Remark 2.—­The strength of the voice may be increased by practicing with different degrees of loudness, from a whisper to full rotundity, taking care to keep the voice on the same key.  The same note in music may be sounded loud or soft.  So also a sentence may be pronounced on the same pitch with different degrees of loudness.  Having practiced with different degrees of loudness on one key, make the same experiment on another, and then on another, and so on.  This will also give the learner practice in compass,

VII.  POETIC PAUSES.

In poetry we have, in addition to other pauses, poetic pauses.  The object of these is simply to promote the melody.

At the end of each line a slight pause is proper, whatever be the grammatical construction or the sense.  The purpose of this pause is to make prominent the melody of the measure, and in rhyme to allow the ear to appreciate the harmony of the similar sounds.

There is, also, another important pause, somewhere near the middle of each line, which is called the caesura or caesural pause.  In the following lines it is marked thus (||): 

Examples.

  There are hours long departed || which memory brings,
    Like blossoms of Eden || to twine round the heart,
  And as time rushes by || on the might of his wings,
    They may darken awhile || but they never depart.

Remark.—­The caesural pause should never be so placed as to injure the sense.  The following lines, if melody alone were consulted, would be read thus: 

  With fruitless la || bor Clara bound,
  And strove to stanch || the gushing wound;
  The Monk with un || availing cares,
  Exhausted all || the church’s prayers.

This manner of reading, however, would very much interfere with the proper expression of the idea.  This is to be corrected by making the caesural pause yield to the sense.  The above lines should be read thus: 

  With fruitless labor || Clara bound,
  And strove || to stanch the gushing wound;
  The Monk || with unavailing cares,
  Exhausted || all the church’s prayers,

EXERCISES.

I. Death of Franklin. 
(To be read in a solemn tone.)

Franklin is dead.  The genius who freed America’, and poured a copious stream of knowledge throughout Europe’, is returned unto the bosom of the Divinity’.  The sage to whom two worlds’ lay claim, the man for whom science’ and politics’ are disputing, indisputably enjoyed au elevated rank in human nature.

The cabinets of princes have been long in the habit of notifying the death of those who were great’, only in their funeral orations’.  Long hath the etiquette of courts’, proclaimed the mourning of hypocrisy’.  Nations’ should wear mourning for none but their benefactors’.  The representatives’ of nations should recommend to public homage’ only those who have been the heroes of humanity’.