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The palace stone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield,
With labour burn, and echo to the shouts
Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves
His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet,
Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.
Bold, firm, and graceful are thy generous youth,
By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fired,
Scattering the nations where they go: and first,
Or on the listed plain, or stormy seas.
Mild are thy glories, too, as o'er the plans
Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside,
In genius and substantial learning high;
For every virtue, every worth renown'd;
Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;

Yet, like the mustering thunder, when provok'd,
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of those that under grim oppression groan.
Thy sons of glory many! Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war,
And more heroic peace, when govern'd well,
Combine! whose hallow'd name the Virtues saint;
And his own Muses love; the best of kings.
With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine—
Names dear to fame; the first who deep impress'd
On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,
That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,
And patriots fertile: Thine a steady More,
Who, with a generous, though mistaken zeal,
Withstood a brutal tyrant's direful rage;
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just,
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor,

A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death.
A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land!
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul,
Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age,
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again,
In all thy native pomp of freedom bold.
Thine is a Bacon; hapless in his choice;
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state,

And through the smooth barbarity of courts,
With firm but pliant virtue, forward still

To urge his course; him for the studious shade
Kind nature form'd, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact and elegant: in one rich soul,

Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd.
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent to trace his boundless works
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen,

Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast!
Is not each great, each amiable Muse,

Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom

Of blooming Eden fair, as Heaven sublime!
May my song soften, as thy daughters I,
Britannia, hail! for beauty is their own,
The feeling heart, simplicity of life,
And elegance, and taste; the faultless form,
Shaped by the hand of harmony; the cheek,
Where the live crimson, through the native white
Soft shooting, o'er the face diffuses bloom,
And every nameless grace; the parted lip,
Like the red rosebud moist with morning dew,
Breathing delight; and under flowing jet;
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown,
The neck slight shaded, and the swelling breast;
The look resistless, piercing to the soul,
And by the soul inform'd, when dress'd in love,
She sits high smiling in the conscious eye.
Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight
Of distant nations; whose remotest shores
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm;
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar-cliff the loud sea wave.

O Thou! by whose almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls,

Send forth the saving virtues round the land
In bright patrol: White Peace and Social Love;
The tender-looking Charity, intent

On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles;
Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of Mind;

Courage composed and keen; sound Temperance,
Healthful in heart and look; clear Chastity,,
With blushes redd'ning as she moves along,
Disorder'd at the deep regard she draws.
Rough Industry; Activity untired,
With copious life inform'd, and all awake;
While in the radiant front, superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal;
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And ever musing on the common weal,

Still labours glorious with some great design.

PRINCIPLE SEVENTH.

-Thomson.

THE ANTITHESIS OR EMPHATIC FORCE.

There is not in the whole science of Elocution a more pervading principle than that of Emphasis. Its importance is universal, since its application modifies all the rules of Delivery. Although it is upon the system of inflection that the grace and significance of vocal modulation depend, and by it that nature instructs us to express our feelings; yet, as it is by the law of emphasis that the sense of a passage is mainly elicited, and the inflections themselves to a certain degree determined, it must be evident that in the judicious management of this principle the success of delivery greatly

consists.

Emphasis is that principle which fixes the word on which

the sense, and, consequently, the modulation, of any particular member are concentrated.

Is all emphasis antithetic?

This question seems to involve a controversy regarding the use and meaning of certain terms rather than the nature of things; and perhaps it may tend to the clearer distinction of the accented and emphatic forces to assume, at once, that all emphasis is antithetical. It has been common with rhetoricians as well as elocutionists to distinguish the elements of speech into unaccented, accented, and emphatic words including in the first class, all the more subordinate words of a sentence, which are chiefly used as connecting particles; in the second, those words of greater import, such as the noun and verb, which are the signs of objects and affirmations; and in the third, all those highly expressive terms upon which the sense of a passage chiefly turns. The elocutionist delivers the words of the first class in that tripping manner which affords him time for pronouncing more leisurely those of the second; and his principal inflections are reserved for words of the third class, which, from their superior importance as embodying the concentrated sense, have received the name emphatic. Now, it seems perfectly obvious that every word occupying this high position will be found to involve antithesis either expressed or understood.

The words of the first class, the unaccented, receive no inflection but when in opposition. Antithesis has the power of rendering even these emphatic by conferring upon them a significance beyond their usual import. Thus-"Let us be wise up to what is written, not above what is written." "We are not jústified in àrguing against the truth, but fòr the truth." In these quotations, the particles up, above, against, for, become emphatic, and receive modulation from the antithesis they involve, whereas they are naturally unaccented words and exclude modulation.

The accented words of a sentence admit of inflection inde

pendent of antithesis, as there are many passages of such an ordinary character, as not to convey any very emphatic meaning. These will be found to involve no opposition, being merely of an affirmative character. Thus-" Màn is the wórkmanship of a great and bountiful Creàtor-thát Creator has made him for hígh and nóble pùrposes-he is intended for two distinct states of being." This, it will be perceived, is merely accented, and claims only a weak and even unimportant modulation, whereas the following is antithetical and determines the modulation on certain terms, the superior importance of which cannot be disputed. "His first life is tránsient, the sécond permanent; the first corpóreal, the sécond spiritual; the fòrmer confined to tíme, the latter embracing eternity."

What, then, it may be asked, are those words that seem to admit modulation from their own individual importance, not relatively but positively, as the words Creator, ends, being, in the former members? Are they not emphatic? They may be called by any name, but are not emphatic in the precise sense of the term. They are the most important words of their own sentence, but are not of equal import with the emphatic words of other sentences. They are merely accented words, and require less skill in their management, and incur less danger of being overlooked, than the emphatic. The superior importance of the emphatic force over the accented arises from this circumstance, that its right application depends upon a mental process of the reader. It is by a critical examination of the sense of the passage, that he arrives at the emphatic force; and it would certainly much facilitate the inquiry were he to abide by the general principle that antithetic words alone are emphatic; that words placed in contrast or comparison are alone entitled to that distinction; and that the sense of such terms cannot be traced farther than the doctrine of antithesis applies. It must be obvious

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