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deeply impressed by what follows; if it comes after, it gives him time to consider the thought just presented, and to fix it more thoroughly in his memory.

The length of grammatical and rhetorical pauses depends upon the rate of utterance. If the rate is rapid, the pauses will be short; if the rate is slow, the pauses will be long.

In the following examples the rhetorical pause is denoted by the dash.

EXAMPLES.

1. Industry-is the guardian of innocence.

2. Well, honor-is the subject of my story.

3. Prosperity--gains friends, and adversity-tries them.

4. Is not the mystery comprehended in one word-sympathy?

5. The war is inevitable; and-let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

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6. There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair, old Rudiger sat-dead!

7. There comes a still small voice, and whispers-peace!

8. We are-slaves! race of-slaves.

The bright sun rises to his course and lights a

Harmonic pauses belong to verse, and consist of the cesural pause and the final pause. The cesural pause generally occurs at or near the middle of the line, and the final pause at the end of it. Sometimes these pauses coincide with the grammatical· pauses, and sometimes they do not.

The proper observance of harmonic pauses contributes much to the melody of verse; but their use must be governed by correct taste, or the result will be a singsong utterance, which is one of the greatest faults of poetical reading.

When the cesura would do injury to the sense, it should not be observed.

The final pause should generally be very slight, and in many instances it should be disregarded altogether.

Another slight pause, called the demi-cesura, is sometimes used between the cesura and the beginning or end of the line. In the following examples this mark ( || ) indicates the cesura, and this () the demi-cesura.

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Swells from the vale, || and midway leaves the storm

2. So when an angel, || by divine command,
With rising tempest || shakes a guilty land.

3. O sacred Truth! || thy triumph ceased a while,
And Hope, thy sister, || ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression || pour'd to Northern wars
Her whisker'd pandoors, || and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard || to the breeze of morn,
Peal'd her loud drum, || and twang'd her trumpet-horn.

4. How dear to this heart | are the scenes | of my childhood!
5. Placed | on an isthmus || of a middle | state,

A being | darkly wise || and rudely | great.

6. Warms in the sun, || refreshes | in the breeze,
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Glows in the stars, || and blossoms | in the trees,

Lives through all life, || extends | through all extent,
Spreads undivided, || operates | unspent.

QUESTIONS.-How many kinds of pauses are used in reading? Name them. What are grammatical pauses? Rhetorical pauses? Harmonic pauses? Where does the cesura generally occur? The final pause? The demi-cesura? Upon what does the length of grammatical and rhetorical pauses depend?

OSGOOD'S FIFTH READER.

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LESSON I.

CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

BY C. PHILLIPS.

BRA GAN/ZA, reigning house of Portugal.

HAPS/BURG, reigning house of Austria.

PALM, a bookseller of Nuremberg, executed in 1806 for circulating a pamphlet containing bitter attacks on Napoleon.

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KOT ZE BUE, (kot'se bu,) a German writer who endeavored to excite the Germans and Russians against Napoleon. He was born at Weimar, 1761, and was murdered by Sand, 1819.

DE STA EL, an eminent French authoress.

DE LILLE, (de lél'), a French poet, born 1766, died 1813.
DAVID, an eminent French painter.

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LEIPZIG, (lip'sig.) Al'pine. Ro mance'.

NOTE. In this and a number of the following lessons, the emphatic words are marked in order to assist the pupil in making an application of the rules for Emphasis.

1. NAPOLEON commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity. With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the list where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest; he acknowledged no criterion but success; he worshiped no God but ambition, and, with an Eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry.

2. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess; there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he

imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars.

3. Through this pantomime of policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory; his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny; ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But, if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his councils; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but in his hands simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption.

4. His person partook the character of his mind: if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacle that he did not surmount, space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity. The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Skepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals.

5. All the visions of antiquity became commonplaces in his contemplation: kings were his people; nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chessboard. Amid all these changes he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field, or in the drawing-room; with the mob, or the levee; wearing the Jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown; banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg; dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsig: he was still the same military despot.

6. In this wonderful combination, his affectation of literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the proscriber of books, he encouraged· philosophy; the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning; the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer

of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character. A royalist, a republicare, and an emperor; a Mohammedan, a Catholic, and a patron of the synagogue; a subaltern and a sovereign; a traitor and a tyrant; a Christian and an infidel; he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same. stern, impatient, inflexible original; the same mysterious, incomprehensible self; the man without a model, and without a shadow.

LESSON II.

WARREN'S ADDRESS.

BY J. PIERPONT.

1. STAND! the ground's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!.
Read it on yon bristling steel:
Ask it, ye who will.

2. Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're afire!
And before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come! and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

3. In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must,
But, oh, where can dust to dust
Be consign'd so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyr'd patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell.

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