. Should he, at any time hereafter, make himself really acquainted, in all their comprehensive application, logical and musical science, upon which with those genuine principles of physiothe management of impediments depends, (and the means of information upon this subject, are now in part before the pubportunity of submitting them more exlic:-I shall probably seize an early opplicitly to the world): he will then know better than to publish to the world such that "If the tongue be materially dispro discouraging nonsense as the following: ture," &c. portioned, if the palate have an aper"instruction can then do little;" (p. 40). or that those cases of impediment are not likely to be cured, violent, and takes place in an equal de "where the spasmodic affection is very gree, whether the person converses with friends or strangers; when he reads aloud others; when he is not influenced by eato himself, as well as when he reads to gerness or emotion, as well as when he is," (p. 211-2). I deny most positively, I'am authorised by experience to deny, (wherever there is intellect, application, and perseverance) all distinction of curable and incurable cases. Different cases require undoubtedly different degrees of time and of exertion, different portions |
