judge, by the degree of exertion necessary for him to fill a place of any particular size: and also by the degrees of attention in the most distant parts of his audience.

EXAMPLES OF MODULATION.

LOW KEY.

Son said the hermit, let the errors and follies, the danger and escape of this day sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day, we rise in the morning of youth, full of vigour, and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolved never to touch. We then enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. There the heart softens and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to enquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure: we approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road to virtue, which for a while we keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees, we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate ob

fect of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example not to despair : but shall remember, that, though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errors; and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose; commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence; and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life.

Low and loud.

The inflexions slightly marked, approaching the Monotone.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest above; who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the

world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll, and lightnings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more ;

E

whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern cloud, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west.

But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun! in the strength of thy youth. Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills; when the blast of the north is on the plain, and the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

Low and Soft.

How the sweet moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

0 my dread lord

I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
To think I can be undiscernible,
When I perceive your power divine,

Hath looked upon my passes; then, good prince,
No longer session hold upon my shame,

But let iny trial be my own confession :

Immediate sentence then, and frequent death
Is all the grace I beg.-

Middle Key.

There is nothing magnanimous in bearing misfortunes with fortitude, when the whole world is looking on men in such circumstances will act bravely, even from motives of vanity: but he who in the vale of obscurity, can brave adversity; who without friends to encourage, acquaintance to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his misfortunes, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great : whether peasant or courtier, he deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect.

Middle and Soft.

Respect and admiration still possess me,
Checking the love and fondness of a son :
Yet I was filial to my humble parents.
But did my sire surpass the rest of men,
As thou excellest all of woman kind?

Middle and Loud.

My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not them let those
Contrive who need; or when they need, not now.
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns.
By our delay ?--No: let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once
O'er heavens high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder: and, for lightning see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his Angels and his throne itself
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments.-But perhaps
The way seems difficult and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall.
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursu'd us through the deep,

With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then.
The event is fear'd. Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction ; if there be in hell

Fear to be worse destroy'd. What can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter wo;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end,
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour

Call us to penance? More destroy'd than thus,
We should be quite abolish'd and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enrag'd,
Will either quite consume us and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far,
Than, miserable, to have eternal being;
Or if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroad to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;"
Which, if not victory,—is yet revenge,

part

High Key.

What was the of a faithful citizen? of a prudent, an active, and an honest minister? Was he not to secure Euboea, as our defence against all attacks by sea? Was he not to make Boeotia our barrier on the mid-land side? the cities bordering on Peloponesus, our bulwark on that quarter? Was he not to attend with due precaution to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected through all its progress up to our own harbour? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded by seasonable detachment, as the Proconesus, the Cherso