href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@33175@[email protected]#a2" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Note 2.)

The following verse from Ovid, for example (Met. I. 143),

is read in the same way as the following from Longfellow's Evangeline:

and the first and second of the following verses from Ovid (Met. I. 148, 149),

are read in the same way as the following from Evangeline:

Ovid's Met. I. 22,

is read in the same way as Colossians iii. 19:

and Ovid's Met. I. 36,

is read in the same way as Psalm ii. 1:

Rebus sic stantibus, what's the use of talking about quantitative and accentual verse, as if they were really two kinds of verse? They are, to be sure, but they are not made so, in reading.

There is, in fact, no such thing as a spondee in ordinary speech. A true spondee must be made by voicing two syllables in equal time, and each without stress.

After having been trained in the 'scanning' of the schools (counting verses on the fingers), I threw aside and tried, and successfully tried, to forget all the scholarship of Latin verse, and began reading Vergil aloud and in time. I felt, at first, the movement of the verse backward, the ultimate and the penultimate foot came out first to my feelings; and in time, the movement of the entire verse became distinct.

Chaucer's verse must be read more in time than modern verse. (Note 3.) But all true verse must be read more in time than prose. And even impassioned prose, like some of De Quincey's, for example, must be read, more or less, in time. Perhaps it may be said that both prose and verse should be read in time according as the thought is spiritualized.

The choruses in Milton's Samson Agonistes can be properly appreciated only when read in time. The verse has been condemned by some critics, as if Milton, whose ear, as De Quincey says, was angelic, could not compose good verse when he dictated, in his blindness (to which the merit of the verse of the Paradise Lost and the Paradise Regained, was, no doubt, somewhat due), this last of his great poetic compositions!

Even in the study of modern languages, in the schools, there is not enough pronouncing of the original. It is mostly read off in English. If a teacher of a foreign language, whose pronunciation is correct (if it is not correct, he should not teach it), were simply to read aloud to his students, they having the text before their eyes, and were to require them to read, until they could pronounce correctly and fluently, the language studied, it would be a much better introduction to the language than the usual grammatical grind at the outset. A certain amount of grammatical grind is necessary, but a thorough training in pronunciation should come first of all. And then, if a student got nothing other than a good pronunciation, it would be certainly worth more to him than any amount of grammatical drill without it. A living language should not be studied scientifically until it is known. And the most important thing to know, at first, is its pronunciation.

Thomas Elwood, Milton's young Quaker friend, tells us, in his autobiography, of his reading Latin to the blind poet,—how he was required to get rid of his English pronunciation of the language, which his 'master' disliked, and to learn what he calls 'the foreign pronunciation,' his description thereof showing it to have been the Italian,—and then adds, 'Having a curious ear' (that is, a careful, accurate, nice, keenly susceptible ear), 'he understood by my tone, when I understood what I read, and when I did not; and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open up the most difficult passages to me.'

This sentence suggests that much more might be done than is done, in the way of getting at students' appreciation of the Latin or Greek they may be reciting, by requiring them to voice the original in advance of translating. After having attained, by sufficient practice, an easy fluency of utterance, they could—or some could—bring out, through their voices, much which they could not reveal through translation or any amount of exegesis. All the members of the class might be on a par, so far as translation and exegesis go, in exhibiting their knowledge and appreciation of the original; but there would always be a few who could reveal through vocalization what is beyond translation and exegesis. And the professor would not necessarily need to have the 'curious ear' of a Milton to detect this kind of superiority of the few.

This brings me to say that, in literary examinations, whatever other means be employed, a sufficiently qualified teacher could arrive at a nicer and more certain estimate of what a student has appropriated, both intellectually and spiritually, of a literary product, or any portion of a literary product, by requiring him to read it, than he could arrive at through any amount of catechising. The requisite vocal cultivation on the part of the student is, of course, presumed.

But even an uncultivated voice would reveal appreciation, or the want of it, to some extent. For, after all, it is not so much the cultivated voice as spiritual appreciation, which tells in reading. I have heard 'poor, but honest' voices read some poems very effectively, and I have heard rich, but dishonest voices read very afflictingly. To adapt the French saying, le style, c'est l'homme, it may be said that la lecture à haute voix c'est l'homme. Reading reveals the reader's spiritual appreciation or the absence of it. And it is only to the extent that a reader assures his hearers that he has himself experienced the sentiments to which he gives utterance, that he