JOSHUA STEELE: PROSODY IN SPEECH EDUCATION

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JOSHUA STEELE: PROSODY IN SPEECH EDUCATION

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Sponsoring Committee Professor Dorothy I» Mulgrave, Chairman; Professor Adolph E. Meyer and Assistant Pro­ fessor Jesse J« Dossick

JOSHUA STEELE: PROSODY IN SPEECH EDUCATION

JOHN BENJAMIN NEWMAN

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education of New York University 19S0

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The student hereby guarantees that no part of the dissertation or document which he has submitted for publication has been heretofor published and (or) copyrighted in the United States of America, except in the case of passages quoted from other published sources? that he is the sole author and proprietor of said dissertation or document ? that the dissertation or document contains no matter which, if published, will be libelous or otherwise injurious, or infringe in any way the copyright of any other party? and that he will defend, indemnify and hold harmless New York University against all suits and proceedings which may be brought and against all claims which may be made against New York University by reason of the publication of said dissertation or document*

Jonn/Benjamin Newman

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION...........

iv

PART It JOSHUA STEELE'S SYSTEM OF "RATIONAL PROSODY" Chapter I* Antecedents* * • • * • • » • • • • * .

• * • • • • • •

1

Chapter II* Background and Experience* • • • • • • * • • • • • •

21

Chapter III* The Exposition of the System* • • * ■ « * • « • » *

36

PART II* THE PLACE OF STEELE'S SYSTEM IN THE HISTORY OF THE LITERATURE Chapter IV* Its Relation to Prosody* * • • • • • • • • • « * • *

122

Chapter V* Prosody and Elocution* * * « • • « • • • • * • • • •

163

Chapter VI* Its Relation to Elocution* * • * « • • • *

• • • • * 176

PART I H l THE RELATION OF STEELE'S SYSTEM TO SPEECH EDUCATION Chapter VII* Elocution and Speech Education* • • « • • • • * * «

235

Chapter VIII* Steele's System and Speech Education* • • • * • •

2li8

Chapter IX* Conclusion* • • • • • • » • • • • • • • • • • • • •

270

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH* BIBLIOGRAPHY*

.........281 . . . 285

ILLUSTRATIONS I* The title-page of An Essay Towards Establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech to be expressed and perpetuated by Peculiar Symbols. Eoridon, T77F* I"pEot ostatic copy of the original* • * • • * » • • • *Facing p#27 II* The title-page of another printing of the same edition of the Essay entitled Prosodia Rationalis* London, 1775* A photostatic copy of the original* « • • • • • • • • • • • • • • * • • • • • • • • .Following p.37 III. The title-page of Prosodia Rationalis* The Second Edition, Amended and Enlarged* London, 1772* I photostatic copy of the original* • • » • • • • • « • • • • • * • • • • • • • • • * ■ * • * • « . .Following p.U5 IV. The- interlined staff Steele used to show the slides of the speaking voice in quarter tones* (From P *6 of PR). • • • • • • • • • *Facing p.5U V* The musical notation Steele used to score the oral reading of a line of verse, showing his complete symbology* (Frcm P*13 of PR)*.Facing p*58 VI* The flyleaf and the title-page of A Short Treatise on Harmony by Dr* Johann Christoph Pepusch* London, 173^* TKTs work, now in the British Museum, was formerly in the possession of Joshua Steele* The script on the flyleaf is presumed to be in Steele's hand* A photostatic copy of the original* • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • * .Fold opens to follow p«?6 VII* Pages I4.O and Ul of Dr* James Rush's personal copy of Joshua Steele's Essay (1775)* Shown is part of Steele's notation of his own reading of rfamlet's soliloquy, which he later compared with David Garrick's reading of the same passage* The marginal notes are by Dr* Rush and are in his hand* (In the Ridgway Library, Philadelphia.) A photostatic copy of the original* • « « • • • » * • • • * • • * • • Fold opens to face p*210

INTRODUCTION Joshua Steele Is a name nob unknown even to the most casual student in the field of speech education* A popular fundamentals textbook in the field refers to him at some length as the originator of a rhythmical catenation exercise widely used in the area of speech improvement*^ A well known text in oral reading and interpretation cites him as the origi— 2 nator of the first complete system of speech notation* such as is used to 3 this day in the mechanical method of teaching oral reading* But it was as the result of an examination of an historical study of teaching methods h in the field of speech education by liary Margaret Robb that the work of Joshua Steele first appeared to the present writer to be of a caliber and of an importance worthy of extended study and analysis* In her study of the English elocutionists of the period from 1760 to 1827* Professor Robb points out that the teaching methods of the time "re* sponded to the two dominant educational trends of the period*"

The Natu*-

ral School* on the one hand* depended upon the natural capacity and the imagination of the individual student*

1*

It believed in a minimum of rules

Elizabeth Avery* Jane Dorsey* and Vera A* Sickels, First Principles of Speech Training* (New York, 1928), p*275>ff*

2* W*M* Parrish* Reading Aloud (New York, 19Ul), p*32* 3*

Cf* Tyson V* Anderson* Oral Reading with particular attention to the problem of Inflection (Kansas City* Mo.*19U9) •

U*

Oral Interpretation of Literature in American Colleges and Universities — flfew York, m i ) -; ------------------------------------------------------

5*

Ibid** p*70*

and looked to nature for instruction* The Mechanical School, on the other hand, made little allowance for any personal element*

It developed numerous

rules and complicated notations to direct the student in his learning to speak and read, on the assumption that a strict adherence thereto guaranteed uniformly good results

Though she treats the work of Steele as thoroughly

as she does any of the other writers of the period, Professor Robb does not align him with either the Natural or the Mechanical School* This could have been an oversight*

But it started a process of thought in the present

writer which, it might be said, gave rise to this study* Steele was the author of the first complete system of speech notation* Systems, such as the one he first developed, have been and are still being used in the mechanical method of teaching speech*

Though the omission of

Steele's name among the ranks of the "mechanical" teachers might have been an oversight by Professor Robb, could there possibly have been a reason for the amission?

Could it have been that Steele was not an "elocutionist”?

Could it have been that Steele was not even a teacher? Who, then, was this nan? Vhat motivated him to develop his system of speech notation which was to be reckoned with in an historical study of teaching methods of elocution if he were not only not an elocutionist but not even a teacher? Vhat was his relationship to the elocutionary movement that flourished in his time? Vhat, in the last analysis, was the nature of his contribution that refer­ ences to his work should appear in fundamental texts of speech education al­ most one hundred and seventy-five years later when his more famous contempo­ raries in the field of elocution were long since forgotten? A brief, preliminary, survey of the history of speech education, which, incidentally, includes the history of elocution, proved that these basic

questions had not yet been answered*

Furthermore, It mas soon realized

that an even more puzzling fact persisted in the contemplation of the problem*

Joshua Steele had entitled his major work Prosodia Rationalis^ or

"A Rational Prosody*”

He had, then, obviously meant his work to be con­

sidered an essay on the subject of prosody*

Horn, then, could such a work

have had an effect upon elocutionary teaching methods? Was there a rela­ tionship between prosody and elocution? And, since Steele's name still ap­ peared in the literature of speech education, was there a relationship be­ tween prosody and speech education? A preliminary survey of the field of English prosody proved that "it 2 is as a prosodist that Steele is best known.” Though he lived and wrote in the latter part of the eighteenth century, his work has been recognized and studied by prosodists writing in our o n day*

In fact, Steele is ack­

nowledged and discussed in an essay on the prosody of modern poetry written as recently as 19li7*

What did this man write in the field of prosody that

could have persisted for a century and three-quarters and still apply to tiie new (modern) poetry?

Furthermore, what did he write in the field of

1* Though Thonssen and Fatherson's Bibliography of Speech Education (New Tork, 1939), as well as other bibliographical sources, list the first edition, containing 193 pages, and published at London in 1775, as entitled An Essay Towards Establishing the Helody and Measure of Speech toTe eapressecTand^erpetiiated by PeculIar^SyaEoia, giving the impressTon~That the enlarged second ediTion of 2i*3 pages contained material in the additional pages to justify the re-entitlement as Prosodia Rationalis (see the bibliography far the complete citation; this title will hereafter be referred to simply as PR in the text of the study), it was found that there is a 1775* 193 page, edition of the work in the Princeton University Library entitled PR* (See Chapter III, the bibliography, and Plate J C .) 2* Marie L* Barker, "Joshua Steele on Speech-melody (1779)," Modern Language Review, 19(192!*) *169 • 3* Karl Shapiro, English Prosody and Modern Poetry (Baltimore, 19i*7), p«7.

- vi —

prosody that could have had an effect upon the teaching methods of elo­ cution and still be acknowledged in the methodology of speech education? That these questions needed to be answered there was no doubt*

The

academic interest was twofold* first, in the field of prosody; and second, in the field of speech education, which includes in its history the field of elocution* The problem, thus, then formulated itself as an analysis and evaluation of the work of Joshua Steele, followed by a determination of the reasons for the acceptance, the rejection, and the modification of his system of "rational prosody" in the history of prosody, on the one hand, and of elocution and of speech education, on the other*

Finally, in at­

tempting to relate the recognition of Steele's work in modern speech edu­ cation to the original purposes of his system of "rational prosody," as set forth in PR, the study could truly be called, "Joshua Steele * Prosody in Speech Education," Thus, also, were the delimitations of the problem established*

In ex­

amining its effect in the history of the fields of prosody and of speech education, once it had been analyzed and evaluated on its own, Steele's own work would be the criterion and the limiting factor for the remainder of the study.

Thus, it is neither intended that this study be an investi­

gation of the place of prosody in speech education nor a general comparison of the two fields* Nor is it intended that this study be a history of English prosody nor a history of elocution and of speech education*

Though

it treats of Steele's system of the musical notation of speech and the scansion of verse, this study is not intended to be a treatise on music* Nor is it intended that this study b® * biography of the m a r ' nor an his­ torical survey of his time. Rather is this study simply an analysis and evaluation of the work of the writer in the field of prosody and an in­ vestigation of the effect of his work in the progress of the elocutionary - vii -

movement and in the eventual development of modern speech education. The problem of this study is, then, divided into three parts.

Part jl

is devoted to an analysis and collation of Joshua Steele's system of "rational prosody" as set forth in PR, The prosodic milieu in which Steele found himself in the latter part of the eighteenth century is discussed. All of Steele's possible sources are considered with a view to determining his debt to previous writers, references, and other bodies of knowledge. His own earlier works are examined; and those facts in his personal history previous to the publication of PR that shed light on his preparation for its writing are appraised.

The collation of PR, however, has a twofold purpose.

First, of course, it is done to compare the two editions of the work for changes, differences, and additions.

But, far more important, its purpose

is to study Steele's system as he himself presented it.

The text is

followed, page by page, as closely as possible; but though literatim, the collation is not entirely verbatim. Because of the desultory nature of the work references skip back and forth

whenever and wherever necessary.

Other­

wise the collation of the text is as near in sequence to Steele's as is necessary for an analysis and evaluation of the work.

Except for the

emission of critics' actual queries and arguments, which, though presented in the body of the work itself, were deemed unnecessary because, in all cases, the statements of the qiestions are implicit in the contents of the answers; and except for a consideration of the references in the body of the work to classical verse and some of the more technical aspects of musical theory, which are inserted in the text only in support of arguments set forth else­ where on the melody and measure of English speech, Part 1^ presents a thorough description, analysis, and evaluation of Steele's system of "rational prosody," Part II is devoted to a consideration of the fields of prosody and of - viii -

elooutien, and to the possibility of the establishment of a relationship between the two, especially insofar as Steele's system has reveived recog­ nition in both fields.

The rationale of prosody is disoussed as it applies

in general as well as it applies in partieular to those writers in the history of the field who either admittedly were influenced by Steele's system, or else came to conclusions, on their own, that were similar to his. The aims and objectives of prosody are compared with those of elocution] and their relationship, especially in regard to Steele's system, is disoussed, Steele's place in elocution is then considered] first, with a view to de­ termining what factors or elements in his system lent themselves to being adopted and modified in elocution] and seoomd, with a view to determining what place Steele holds in the development of that field in the light of testimony of the very writers themselves, as well as that of scholars and specialists in the history of the field. Part III is devoted to a consideration of the recognition of Steele in modern speech education. The outgrowth of the broad soope of speech edu­ cation from the narrow oampass of elocution is studied, and the similarities and the differences between the two fields are pointed out.

The wide recog­

nition of Steele in such areas of speeoh education as tonetios, oral interpretation, speeoh improvement or fundamentals of speeoh, and phonetics, as well as the persistence in speech correction especially of methods stem­ ming from Steele's system, is finally evaluated in the light of the origi­ nal purposes of PR, Aotual souroes were used in the preparation of this study.

In

those few cases where the books, manuscripts, or records were not available in the United States, miorofilms or transcripts of suoh souroes were ac­ quired, Ifherever possible, books were borrowed on inter-library loans - ix -

from their various repositories across the country# Where the number of books in any one was too great to make inter-library loans feasible, however, as in the case of the Library of Congress and the Columbia Uni­ versity Library, or where inter-library loans were not permitted, as in the case of the New York Public Library and the Ridgway Branoh of the Library Company of Philadelphia, the writer examined the actual sources at their plaoe of location# The data forming the basis of this study were taken from primary or secondary sources* Wherever possible, primary sources were used* Following the methods of historical research, these were examined both internally and externally to test their validity* were used in the case of secondary sources*

The same procedures

For example, references

cited from histories and other general studies were compared with the aotual testimony revealed in their primary sources*

This procedure

thus afforded a valid basis of fact in the light of historical methods of research# Professor Giles W# Gray, of Louisiana State University, Chainnan of the Committee on the History of Speeoh Eduoation of the Speech Association of Amerioa, has publicly acknowledged. In an artiole entitled, "Research in the History of Speech Education," which appeared in a reoent issue of the Quarterly Journal of Speech,* the contribution of this study toward the ultimate goal of a complete history of speeoh education#

The author is

deeply grateful for Professor Gray's public acknowledgement# cerely hoped that this study will justify it#

It is sin­

Thanks must also be given

Professor Bert Emsley, of Ohio State University, Professor Lee S* Hultzen,

1. 35(1949)$163. -

x

-

of the University of Illinois, Professor Frederick W* Haberman, of the University of Wisconsin, and Professor Wilbur E* Gilman, of Queens Col­ lege*

Though none of these gentlemen are in any way responsible

for this study, the stimulus of their personal encouragement of the subject on the basis of its worthiness as material for a doctoral dis­ sertation was immeasurable* The can hardly

author's indebtedness

to the membersof his sponsoring oommittee

be expressed* Without the guidance, the patience, the stimu­

lation, and the courtesy aooorded by Professor Dorothy I* Mulgrave, Chairman, Professor Adolph E* Meyer, and Professor Jesse J* Dossiok, this

study would never have come into being* The

author wishes also to

express his sincere gratitude to Dr*

Arthur J* Bronstein, of Queens College, for the hours he spent in earnest dlsou8sion of the problems Involved in the formulation and the writing of this study* They were of Inestimable value*

Thanks are also due Mrs*

Ruth B* Oakley, of the Queens College Library, for her oourtesy and ef­ ficiency in helping the author with the accumulation of bibliographical materials* Finally, the assistance of Elaine Goran Newman, my wife, not only in reading and evaluating every word of the manuscript in all of its progressive stages but in many other respeots as well, has been altogether too considerable to be acknowledged adequately*

- xi -

PART I JOSHUA STEELE»S SYSTEM OF "RATIONAL PROSODY"

CHAPTER I ANTECEDENTS

When, in contrasting Robert Frost's first tiro volumes of verse, A Boy'B Will and North of Boston, Louis Untermayer says that one is "poetry

that sings" and the other "poetry that talks,"1 he is not being literal but metaphorical*

Nor is he being precisely literal irhen he points out that 2 Frost's lyrics are "remarkable for their delicate and precise music*" Yet there seems to be implicit in these metaphors— -which are really the samemore than just a measure of truth*

Just as me have implicitly known all

along that me speak prose, and, hence, laugh at Uoliere's bourgeois gentle­ man for discovering the fact so late in life, so also have me known all along that "a bard sings" and that "verse^ has music*" The exact nature of the "music" of verse, however, has given rise to great controversy*

That it "exists" is agreed; but where, how, and to what

degree it exists is, and has been, a matter for lengthy discussion*

If

George Saintsbury mere to speak for one school of thought, the "music” of verse mould be like nothing else, even though the word "music" mere applied to it* "Musical music and poetical music— let it be repeated, if necessary, 1* The Pocket Book of Robert Frost's Poems, With an Introduction and ConmenEary by Louis TTntermeyer (tfew tork, 19U6), p*9* 2* Ibid*, p*2* 3* Throughout this study the term "verse" is used to describe, as George Saintsbury says, "writing in general as opposed to prose*" (Historical Manual of English Prosody (London, 1930), p*296)* "Poetry" is reserved To indicate "versa of value*"

- 2 « a thousand times— are different things* apart*

They can live quite comfortably

they can live happily and delightfully together*

The very reason

of this possibility of delightful cohabitation is their difference; and to confound their Ians and nature is to ignore the foundation of their compati­ bility."1

2 If, on the other hand, Joshua Steele, author of PR, were to speak for the opposition, all speech, whether in the form of verse or prose, would be a distinct and separate genus of music, and, hence, like the other genera, could be measured, noted and scared*

To Steele to distinguish between

"musical music" and "poetical music" would be as hair-splitting as to dis­ tinguish between "diatonic music" and "chromatic music;" and to speak of one volume of verse as "talking" and another as "singing" would be an unfounded image based on ignorance* The reason far these confusions and differences of opinion is as old as the ancient Greeks*

"The more tmusical, character of the Greek language,

and the more 'speech-like' nature of Greek music" tween the two considerably less noticeable*

3

made the contrast be­

The measured cadences of Greek

poetry would practically of themselves, by definition, be "musical*" In fact Rhys Roberts points out that "the science of public oratory (among the Greeks) was a musical science, differing from vocal and instrumental music k in degree, not in kind*" Greek musical notation was not separate from the scriptural text, as is ours*

Instead, as with Hebrew cantillation to this

1*

A History of English Prosody, 3 vols* (London, 1923), 3*535»

2*

As explained in the introduction, Prosodia Rationalis will be thus ab­ breviated throughout the remainder of the study* See the bibliography for complete references*

3*

Willi Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, M&ss*,19ljli), p*li35*

km

W* Rhys Roberts, Dionysius of Halicarnassus On Literary Composition (London, 1910), p*U0*

day, the mslody was indicated by stenographic signs uritten above or below the line of text«^

Occuring most frequently at the beginning and at the

end of a phrase, these ekphonetic signs did not give a continuous "freely invented melody, but a succession • . • of stereotyped melodic formulae*"

2

Originally, they were developed "to assist the reader in the proper empha3 sis and rendition • • • of the text," and consisted of accents indicating "a raising or lowering of pitch, or • • • special inflections used to bring out grammatical peculiarities, such as questions, exclamations, affirma­ tions, etc*"^

In this way, Greek music, so different from ours, was,

practically, a part of every text, and every bard "sang" his verse as he "spoke" it*

"The aioidos (singer, bard) accompanied his recitations (on

the lyre) • • • • For this he used certain traditional standard melo­ dies • « • which may have been but short phrases repeated over and over again • • • *"^ Greek music was monophonic^ and hence was more readily congruous, acoustically, to speech*

To "speak" verse, was, veritably, to "sing" it in

ancient Greek*

With the development of polyphony and harmony in modern music, 7 the incongruity with the spoken word, which retained its "monotonic pitch}1 became more marked*

Speech, however, persisted in its grammatical accents*

The raising and lowering and the special inflections of the pitch of the voice were retained in speech "to bring out grammatical peculiarities, such

1* Apel, op.cit., p. 380. 2.

Ibid*, p.235,381*

3*

Ibid*,, p*380.

U*

Ibid*, p*235•

5.

Ibid., p*302* Ibid*, p»30lu

7*

Ibid*, p*l;35*

-

h

-

as questions, exclamations, and affirmations*

• • •, as sell as to es­

tablish mood and to indicate irony, sarcasm, etc* 'Where the ekphonetic notation of ancient Greek, for instance, indicated all of these phases of 2 "vocal management," the separation of musical from textual notation and the resultant indication of pronunciation alone in writing, sith but scant help offered by punctuation and conventionalized printing (sord separation, capitalization to indicate sentence separation, spacing to indicate para­ graph separation, etc*), gave rise to the necessity to especially study these finer points of language both in the creation as sell as in the in­ terpretation of its urritten and spoken forms* From these roots mas prosody developed*

In studying the words and

sounds of language, rather than the thoughts they conjured up and the 3 meanings they conveyed, prosody at first concerned itself sith those charac­ teristics in the pronunciation of words (which were, of course, the same in both prose and verse) that signified the "poetic" character of the text* As Apel explains iti Poetic meter • * * [has a] regular alternation of accented (strong) and unaccented (weak) syllables or, in ancient Greek terminology, of thesis and arsis • * • • The division of lines into feet [the principle of determining which syllables fall on the thesis and which on the arsis] was quanti­ tative, based on the recurrence of long syllables, • • • whereas in m o d e m poetry the division is qualitative, based on the re­ currence of stressed syllables • • • • In m o d e m poetxy the thesis- and arsis-syllables are essentially the same as they are in prose; in other words, the poetic accentuation follows the natural accent of the words, e*g*s . / ■ ■ / ■ / . / . / . , Meantime we shall express our darker purpose [An even j .

1* L

^

jc .

:

Ibid*, p«&3£*V*sup*, note *

.

V



2*

Cf* Frederick W* Haberman, The Elocutionary Movement in England, 1750— 1850 (Cornell U. Ph*D., l W ) , p*20.

3*

Gay Wilson Alien, American Prosody (New York, 1935)* p*xviii«

better example might be:

/ . /

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste] In Greek and Latin poetry, however, the poetic accentuation differed essentially from that of prose, as the following ex­ ample shows: j l / t Prose accent: . / . /, , / , , / , * Maecenas atavis edite regibus Poetic accent: / • / \ • / / •' / , / • • • With many medieval Latin poems it is questionable whether they should be read quantitatively (a) or qualitatively o>)» *•«•*

(a)

/

. ,/

Conditio naturae defuit, (b) » / */ t / * f > /

(a) / • . /

.

In filio quern (b). / ./ ./

. / , ./

virgo genuit. . /, /

1

This phenomenon no longer exists in our modern verse* rhyme has become almost implicitly identified with verse*

For one thing,

That, together

with a conventionalized form and a "poetic” diction, makes the identification of verse on the basis of structure alone almost automatic*

Content, of

course, is an entirely different matter* Since the beginnings of English metrical criticism in the sixteenth 2 century, prosodists have been considering the differences between verse and prose in English and devising ways of analyzing and indicating the "poetic" structure of one group

of wordsas opposed toanother*Naturally

looked to their predecessors for a base, a startingpoint*

they

Their prede­

cessors fortunately enough had left a considerable body of theoretical in­ formation*

The fact that the bulk of that infoxmation (which was concerned

with foreign tongues of former times) was frequently of a highly specula­ tive and scholastic character did not in «ny way halt their study of contemporary English* Apparently the ideal of poesy existed regardless of language or time*

That a good deal of the writing in the field of prosody

1*

Harvard Dictionary of Music, p*5>88-9*

2*

T.S.Qmond, English Metrists (Oxford, 1921), p*l*

was frequently incomplete, obscure, and contradictory seemed to make little difference*

The literature of prosody grew apace with the years*

Soon, as inevitably, English prosodists came around to a consider­ ation of the relationship of English verse to English music as ancient Greek verse was once related to ancient Greek music* "These ideas had been ■in the air* throughout the [Eighteenth] Century."'*' Various writers felt that verse and music were artificially separated, and their close kinship lost sight of*

They desired to bring them together*

The most obvious way was to reconcile the systems of notation* A musical staff with notes was set over a line of verse not with the intention of setting the verse to music but simply to indicate with clarity "the particular agency [or agencies] which constitutes that difference of the 2 value of syllables out of which rhythm and metre are made*" Since musical notation permits the indication of pitch, duration, stress, and volume of sound, as well as place and duration of pause,

the so-called "musical

prosodists" could show, and at once, the particular agency or agencies which they believed constituted the difference of the value of the syllables in a verse* Musical scansion, from the point of view of notation, however, so resembles actual musical scoring that a casual glance or even a superficial examination may result in a confusion of the two* Saintsbury makes this error; and it is the basis for his severe antagonism to the musical analysis of verse J* 1.

Ibid., p* 88*

2*

Saintsbury, HEP, 1:U*

3*

See the discussion on musical "rests and pauses" in Chap*III*

li* HEP (History of English Prosody), 2:$6lu

- 7 -

Charles Gildon "wsls one of the first to adopt the heresy [sicl] of denoting verse by minims and crotchets • • • *"^ Writing in 1718, Gildon claimed that Greek accent mas a musical variation, "probably a mere rising and falling of the voice, without regard to quantity*

2

. . • Our accent,

on the other hand, consists in the 'force and emphasis which we put upon one syllable more than another,' and which give length to that syllable*"

3

In The Complete Art of Poe try,^ Gildon transcribed the classical metrical feet "under Musical Notes" in order to show the "Variations of Quantity*" Though he limited his use of musical notation to the indication of metrical quantity, as evidenced in his scansions of Dryden's verse,^ he desiderated "the Notes of Prickt Music" in attempting to bring the "Art of Pronunciation * • • to Perfection*"

7

Henry Pemberton, in a chapter on versification in his Observations on Poetry, published in London in 1738, also referred much to music*

He felt

that verse "when designed for recital, ought to be considered as a medium

8

between prose and song * . * •"

He quoted Cicero as having said that "the

greatest part of the lyric verse, when it is not sung, is scarce disting9 uishable from prose," apparently to indicate the necessity of musical ac1.

Ibid*, 2*51*3.

2* Cf* Roberts, op.cit*, p*1*1,1*2: "The Greek accent was an affair of pitch rather than of stress * * * * Such a musical pitch— such a rising or falling of tone— can be independent of quantity*" 3*

Omond, op.cit *, p*3lu

U.

(iondon, 1718)*

$•

Ibid., p*297.

6* Ibid*, p.300, 301, 302* 7.

Ibid., p.29U.

8* Pemberton, op.cit*, p*ll6* 9.

Ibid*, p.107*

- 8-

campaniment as a determinant of verse* Pemberton's explanation that an

understanding of prosody could be "taken from the principles of music"

1

set

him high in the ranks of the musical prosodists* But he did not claim originality*

He admits that he accepted the theories of Saint Austin "who

hads • * • written a treatise expressly to reconcile the various measures of the ancient verse with the principles of music; and whenever any verses are composed of feet consisting of different measures of time, he endeavours to fill up the in­ complete measures by the assistance of pauses only.2 Many years later, Joshua Steele admitted that had Pemberton allowed his "instinctive sense • * * to lead him right" and had he not allowed him** self to be diverted by "the authorities of the antients," he would have left nothing for him [Steele] to have said on the subject* Steele said this about Pemberton because he had read the section on versification in Observations on Poetry*

Had he read Samuel Say, he might

have been just as c caplinentary, if not more so, even though Say based his book on Pemberton's*

k

5 In Poems on several occasions, Samuel Say wrote two

critical essays on verse* Like Charles Gildon before him, he transcribed metrical feet into notes*^ Further, Say used musical notation to exemplify the fact that when spoken "with one perpetual Tenor of the Voice, unchang'd alike in Time or in Accent • • • [words] will appear like Surd and Unmeaning 7 Sounds; Painful to the Voice, and Ungrateful to the Ear*" He indicated his i* Ibid*, p*113. 2* Ibid*, p*108. 3. _PR, p*230,233* lu Qnond, op*cit», p*£0.

5* (London, 17145)* 6 * Ibid*, p*10ti. 7.

Ibid*, p *101-2*

awareness of the linguistic relationship of all languages when he said that "Nature, or the Reason of Things, has instructed the Voice in Every Language not to move by Single and Uniform Sounds, or strike forever, the Same Notes, unvaried in. either Tone or in Tine*"1 His musical notation was actually used to score speech, even though it did not indicate all of the accidents of speech,, for he said, "To be better understood * • • I have mark*d dis­ tinctly [by means of dotted notes] all those little Pauses, which we are wont to make* • • *"^ Though Edward Mamraring’s Of Harmony and Numbers^ need not detain us, he also deserves mention because of his analysis of English verse in musical terms J* John Nason, in An Essay on the Power of Numbers and the Principles of Harmony in Poetical Composition,^ is said to have come nearest to dealing with the actual mechanism of metre, and, must be credited with recognizing the close analogy that exists between verse and m u s i c H e states quite clearly that feet in verse correspond to bars in music, and hence, "it follows that the metrical feet are as capable of being measured by the Motion of the Hand or Foot as the Musical Notes*

This in Verse is called Arsis and

Thesis; in Musick beating of Time*"? 1*

Ibid*, p*101*

2* Ibid*, p*l£U* 3*

(London, 17UU) •

U.

Cknond, op*cit», p.l|9. Omond mentions James Harris, author of Three Treatises (London, 1?1|U), in this group, but we find nothing in his work worth mentioning for present purposes*

5*

(London, 17U9)*

6 * Ctaond, mmmtm op*cit*, p*50,£2* mmmmmm 7*

Mason, op*cit», p«22.

10

Though he did not himself make use of musical notation In his work, "the great Dr* John Foster" added his authority to the idea of musical an­ alysis and notation when, in An Essay on the Different Nature of Accent and Quantity,^* he said, "There is no common pronunciation, which may not be examined musically, and set to musical notes* Every sentence uttered • • • 2 is • • * capable of musical notations*" According to Omond, Foster was one of the first prosodists to accurately distinguish pitch from duration, 3 and see that the two were separable. Henry Home (Lord) Kaaes also added to the testimony, in Elements of Criticism,^ by contending that before "the different degrees of high and low, loud and soft, fast and slow, • • • can be made the subject of regular instruction, notes must be invented, resembling those employed in music By 1775 those notes had been invented and published in Joshua Steele*s PR. While the earlier writers, noted above, played with the notion of a system of musical analysis of verse, or merely testified in its behalf, Joshua Steele put it Into practise* What previous writers only desiderated, Steele fulfilled* Steele might have been acquainted with the works of the "musical prosodists" who preceded him, and he could very easily have been influenced by them* But there is no way of knowing this exactly* 4

He admits having

♦ -

1*

3rd ed., "corrected and much enlarged" (London,1820)* published in 1762* i i *

2*

Ibid*, p*25U*

3*

English Metrlsts, p*59»

U*

One vol.ed. (New York,182?)*

5.

Ibid., p*272*

Originally

Originally published in 1762*

- 11 fread the section on versification in Pemberton’s Observations on Poetry1 and he alludes to Foster’s Essay on Accent and Quantity in terms that imply 2 his having read it* Otherwise he admits to having collected his materials from his own observations of the English language*

In fact Odell attests

to the fact that "Mr* Steele was not indebted * • * to any other sources of information than his own ear, quickened by an intimate acquaintance with the U practise as well as the theory of music •N Steele himself tells us thats The system of the melody and measure of speech, was many years in my head before I put any thing bn paper; and it was not till I had made the first sketch of it, that I looked into the antient Greek authors. * . *5 His awn observations and experiments were his sources, not only by his own admission, but as evidenced by the progress and modification of concept as presented in PR,. Steele's debt to musical theory is, of course, obvious*

It is, none­

theless, likely that even the concept of carrying over musical theory to linguistic and prosodic analysis, a contribution of no small merit in itself, was not original with him*

Though he quotes no modern sources at all in the

1775 edition of PR, his classical quotations lend credence to this*

His re­

ference to Aristaxenus, Dionysius Thrax, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus indicate the musical (and, inevitably, in the Greek way of things, grammati­ cal and prosodic) direction of his readings in the classics*

His rather

extensive references in PR to two particular classical writers bears this 1.

PR, p*20iu

2*

Ibid*, p*201*

3*

Ibid*, p*19U*

i;* J* Odell, An Essay on the Elements, Accents, and Prosody of the English Language (London,'1806), p*9fe, Cf* Marie Barker, uJoshua"T3teeTe on Speech-melody,** Modern Language Review, 19(1921;) :170* 5*

PR, p*20U*

12 ■oat even farther* The first is Bacchius, senior, -who wrote "Introduetio artis musicae" and the other is Aristides Quintilianus, who wrote "De musica libri III." Both of these musical treatises appear in a collection entitled Antiquae musicae auctores septem, edited with notes by Marcus Meibom, or Meibomius, and published in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1652*^

Though the treatises

are printed in both Latin and Greek in the collection, it appears from his quotations that Steele must have himself translated them into English from the Greek*

His rather copious knowledge of ancient Greek, together with

the fact that the chromatic-enharmonic genus of music, which is one of the basic concepts of the system set forth in PR, is taken directly from ancient Greek music, would indicate that the motivation, if not the mechan­ ism, of Steele*8 system was of Greek heritage* A good part of PR is devoted to considering and developing a system of musical accompaniment for speech, much in the same way that the ancient Greek bards were supposed to have accompanied themselves on the lyre*

This

desire to enhance the declamation of English by musical accompaniment, and, incidentally, to develop a system of operatic recitative for English (not Italian recitative made to fit English), is but another indication of the influence of the ancient Greeks on Joshua Steele* While showing evidence of the influence of ancient Greece in one field, Steele, at the same time, showed a strong reaction to it in another*

In his

system of prosody, he discarded the whole doctrine of metrical feet con­ sisting of syllables, "a doctrine • • • which was taken from Classical proso1. The full bibliography of this item is as follows: Antiquae musicae auctores septem* Graece et Latins* Marcus Meibomius restituit ac notis explicavit • • * Amstelodami, apud Ludovicum Elzevirium, 1652, 2 vols*

13 -

dy, and had never been shown really applicable to ours."

He substituted

for this the conception of cadences, similar in all respects to musical bars, and treated in a similar fashion*

For their analysis he originally

invented a staff even mare elaborate than that of music*

2

Later he came

to regard the regular musical staff as practically sufficient, and ulti­ mately he discarded the staff altogether, retaining only his marks for pitch, duration, stress, and pause*

It was his use of the musical staff in

the first place, however, that made his analysis so thorough* Qnond claims that: Three elements must be distinguished in every spoken sound— pitch, force, and duration. • • • These three elements are distinct and different, separable always in thought, separated often in practice* No analysis can be accurate which confuses them*3 Not only does Steele distinguish pitch, duration and force, but pause and volume as well*

One of his strongest contentions in PR is that most proso-

dists not only confuse these sound elements (tonemes) but assume them to be inseparable in every case* do not complete the list*

Ctaond, of course, admits that his three elements "Other qualities • • • play their part*

But the

first necessity is to distinguish clearly between the three factors above h. named*" It is to Joshua Steele's credit that as far back as 1775 he analyzed the tonemic elements of vocal sound and observed their behavior in connected speech, whether verse or prose* Steele conceived speech to be a distinct gems of music, very much 1*

Qnond, op*cit«, p*8B*

2*

PR, p*6 . See Figure IV, facing p*

3*

English lletrists, p*U2-3* Cf. Roberts, op*cit», p*UO: "The chief ele­ ments of utterance— pitch, time, and stress— were independent in ancient Greek speech, just as they are in music."

It* Ibid*, p*l>3n.

- lU -

like the chromatic-enharmonic* to s

Thus, according to Steele's theory, speech

different from singing because singing mas chromatic-diatonic* "Where­

as in singing the voice remains on one tone for a perceptible length of time and then "jumps" to another tone, there to remain far a perceptible length of time, the voice in speech "slides" by imperceptible gradations of tone from one level to another*

In order that he might make use of a

system of notation that was commonly known at least by those who knew music, Steele arbitrarily decided that these imperceptible gradations of tone in speech were quartex*-tones*

Thus he could make use of the theory

of the chromatic-enharmonic genus*

His "peculiar symbols," therefore, were

the result of his adaptation of the chromatic-diatonic clef to accommodate the quarter-tones of the chromatic-enharmonic.^"

"It is interesting to note

that a hundred years after Steele, phoneticians * * * [defined] the differ2 ence between song and speech in similar terms," Further, Steele 's recog­ nition of the fact that the intervals between the tones in speech are not definite musical intervals corresponds with what has been proved scientifi­ cally,^ With the conception that speech was music, Steele could treat speech as music and analyze it as such*

He, therefore, devised five "accidents”

of speech, all five distinct and different, separable always in thought, separated often in practice*

They were, (note the correspondence to the

musical staff) height and depth of pitch, which Steele called accent; length and shortness of duration, which he called quantity; heaviness and lightness of stress, which he called poize or enphasis; increase and decrease of 1* PR, p*6* 2* Barker, op.cit*, p.170-1*

3* Loe, cit.

- aS -

volume, which he called forces and length and stress of pause*

There were

several possible degrees of each, all noted as in music, and the infinity of their combinations and permutations made for the variety of speech in verse and prose*^ It is interesting to note how these musical definitions provide for the classical prosodic definitions with which Steele took issue, and which, it will be pointed out later, set him apart in the history of prosody* Steele *s definition of accent corresponds with the orthodox view, originally stated by Qildon and noted above, that it is na musical variation « • • probably a mere rising and falling of the voice without regard to quanti-

2 ty# • • *"

This, however, is the limit of what Steele calls "accent." In

other words, Steele's term "accent" is what we would call in modern terms pitch accent* This is one of the roots of Steele's argument with other prosodists, both classical and modern, and theirs with him*

Where most

other prosodists accepted Gildon13 view that "our accent • • • consists in

the 'force and emphasis which we put upon one syllable more than 3 another • # Steele's analysis breaks "our accent" up into five distinct and different "accidents" often separated in speech#

Therefore, it is en­

tirely conceivable that a syllable receives prominence solely by Its dis­ tinction in pitch*

Where others simply call this prominence "accent," just

as they call any other kind of syllabic prominence, Steele insists that the term "accent" refers only to pitch prominence* Though modern prosodists had long accepted this view in reference to classical Greek, practically no one, until Steele, felt that a similar concept was applicable to modern languajges*

In fact, linguistic scientists are only now beginning to accept

1*

FR, p*8.

2*

Omond, pp*cit*, p*3lu Y *sap» p* 7, notei a, 3.

3*

Loc* cit*

16 *-

It at all*"*The "force and emphasis which ire put upon one syllable more than another" that Gildon had mentioned as the constituence of "our accent," Steele termed "poize" or "emphasis."

This accident, consisting of heavy

and light beats, or what the Greeks called thesis and arsis, is the basis of rhythm and is. the measure of Steele's "cadences*"

Its recurrence is in­

dependent of all other accidents, including what he called "force" or loudness*

Depending on the musical time of the verse or phrase (which, in­

cidentally, may change from line to line or phrase to phrase), the "poize" of a group of words can be measured in terms of the swings of a pendulum, the beating of the pulse, or, for that matter, by any other regular recur­ rence*

The downward pressure of the foot in walking, of the hand in

clapping, or whatever the measure happens to be— the pulsation of the heart, far instance— marks the heavy beat or thesis, which initiates each cadence* The cadential beat, regardless of whether it happens to fall on sound or silence, recurs with measured regularity*

This concept is not only that of

musical theory, but it is also the notion of pulsation and remission, or thesis and arsis, as described in classical prosody* "Pause," as pointed out, can receive either heavy or light stress, and, as in music, is of measurable length*

"Force" or loudness and softness,

being voluntary and separable from the other accidents of speech, will in no wise affect the previous pattern of the other four*

"Quantity," or duration

of sound (which was the classical measure of prosody) as treated by Steele, however, was another cause for his distinction (or notoriety) in the history of prosody* In their effort to determine "the particular agency which constitutes 1*

G*H*Monrad-Krohn, "Dysprosody or Altered 'Melody of Language,Brain A Journal of Neurology, 70(19U7):U05>-15•

- 17

that difference of the value of syllables out of which rhythm and metre are made," prosodists, generally, seemed to have divided themselves into various camps to fight "the battle of Accent v# Quantity#"1

On the one side were

those who insisted that syllabic prominence in English was thB result of accent, which was defined, generally, in Gildon's terms, as given above# Over on the other side were the prosodic tories who insisted that since we received our notions of verse and its measure from the Greeks, we should maintain their measure, which was in terms of quantity or duration of syllables#

Sanewhere in the middle, and hitting at both at every oppor­

tunity, were those beleaguered souls who maintained that accent created quantity#

These hedgers were really rightists, far they took advantage of

the fact that English was a stressed language to support their belief that verse is measured in terms of quantity#

It is with this crew that the great

Professor Saintsbury pitched his tent, even if he hedged more than the rest of his comrades#

His "perfectly frank" opinion was that "accent is a cause 2 ~ of quantity, but not ths only cause, and not a stable one#" Embroiled just

as bitterly in the battle, and alone, was Joshua Steele# His insistence that quantity was but one of the "accidents of speech," that could be mea­ sured just like the others, made him appear to his critics to be a member of the "long-and-shart" army#

His classification of metrical feet in terms of

duration or quantity, which was the classical measure of soundt-a very rational thing to attempt, incidentally— made him appear so "utterly wild" that he was considered not even fit to fight# Actually, all that Steele maintained was that, like classical Greek, or any other spoken language for that matter, English had quantity that could be 1.

Saintsbury, HEP, 1:U,5#

2#

Ibid#, l*5n.

- 18 -

measured and noted, just as it had accent, emphasis, force, and pause#

In

other words, Steele was saying that syllabic prominence was not due to any one particular agency but to any one, or any conciliation, of five "accidents of speech#"

Thus, he claimed that there were in English a "pitch accent," a

"stress accent," a "duration accent," even a "volume accent," and a "pause accent"— that is, an "accent" or prominence given a word or syllable by the precedence or succession of a pause#

These different kinds of syllabic or

word prominence gave to speech the varied nuances of its rhythm that every­ one heard and recognized on listening to it, but that so many failed to take into account when writing for or about it#

Hence the great numbers of

people who could not read well even after they had been taught how#

One of

the reasons for this unhappy state of affairs was the fact that modern or­ thography did not provide for the notation of the "accidents of speech#" One of the reasons Steele developed his system of notation was in order to Indicate the "accidents" cr prominences in speech when the author intended them to occur in the text#1 Steele held that pause integrally affects not only the form but also the content or meaning of connected discourse#

By so doing, he actually

stepped from prosody to elocution and, in effect, established a relationship between the two#

Prosody studied the words and sounds of language rather 2 than the thoughts they conjured up and the meanings they conveyed# Elo­

cution, on the other hand, concerned itself with the management of the voice to convey meaningful connotations beyond the lexical definition, grammatical modification, and the metrical arrangement of -the words themselves* 1#

Though

Cf# George Bernard Shaw's Preface to The Miraculous Birth of Language by Richard A. Wilson (New York, 191*8),“"p72;R*#----------------------

2 # Allen, American Prosody, p#xviii#

- 19 -

concerned primarily with the subject of prosody, PR contained within it the materials requisite to its recognition in the field of elocution, and hence ultimately in the field of speech education# Steele's distinction of pitch as an "accident of speech," and the markings he devised to indicate it, brought him directly into the field of tonetics, the science of intonation#

His distinctions of quantity, and his

awareness of the possibilities of its change under certain circumstances, brought him, in spite of his meagre efforts at the distinction of the quality of sound, directly into the field of phonetics, the science of speech sounds# His distinction of stress, in spite of the novelty of its method of presen­ tation, brought him directly into the field of prosody, with even greater recognition as time went on#

His speculations on the possibility of work in

rhythmic stress as a method of speech therapy, and its applications by his followers, brought him directly into the field of speech correction# His work with pause, together with all of the preceding, brought him directly into the field of oral reading and interpretation, with its ultimate rela­ tionships with the speech work in radio, television, and the theatre# His work with the rhythm of sounds brought him directly into the area of speech catenation and its relationship with speech improvement# This broad scope of the eventual uses of his system are part and parcel to his full adaptation of the use of musical notation to the analysis of speech#

That his system had faults there is no question#

The mistakes

he made— mistakes in his own observations, mistakes made inevitable by the clumsiness of his system— are all, however, at least his own and not the perseveration of ancient fallacies# Steele no doubt owes a debt to the writers on musical prosody who pre­ ceded him# 'Their work was definitely part of his milieu. debt was to musical theory#

But his greatest

Without it he probably would not have devised

- 20

his system in the first place. system.

Musical theory gave him the method for his

The motivation for it, however, undoubtedly had its roots in

ancient Greece# These two, together with Steele's own ingenuity and persis­ tence, gave rise to one of the most novel, one of the most advanced systems in the history of prosody*

That, by its very nature, this "rational proso­

dy" should have related itself to the field of elocution, and eventually to the field of modern speech education, is the story this study has to tell#

CHAPTER II BACKGROUND AMD EXPERIENCE In the introduction to his collection of the letters and papers of Joshua Steele, William Dickson wrotei • • * I would gladly • • . [give] • • • a brief account of his life, if I possessed the materials# But I can only mention the few imperfect hints which were current respecting M m , in Barbadoeel [British Vest Indies]; far, in [England], I have not been so fortunate as to meet with any of his friends. # # #2 Though he is the source of the biographical material on Steele in the Dictionary of National Biography,^ Dickson admits that he "seldom met with [Steele], except accidentally at the 'store* of a common friend, with whom he had frequent dealings. • •

He got to knew Steele when he "happened

to dine with a respectable and pretty numerous company, of whom Mr# Steele was one,"^ Though he later got to know Steele through a correspondence with him 1.

The spelling of the name varies, but Barbados seems to be the official spelling new current# Though Barbados Is the farm used throughout, variant spellings that are included in quotations are kept as they appear in the source#

2# Mitigation of Slavery • # # Letters and Papers Steele #' • ♦ etc# (London, IdU;)', p#xix# 3#

of the Late Hon# Joshua

The entry on Joshua Steele is by Edward Irving Carlyle* It lists in its bibliography, besides Dickson, Thomas Clarkson's Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Conditions of the Slaves In ^ “TSrTETsh Colonies""# # # etc# (Ixmdoh, 1823] anU» and his name, as a member of the 3 latter, does not appear in the book until 1756*" As to how Steele came by the "great knowledge of the theory of music" that the DNB refers to, however, is another mystery* The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books 1881-1900 lists a work by aDr* Johann Christoph Pepusch,

entitled "A Short Treatise on Harmony • • •

etc.," dated London, 1730, "with copious examples in MS. copied from the 1*

Ibid*, p*xix* The italics are mine*

2*

"The Lucas Manuscript Volumes in the Barbados Public Library," Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, 10(191*3)] 1762, two years after his 2 arrival in Barbadoes •" At the meeting of December 8, 1779, thanks were given him far his "Treatise on Melody of Speech" (apparently the second edition), which he had presented to the society*^ Then, suddenly, he was gone* Dickson tells us that "he arrived in u Barbadoes early in the year 1780*" Tfhen Lucas says he arrived "much in£ volved in debt," one is prone to believe him for it seems strange indeed that a man of such fame and office should, "when his reputed age was four6 7 score," ran off to his estates simply for philanthropical purposes* Clarkson, more favorable to Steele, puts it this way: He was the proprietor of three estates in Barbadoes* [The three, Kendal's, Chester's, and Hallett's, together 1,068 acres in size, and extending over the parishes of St* John, St* Philip, and St* George, were known cumulatively as Kendal's Plantation*]" His agent there used to send him accounts annu­ ally of his- concerns; but these were latterly so ruinous, not only in a pecuniary point of view, but as they related to what Mr* Steele called the destruction of his Negroes, that he resolved, though then at the advanced age of eighty, to go there, and to look into his affairs himself* Accordingly, he embarked, and arrived there early in the year 1780*9 1*

Buchanan-Dunlop, op,cit«

2.

Dickson, op*cit«, p*xix*



Buchanan-Dunlop, op.cit*

U*

Mitigation of Slavery, p*xix*

5*

Lucas, op*cit*, p*6U.

6* Dickson, op*cit* 7*

Saintsbury, op*cit* Also Oknond, English Metrists p.93*

6* Lucas, op*cit*, p*63; Ragatz, op»cit», p*U98; Dickson, op»cit*, p*lU3* 9*

Clarkson, op.cit*, p«3U* Also DNB.

- 29

The stress on the advancement of Steele's age, however,is

not to

give the impression that he was at all senile or decrepit* When he arrived in Barbadoes, « • • he was still an able man, above the middle stature, a little corpulent, and, on the whole, respectable, and even venerable in his ap­ pearance* His manner of living appeared to be regular and temperate, but not too abstemiuousj and he said he had taken a dose of bark daily, for twelve years,! Hisconversation was said to have been his temper cool and restrained*

highly entertainingandinstructive;

"Though generally or habitually grave him­

self he could 'set the table in a roar' with his playful stories and arch remarks *"^ When to this description of the man is added the information that he begat two illegitimate children through a slave after his arrival on the 3 island, not only must one marvel at the nan's strength and virility, but one must seriously question the authenticity of his reputed birthdate. In the year following his arrival at Barbados, Steele instituted a Society in Bridgetown similar to the London Society of Arts J*

"it was one

of the few organizations of such a nature in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century*"'’ Steele "'indulged a hope that by means of it conferences might be introduced on patriotic subjects, in the course of which new ideas and new opinions might soften the national bigotry, so far as to admit sane dis­ courses on the possibility of amendment in the mode of governing slaves*'"^ 1*

Dickson, op*cit*, p*xix*

2*

Ibid*, p*xxi*

3*

Ragatz, qp*cit*, p*506* A copy of Joshua Steele's will, which was sent to me T>y Mr* Shilstone, of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (see above), also proves this fact*

k•

Dickson, op *cit», p*adx-ox*

£•

Ragatz, op*cit*, p*2U3«

6 * Clarkson, op.cit.. p.35*

Also DNB*

- 30 -

At first, Steele was president; but afterwards, when the society had gained more strength, the Governor of the colony, Lord Shelburne, became president and Steele became vice-president*1 Barbados had many more unemployed white people than any other British colony at the time, "owing to the introduction of Slaves, and their being bred to all the mechanical arts formerly exercised by the very numerous 2 white population*" Steele was "indefatigable in his endeavours to employ the numerous, idle White Poor of Barbadoes* * * * In short, next to the re­ formation of the Slave system, the employment of the destitute White Poor of that island, appears to have been his grand aim in founding the Barbadoes 3 Society of Arts* * . *" In 1783, Steele reported to the society, for discussion, the abolish­ ment of the arbitrary punishment of the slaves on his plantation, and the institution of a Negro magistracy for slave offences*^

In 1785, he re­

ported his system of obtaining "the labour of his Negroes by voluntary means instead of the old BBthod of violence*"

Under this system, Steele re­

quired a certain amount of work done a day, regardless of the time it took to do it, for a small monetary reward*

Thus, Clarkson reports, Steele ob­

tained more work from more workers with more time for them to spare than under the old system*^ During the years 178? and 1788 letters "containing the substance of several conversations at sundry times, for seven years past, on the subject 1* Dickson, op*cit«, p*xxn* 2*

Ibid*, p*xx.

3*

Loc *cit*

U*

Clarkson, op.cit., p.37*

5*

Thoughts on Improving Conditions of the Slaves, p*36*

31 -

of negro laws and negro government on plantations" in the colony were pub­ lished in The Barbadoes Gazette over the signature of "Philo-Xylon."^ There is little doubt as to the identity of "Philo-Xylon" (which, inci­ dentally, Dickson translates as "Friend to Cotton, or to Cotton Planters")*

2 In a letter signed by Steele, printed in Dickson's Mitigation of Slavery, Steele almost explicitly owns himself to be the author of the BarbadoeB

Gazette letters• By 1789 the Bridgetown Society of Arts had begun to disintegrate* Some of the members, feeling that they had gone too far in their admissions as slave-holders, began to insinuate "'that they had been taken in, under the specious appearance of promoting the arts, manufactures and commerce of Barbadoes, to promote dangerous designs against its established laws and 3 customs*'" Discussions of this sort were discontinued; and finding that he had no hope of assistance from the society, Steele went ahead on his own to attempt to alter the basic condition of the slaves* He divided his holdings into manors with the slaves as copyholders bound to their tenements and owing rent and services* This, as can well be imagined, aroused a storm of antagonism and protest among the islanders*^ Yet in spite of his unpopularity among his fellow colonists, Steele to was appointed^and held high office in Barbados* He "was admitted to H«lf* Council of Barbados on 27 July 1790 under Warrant dated lit June issuing from Court of St* James* • • • [where] he continued as a member until the 1*: Ragatz, op*clt», p*£38« 2*v P.66*.. . .

3*

Clarkson, op*cit*, p*37«

km

Ragatz, op*cit., pȣ38*

- 32 -

time of his death. • • • He attended the meeting of 27 September, 1796 when Writs for the election of a General Assembly were issued by the Governor* He was named as Sheriff far St* John's parish. • • *"^ served as chief justice of the colony*

In 1790, he also

2

Clarkson mourned the "beautiful order of things [on Kendal's Plantation that] was broken up after Mr* Steele's death by his suc” 3 cessors. • • •"

On the other hand, Lucas claimed that Steele "banished

all persons of reputation from his employment j and those he did employ, were seldom paid without litigation; and at the time of his death • • • he was involved in four Suits in Chancery; and when his Executor Francis Bell died, after 16 years litigation, the Estate was Sold in Chancery under a fifth [i*e*, at less than four-fifths of the last asked price]

In any event,

all sources agree that Steele's experiments in the management of the slaves on his plantation ended in ultimate failure* Dickson admits that he had "not met with any body who could tell [him] exactly when Mr* Steele died*"

He "supposed" that Steele "did not long

survive the year 1790; for I wrote to him * • • taut I never received any a n s w e r This incredible inference seems to have become the source for the most generally accepted authorities on the subject*

The Dictionary of

National Biography, for instance, which uses Dickson as its source, gives 1* From a note by Mr* E.M.Shilstone, Honorary Secretary of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, included in a letter (No *5562/7, dated 27 January, 19U8) sent to me on request by the Colonial Secretary's Office, Barbados, B.W.I. 2.

Dickson, op*cit*, p*l83«

3*

Thoughts on Improving Conditions of the Slaves, p*71n*

H.

"Lucas Manuscript Volumes," p.6U*

5* Dickson, op*cit>, p«xxiv*

The italics are mine*

- 33 -

the date of Steele*s death as 1791#

Ragatz gives it as 1790,’*’ But Lucas

2 gives it as 1796, and "the entry in the Burial Register of St# Philip o parish reads - 1796 October 27 Honble Joshua Steele Esqre.1* Thus died "a h very visionary and doating old Man, without family or connections,” This lack of "connections,” of concrete references to the events in his life, gave rise to seme highly speculative inferences in the life and career of Joshua Steele# They bear mention* Obadiah Rich, in his Bibliotheca Americana Nova,** credits Steele with the authorship of an anonymous pamphlet, entitled "An Account of a late conference on the occurrences in America," and published in London in 1766# Rich describes its contents as consisting oft An imaginary conference, managed with decency and good sense, but the strength of the argument lies altogether on the side of America, The author is supposed to be Joshua Steele, esq,” John Davy claims Joshua Steele to have been "a relative and contempo­ rary of the celebrated Sir Richard Steel [sic] of ’the Spectator#*"^ Since •8 Davy refers to him as "The Hon, Josiah Steel," it is strongly possible that he had him confused with semeone else*

George Aitken, biographer of Richard

Steele, corrects the spelling of the names of both parties in citing the re­ ference, but allows that Davy "gives no authority for the alleged corn1#

British Caribbean History, p#506,

2#

"Lucas Manuscript Volumes," p#6Un,66,

3#

E*M.Shilstone, See

U#

Lucas, op.clt#, p#62,

5.

(New York, 1835).

6.

Ibid., I*l51t.

7#

The West Indies (London, 185U), p*70-l#

8*

Ibid., p#70n.

above,

- 3U nection*"^ Several writers credit Joshua Steele with a knighthood he never had* It all seemed to have started with James E* Murdoch, whose book, A Plea for

2 Spoken Language, contains a chapter entitled "Sir Joshua Steele*"

Murdoch

had either confused Joshua Steele with his more famous contemporary, Sir Joshua Reynolds, or else he had misinterpreted the meaning of the "Esquire" that is affixed to Steele’s name in most of the references to him in the literature*

In any event the title was never questioned* O I Blanks and Fritz, in that order, were apparently the next to get it

from Murdoch; and Robb-* got it from them*

By that time, it was "Sir Joshua

Steele" to such an extent that Hale^ (who worked directly with FR-photostats of Rush's personal copy of the 1775 edition are included in the study), and even Haberman

(on two occasions in the captions to photostatic plates in

his study) credit Steele with a knighthood that was never conferred upon him* Dickson claims that "Sir John Pringle and Dr* Franklin were particular_ 8 ly mentioned among [Steele's] friends*" The fact that the Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts maintain that Dr* Benjamin Franklin was "formerly 1*

The Life of Richard Steele, 2 v* (London, 1889), 2:355*

2*

(Cincinnati, 1883)*

3*

History of Teaching of Public Speaking*

U*

Charles A* Fritz, The Content of the Teaching of Speech in the American College Before 1850 (New YorTT"University School of Education Ph.!D*, T9'2F). --------

5*

Mary Margaret Robb, Oral Interpretation of Literature in American Colleges and Universities (flew fork, 19517*

6*

Lester L* Hale, A Re-Evaluation of the Vocal Philosophy of Drols. 2nd ed. enl."

3

Even though this distinction

in the titles is born out by William Dickson, who was the editor of Steele's letters and papers^ and John Nichols, who was the printer of both editions of the work,'* there is evidence of the fact that both editions were known by both titles.

Figure .CU, following page 37 , is a photostat of the title

page of an edition of 1775, entitled PR . . . etc. The clipping from a con­ temporary book catalogue that appears to be pasted to the flyleaf of the 1.

Lester Thonssen and Elizabeth Fatherson (New York, 1939).

2.

Ibid., p*U9lu

3.

Ibid., p.228.

U.

Mitigation of Slavery, p»xxiii.

5.

Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 7 w (London, 1813), 3*209n.

- 37 anonymous A Short Treatise on Harmony,1 a photostat of -which appears as Figure VI, following page

, lists the 1779 edition as "Steeled Essay-

on the Melocty- and Measure of Speech,"

This listing may have been approved

by Steele himself. The reason is that, in spite of the variant titles, the inscription on page iii of both editions reads "This Treatise on the Melody and Measure of Speech;" the heading on page 1 of both editions reads "The Melody and Measure of Speech;" and a letter, dated April 6, 1779, appearing on pages 90-1 of both editions, and another, dated May ll|, 1779, on page 93 of both editions, are addressed "To the Author of the Treatise on the Melody and Measure of Speech," More important to be considered, however, than the similarities and differences in the titles of the two editions are the similarities and differ*-' ences in the text. As Omond puts it* The two editions are practically identical to the close of the first (p,193) [Qmond obviously* means here to include the eighteen introductory pages • Of these only pages v-xvii are numbered,]; what follows in the second [that is, pages 1 9 h ~ 2 k 3 ] is headed.'Additions* and dated September 1779* It looks as if the unsold, sheets of the first edition had been used for the second, and new matter added* The leaf of errata, subjoined to the first edition and prefixed to the second, is' in the latter revised and extended; the index is enlarged to include new matter, and the title-page is new, [Qnond was obviously unaware of the evidence noted above,] Otherwise I detect no change; dedication (or rather inscription — [note]}, preface, and text (pp, 1-193) seem unaltered. As most of my references will be to the earlier pages, it is immaterial which edition is used, [The italics are mine,T” fo meet with either is noT”easy, and the book has never been reprinted,^ Since, as noted above, it is immaterial which edition is used, the 1.

(London, 1730), This work, according to the information in a personal letter from the Superintendent of the Reading Room of the British Museum, "was formerly in the possession of Joshua Steele and has many musical examples appended which are presumed to be in his handwriting," The authorship of the work is attributed to Dr, Johann Christoph Fepusch,

2, English Metri8ts, p«87».

PROSODIA

RATION ALIS; on.

AN ESSAY TOWARDS

ESTA BLISH IN G THE

M ELODY AND

M E A S U R E OF S P E E C H T O BE E X P R E S S E D A N D P E R P E T U A T E D BY P E C U L I A R SYMBOLS,

I

5>-6*

lu

Ibid*, 1*51.

5#

p.ix*

PROSODIA RATIONALIS: OR, A N ESSAY T O W A R D S ESTABLISHING THE M E L O D Y AND MEASURE O F SPEECH, T O BE E X P R E S S E D A N D P E R P E T U A T E D B Y PECULIAR SYMBOLS.

THE SECOND EDITION A M E N D E D A N D E N L A R G E D .

L

O

N

D

O

N

,

P R I N T E D B Y J. N I C H O L S : A N D S O L D B Y T. P A Y N E A N D SON, M E W S - G A T E ; B. WHITE, A T H O R A C E ’S-HEAD, F L E E T - S T R E E T ; A N D H. PAYNE, P A L L - M A L L . MDCCLXXIX.

Figure III The title-page of Prosodia Rationalis. The Second Edition, Amended and Enlarged. London, 1779. JTphotostatic copy of the original.

- U6 sounds into one* and gliding on from one sound onto another*"^ Thus, for example, in his analysis of the "English sound of U, as in the words UGLY, UNDONE, BUT, and GUT," Steele says that this sound • • • Is composed of the English sounds AU and 00; but they require to be pronounced as extremely short and close to­ gether, that, in the endeavour to prolong the sounds, • • • the voice will be in a continual confused struggle between the two component sounds, without making either of then, or any other sound, distinct; so that the true English sound of this diphthong can never be expressed but by the aid of a short energic aspiration, something like a short cough, which makes it very difficult to our Southern neighbours in Europe *2 Here again, Ellis points out, Steele *s identification of the vowel [A] with a diphthong is the result of his confusion of "a diphthong, in which there is a real succession of vowel sounds and a connecting glide, » • • with the attempt to pronounce two vowels simultaneously*"

3

Perhaps the reason for Steele's confusion is the fact that he meant to distinguish diphthongs from vowels by showing that a diphthong cannot be con­ tinued invariably the same as long as the breath lasts*

Thus*

• • • to make this experiment on the English sound of U, as in the word USE, which is really a diphthong composed of these two English sounds EE and 00; the voice begins on the sound EE but instantly dwindles into, and ends in, 00*h Hence, his observation that* • • • to continue a diphthong sound, the voice most commonly ehmges immediately from the first vowel sound, of which the diphthong is composed, by a small movement in some of the organa, to the sound of the vowel which makes the latter part of the said diphthong, the sound of the first vowel being heard only for one instant*? 1* Ellis, op*cit«, Usl0!i>7« 2* PR, p*ix* 3* Ellis, op*cit„ In10J>6* U* PR, p*ix* S* Loc* cit*

- U7 -

Though this description is essentially true, a strict application of it as a definition sill confuse the distinction between a diphthong and a vowel glide*1

Steele notes that!

The letters and sounds, which in modern languages pass under the names of diphthongs, are of such different kinds, that they cannot properly be known by any definition I have seent for, according to my sense, the greatest part of them are not diphthongs*? But he is referring here not to a single definition, but to a view of the entire problem of re-spelling for pronunciation* When he iterates that his definition is that of a proper diphthong, meaning, apparently, a spoken sound rather than a written one, he is indicating his awareness of the con­ fusion resulting from an entirely orthographic approach to pronunciation* But he does nothing about it* Ihen he describes "the English sound of U" and "the other English sound of U" (as opposed, let us say, to "the English sound of [ U] as represented by U” and "the English sound of [A ] as- also •represented by tJM), he is evidencing an inverted conception of the relation­ .

.

.

ship between the sounds of the language and the letters of the alphabet used to represent them*

This conception, however, was not indigenous to Steele*

His more famous contemporaries, Thomas Sheridan and John Walker, were caught in the same error in their respective pronouncing dictionaries*^ Steele did indicate, however, an awareness of the difference between two juxtaposed vowels and two vowels joined in a diphthong by remarking on the shortness of the constituent vowels of diphthongs; "for, if the vowel sounds of which they are composed, especially the initials, are pronounced 1.

As pointed out by Ellis supra, p* V4 , notes /,3.

2*

FR, p*xi«

3*

Thomas Sheridan. A Complete Dictionary of the English language, 2nd ed*, (London, 1789$,”p*ix* John Walker, A TJriticai Pronouncing Dictionary (New Tork, 1818), p*71* Originally”published in London in lY9l*

- U8 -

cio as to be easily and distinctly heard separately, they cease to be diphthongs, and become distinc t syllables *"^ 2 Robb points out that "the present-day reader mill notice [In Steele*s scheme] some resemblances to the International Phonetic symbols far the vowels*"

Unlike Sheridan and Walker, who indicated the different sound

1 2 ? U values of the letters by numbering them (i*e«, a, e, i, etc*), Steele de­ cided that the letters of the Roman alphabet stood for specific sounds and then borrowed letters from the Greek alphabet to represent the remaining sounds* Further, he listed toy words for each sound in English as well as in his "imperfect" French,^ begging the reader to forgive and correct his errors "by substituting such other French syllables as will answer the end proposed*"^ The following is Steele*s scheme of the vowels and diphthongs: "The seven natural vowel sounds may be thus marked and explained to sound, in English as the words, all,small,or,for,knock,look,occur* a - man,can,cat,rat* ~~ e-may, day, take nation, i- evil, keen, it, be, iniquity* o - open, only, broke, hols’* 6)- Tool, two, rule, tooT* do (superfluous,tune ,su-)very rare in " (preme, credulity ) English Cl -

1* PR, p*xL* 2* H.H*Robb, Oral Interpretation of Literature* 3* Ibid*, p*62* k*

V*inf,, p* Vf note >■U*

5* Ellis, pp*cit*, U*1057 6* IS, p*x*

in French as the words, en, grande, Paris, habit, pardon* ses, et* Paris, habit,ris,dLt,il* solcEt, coSes, offrir* ou, vous, jour,~"jaloux* du, plus, une*

- 1(9

Diphthong sounds in English, 0.1" I, fine, hire, life, ride, spjr, fly, (a long sound)* ae- met7”~let, gist, men, short sound!;* iw- you, use, new, due, few, (a long sound)* (makes the English sound of un or) unkind, undone, begun, A i d - (ug, and is pronounced extremely ) ugly,buE7 shut, guE* (sEort, )~ O l d - how, bough, sow, hour, gown, town, (this diphthong is sounded long, dwelling chiefly on the latter vowel) *"^ If Steele's opinion in reference to length as a factor in vowel differ*

2 entiatian be allowed, and if consideration is given the fact that he omitted 3 the diphthong ( O J ] altogether, then his scheme shows nine vowels and four diphthongs, a number comparable to Sheridan's and Walker's listings*^ The appearance of vowels in Steele's list that we commonly recognise today as diphthongs is entirely feasible in view of the fact that Steele was an Irishman, living in Southern Britain in the latter part of the eighteenth century*

His long and short E, for instance, as in may, day, take, make, and

nation, may very well have been a pure vowel in his dialect} just as his long and short 0, as in open, only, broke, hold, corrode, and corrosive* His identification of the sound of the letter u in superfluous, tune, supreme, and credulity as the French [Y] is confirmed by Ellis $ His inclusion of the vowels [£] and [A] in his list of English diphthongs, however, is an error that has already been pointed out $

1*

Ibid*, p*x-xi*

2*

Ibid*, p*xii*

3*

Though he doubtedlesslyconfused [a ]or [ox-3and [?&], Steelenonethe­ less recognized adifferencebetweenthem;-thus, nine vowels* This number does not account for the French [Y] he lists as appearing in English*

It* Despite duplications resulting from the inherent clumsiness of their respective Qysteus, Sheridan in his "Scheme of the Vowels" lists nine vowels and five diphthongs (qp*cit*) while Walker lists ten vowels and five diphthongs in his "Table of the Simple and Diphthongal Vowels," (op*cit.) £•

Ellis, op*cit*, 3*980n* v ,BaP »» P * V 6-

- 50 It is curious, however, that Steele "has altogether omitted to notice oy [ o i ], and hence escaped falling under the necessity of distinguishing by, boy, for example* • • • [Steele’s analysis of the diphthong [a7 ] in­ dicates his having thought of it as consisting of [ o

] and []•] • • •

He was presumably an I r i s h m a n E l l i s goes on to say that Steele "does not seem to have been aware of the sound of [ 9C. ], or at any rate to have 2 confused the sounds [$,£]«" And, we might add, the sound [a], as in. dicated in his grouping the words man, can, cat, rat, and arm* It might be said then, that Steele’s short account of the vowels and diphthongs compares favorably with the more extended ones of his famous contemporaries, Thomas Sheridan and John Walker, not only in the distinction of numbers of sounds but especially in the use of a system resembling a phonetic alphabet as compared to a system of numbered letters to symbolize speech sounds* *

#

*

In getting back to "the immediate subject" of the essay, Steele states very flatly* I set out with supposing the reader to have some practical knowledge of modem music;— I say practical, for with­ out that in some degree, it is next to impossible by theory alone, to comprehend clearly and distinctly, either the rhyth­ mical or metrical divisions of time; the difference between emphasis and force"of loudness; and still less the difference of ACCENT, acute irisingJ, grave [falling], and the circumflexes [rising-falling and falling-rising] • To musicians," these will be no difficulties at all; and a very few lessons of a master, either on a bass viol, or a great pitch-pipe [I mean by a great pitch-pipe, any large flute-pipe, or dlapason-pipe of an organ, fitted with a long sliding stopper, by means of which, may be made, sliding tones, like those of the voice.— note], or the voice, will be sufficient to enable any person, with a tolerable ear, to overcame them*3 1*

Ellis, op»cit», Utl0*>6«

2*

Ibid*, U *10^6-7•

3*

PR, p*xLii-xiv,

- *1 To make the best use of musical knowledge, which had heretofore been cultivated merely for pleasure, "it should be blended with the first 1 doctrinal elements of speech•" Although there were some good reasons •

“few bringing up scholars both to music and letters at the same time, • • • these studies have not been joined together, so as to afford mutual support 2 to each other»" Mindful of this, Steele then explains that he intends"to treat the modulations of speech as a genus of music • • . Steele's system of notation, then, was based on the premise that speech was a separate genus of music* As he says: In devising a scheme for expressing on paper the musical slides of the voice, in the melody of speech, I chose one which might come as near as possible to the modem notation of music, in order to make it the easier to be comprehended by those whose ideas of sounds and measure of time are already formed on that plan*** But in formulating his system of musical notation, he was not merely fitting a novel and clever scheme to speech*

His supposition that the reader have

some practical knowledge of music was not to insure the comprehension of his notation,^ as much as to insure the understanding for the use of a system of musical notation in the first place*

As Steele puts it:

I hope * * .[to] • • • shew, that the melody of speech is farmed by slides} and that by these, or some other apt characters, the musical expression of speech may be described and communicated in writing *° He vindicates his system, however, by stating: 1*

Ibid*, p*xLv*

2*

Ibid., p*xvi*

3*

Loc* cit*

ll*

Ibid*, p*8*

5*

Cf*,Robb, op*cit*, p*f>3*

6 * Hi, p.lll-l£.

I have met with no one to whom this, system has been ccsmunicated, that was not immediately convinced of its truth and utility; but some of the amouaoi [ unskilled in music] (though otherwise persons of genius), upon reflection, have seemed not well pleased with the discovery, by endeavouring to prove its inutility* However, inconsistent this conduct may appear, we know, by other instances in mankind, it is not unnatural; for we find many, who are less ashamed to expose their vices, than to acknowledge their poverty* It is, however, of primary importance to keep in mind the fact that PR had its basis and beginning as a problem in music* the

Later, Steele broached

entire phenomenon of speech as a musical problem*But

the entire essay

veritably began with his search to contrive: • • • a method of notation • • • to make the varying sounds in common speech, which I perceived to run through a large extent between acute [the highest pitch of the voice in common speech] and grave [the lowest]; though they seldom or never coincided, in their periods, with any of the tones or semitones of our ordinary music, which is an imperfect mixture of those two genera, called by the Qreeks diatonic and chromatic* 1 was of opinion that, in pronunciation, the voice moved up and down by such small gradations as that, whether the degrees were by quarters of a diatonic tone, or by smaller divisions, they seemed, in comparison with those of our chrcmatico-diatonic, to be by imperceptible slides *2 Steele defines the chromatico-diatonic scale ast A series of sounds moving distinctly from grave to acute, or vice versa (either gradually or saltin') by intervals, of which the senitone (connonly so called) may be the conmon measure or divisor, without a fraction [I omit the critical distinction of major and minor tones and the diesis, because the m odem chromatico-diatonic octave is practically divided into 12 semitones, supposed equal to the ear.— note], and al­ ways dwelling, for a perceptible space of time, on one certain tone*3 However, he goes on to say: • • • the melody of speech moves rapidly up or down by slides, wherein no graduated distinction of tones or semi-tones

1*

Ibid*, p*xvii*

- 53 -

can be measured by the ear j not does the voice (in our language) ever dwell distinctly, for any perceptible space of time, on any certain level or uniform tone, except the last tone on which the speaker ends or makes a pause *1 In order to represent the nelody, or the variations in pitch, and the quantity, or duration of time, of these vocal slides, Steele adapted the diatonic musical scale, of which the semitone is the least interval, to fit his enharmonic, or quarter*toned, scheme* In making use, however, of this division of the scale for the puzpose of measuring the slides, Steele admits that "it will be accurate enough . • • to call every degree of tone a quarter, that does not coincide with any tone or semitone of the chromatico2 diatonic*”

3 Murdoch points out that Steele's object is to show the re­

lative proportions of the slides, and the manner of their succession in the natural utterances of language, rather than to insist upon an accurate meas­ urement of the slides*^

Steele himself says in this regard*

Though I have given a scale, in my fLrst part, in order to demonstrate with accuracy, the nature and extent of the slides we make in speech, yet with a little practice I found, that drawing my slides on the common five black lines was sufficient (at least for a person who is already a musician and a master of the language) to direct the voice to the proper tones ; far there is a latitude which may be used without any seeming blemish; as whether the slide runs a quarter of a tone or three quarters, up and down, more or less, seems of little consequence* • • • And with still more practice I found, that drawing the accents simply over the syllables, without the black lines, (but with some re­ gard to higher or lower, by position of the marks • * • ), was so certain a guide, that I could always read the sentences, so marked, nearly in the same melody* • • *5 Nonetheless, Steele presented his notional system by first interlining

1 * Loc* cit* 2.

Ibid*, p.16.

3*

James E* Murdoch, A Plea for Spoken language (Cincinnati, 1883)*

ll*

Ibid*, p*£l* PR, p*30.

Figure IV The interlined staff Steele used to show the slides of the speaking voice in quarter tones. From P.6 of Prosodia Rationalis.

Sk the staff of the bass clef in such a fashion as to show the rise and fall of the voice by quarter-tones. The figure on the page facing this one illustrates Steele *s interlined staff• As he explains it: • • • supposing die strong black line at bottom to be that whereon the note Q is to be marked, then the space be­ tween that and the red or faint line next above it, will be the space far G+l/li tone, or GX(with a single cross)} and the said red or faint line itself, being the first red or faint line from the bottom, will be the line for G+l/2 a tone, or G)&(with a double cross)} and the space between this red or faint line, and the dotted line next above it, will be for G+3/I4. tones, or G^£(with a triple cross); the (totted line will be for A, the same tone that would have been marked on the whole space, if there had been no red or faint lines at all. The additional quarter tones of AX, A&*and Afl£(will proceed in like manner; and the second strong black line will be far note B, the next for B+lA tone or BX; and here, omitting the con­ tinued red or faint line, we come immediately to the dotted one, which is for C. because the interval between ® and C con­ tains only two quarters, or a semitone; the interval also be­ tween E and F, being of the same dimension, is provided for in a similar manner: and these lines, so drawn, I call the Scale Instead of using round or square heads for the notes to be marked on this scale (for then, as in ordinary music, they would represent one certain tone of perceptible duration), Steele substitutes: • • • siopiPg or curving lines, such as the expression may require; , orNs\ v, or or which lines when drawn on the foregoing scale, will easily shew through how many quarter tones the voice is to slide; and these I call the accents or notes of melody,2 Next, the qiantity or proportion of time allowed to each note (or syllable) was distinguished by a differently shaped tail. These were: • • , always drawn upwards, to prevent confusion, by mistaking the head for the tail, or vice versa; because our heads have some resemblance to the tails and tyes of quavers [eighth-notes] in the ordinary music, and our tails have some resemblance to their heads of minims [half­ notes] and briefs [whole-notes] «3 1,

PR, p»6-7 •

2,

Ibid,, p,7•

3,

Loc, cit.

-55

-

A semi-brief, or whole-note, was represented by A minim, or half-note, was represented by

^ •

*p.

A crotchet, or quarter—note, was represented by V. A quaver, or eighth-note, m s

represented by

When these tails were joined to the heads

I. \ /*

),

which marked "the difference of melody” [i*e., slides of the voice], each note expressed what Steele called accent or the "slide" of the pitch as veil as its diration or quantity* Stating that the measures of time in music and in speech are both the ' same, Steele indicates that one semi-brief, or whole-note (^ ), equals two minims, or half-notes (£ !£)$ or four crotchets, or quarter-notes ( W « > , or eight quavers, or eighth-notes ( 4 ' W O J ' M )•

The same applied to the

rests and pauses, which were represented thus: a semi-brief rest

I

2 minim rests

*

"

U crotchet rests

*

r r rr

»

8 quaver rests1 17777777 He also adopted the method used in common music of lengthening a note by dotting it; thus:

f i t ' Then the note, on the foregoing scale [Figure IV], over the interjection Chi whose duration in time is only that of a crotchet, represents the melody of the voice to have made a slide from B to Ex# and thence down again to C $ ; a flight, up and down, through nineteen quarter-tones j and this I apprehend may very properly be called a circumflex*2 At this point, Steele stops to comment: 1*

Ibid*, p*8.

2 * loc*cit*

-56I had no Intention of imitating the figures of the Greek accents; and yet, by meer [sic] accident, in pursuing my own scheme, I found my new invented notes were exactly in the Greek form* From this fortuitous coincidence, may we not suspect, that we have hit on the true meaning of the Greeks (who wrote, as we do, from the left to the right) by their marks, of acute for the slide upwards, and of grave for the sliding return downwards; for (omitting the tails, which are only for the purpose of measuring the time,) to mark a slide progressively upwards by our system, it must go thus _. ... OV4> and progressively downwards, thus — V



« Why did the

ho;

Greeks mark their accents by exactly such sloping lines, if they did not mean then as we do, for the expression of a slide up­ wards , or of a slide downwards The Greeks, however, called their most acute sounds low, and their most grave sounds high* Steele explains this by observing that all grave sounds or slides must begin comparatively high in order to end grave, by sliding downwards, and that the acute sounds must begin comparatively grave 2 in order to ascend. Steele then points out that musicians use the words accented and un­ accented very improperly,

"The proper sense of accent refers only to the

melody of acute and grave, or diversity of tone; whereas the thesis and arsis should relate solely to pulsation and remission*"^ Steele’s whole theory of rhythm was based on the premise that "all utterance follows the great law of pulsation and remission resulting from organic exertion and recovery from exertion, as exhibited in the beating (or systole-contraction, and diastole-expansion) of the heart."^ explains it thus t 1*

Ibid*, p*9»

2,

Cf* Murdoch, op*cit*, p«52n*



PR, p*ll*

U*

Murdoch, op*clt*, p*52.

steele himself

- 57 -

Oar breathing, the beating of our pulse, and our move­ ment in -walking, make the division of time by pointed and regular cadences, familiar and natural to us* Each of these movements, or cadences, is divided into tiro alternate motions, significantly expressed by the Greek words arsis and thesis, raising and posing, or setting down; the latter of which, coming down as it were with weight, is what ire mean to call heavy, being the most energetic or emphatic of the two; the other, being more remiss, and with less emphasis, we call light.1 Presuming that all speech, prose as well as poetry, falls naturally under emphatic division, which he calls cadences, Steele then decided that the thesis, or pulsation, which points out those emphatic divisions, or cadences, be marked off, again as in ordinary music, by bars*^ As to the modes of time, Steele says: • • • there are only two genera; the one, where the whole time of a bar, or cadence, is divided by 2, and its subduples [fractionaldenominations by two, as halves, quarters, etc*] or sub-triples [fractional denominations by three, as thirds, sixths, etc*]; the other, where the whole time of a bar or cadence is divided by three, and its sub-duples or subtriples.3 The emphasis of cadence, or thesis, should not be confused with the expression of loudness* They are separate and distinct, and do not depend on one another*

Thus:

• • • the arsis, or remiss, may be loud, or forte; and the thesis, or emphatic, piano or soft, occasionally* the thesis and arsis being periodically alternate, whether expressed or supposed; whereas the applications of the forte and piano are ad libitum, or apropos *U ,Therefore, besides the symbols used to distinguish accent (or syllabic intonation) and quantity (or syllabic duration), Steele remarks: 1*

PR, p«20* The words arsis and thesis had been confused in the literature of prosody, but as Qnond points out [op*cit«, p*90], Steele used them in their true Greek sense*

2.

Ibid*, p*ll*

3. Loc* cit* U*

Ibid*, p*12.

Q-

vn

nwpiww:

v/vVs/

V^/vwww

OUT

9

e*>u

£ Wwvw

vWV 5

V

w ” ';.

WSAAA

Figure V The musical notation Steele used to score the oral reading of a line of verse, showing his complete symbology. From P#13 of Prosodia Rationales «

58

• • • there are others required to mark where the forte and piano should he expressed. The modern musicians have no other characters for these than the words themselves* However, they will be better supplied in our scheme by the asper £ , and lenis $ , of the Greeks; the crescendo, rinfarzando, or swell, by

W \ A A A /

; and the smorzando, or

dying away, by V \ A A A A aaa ,; a n Tfhich will be more conveniently written under than over the words, to prevent their interfering with apostrophes or tittles of the letter _i.l He then offers all of the foregoing characters, or symbols, applied in an example (Figure V, facing this page)* At this point, Steele reviews the ground he has covered before pro** seeding with his exposition*

To begin, lest he may not have made clear

what "the melody of speech" is, he would then "endeavour to shew what it is not*"

Thus he explains:

It is not like the proclamation of a parish-clerk announcing the psalm, o "y*V "' .t »- Or ft b c - r - u t 1 Let us 5IOJ to the pvuue and qlorij C^od*

ri-r c

where the whole sentence is in one tone, without any change of acute or grave*

rir

ti

rr

atm I

Neither is it like the intonation of the chorostates, or precentor in our cathedrals, where the change of tons is made between one sentence and another, or between one word and another; that is, where the change is made, not upon syllables, but upon words or sentences* ■ ■II --| ■■■■■ ■ — W ^

3Ei

t

n r

r r |r

LordJ h&vc wwve^

1*

I b id * , p .1 2 -1 3 *

u.'f®*-*

rr-j

- 59 -

J J* /» r-, \ y. - °



^

...

O h,

*--1

hdfpines.%!



t— T —

o**

19

1 0 -.J 1 I

b c'm ^ 's e n d a.r>d aAvw! "

1 To prove that these instances are not examples of the melody’of speech, Steele suggests pasting a paper on the whole length of the finger-board of a bass viol near the fourth string, on which are marked off all the chromatico-diatonic stops or frets* Then while the player draws the bow over the Hth string, let him try, by sliding his left hand on the same string up or down the finger-board, to imitate the rapid turns or flections of the voice in common speech, and he will soon find, that they will have either their beginnings or endings, for the most part, in the intervals between the fretts; which intermediate stops, we may call quarter tones s fear it will be accurate enough for our pur­ pose to call every degree of t one a quarter, that does nob coincide with any tone or semitone of the chromaticodiatonic* And then, if he can pronounce, being thus assisted by the instrument, all the foregoing examples, as they are written or noted, the auditors will most probably agree in the following conclusions *2 The following conclusions are then set forth in answer to Lord llohboddo's propositions that originally gave rise to PR* 1st, That the sound or melody of speech is not monotonous, or confined like the souncTof a drum, To"ex­ hibit no other changes than those "oflou5 and soft* 2ndly, That the changes of voice from acute to grave, and vice versa, do not proceed by pointed degrees coinciding with "the divisions of the chromatico-diatonic scale; but by gradations that seem infinitely smaller (which we call slides)j and though altogether of a great extent, are yet too rapid (for inexperienced ears) to be distinctly sub-divided; consequently they must be submitted to some other genus of music than either the diatonic or the chromatic*

60

3dly, That these changes are aa.de, not only upon words and upon sentences, but upon syllables and monosyllables* Also,-----------------------------------------------Uthly, and lastly, That in oar changes on syllables or monosyllables, the voice slides, at least, through as great an extent as the Greeks allowed to their accents; that is, through a fifth, m o r e o r less *3Having explained the method of his system, Steele then offers a possible function for it, when he suggests that: We have heard of Betterton, Booth, and Wilks, and some of us have seen Quin; the portraits of their persons are probably preserved, but no models of their elocution remain; nor any proofs, except vague assertions and arbitrary opinions, to decide on the comparative merits in the m y of their pro-* feasion, between them and the moderns* Had some of the celebrated speeches from Shakespeare been noted and accented as they spoke them, we should be able now to Judge, whether the oratory of our stage is improved or debased* If the method, here essayed, can be brought into familiar use, the types of modem elocution may be transmitted to posterity as accurately as we have received the musical compositions of Corelli*2 This idea must have received some notice, ibr even James Bosire11, in his biography of Dr* Samuel Johnson, remarked: I cannot too frequently request of my readers, while they peruse my account of Johnson's conversation, to en­ deavour to keep in mind his deliberate and strong utterance* His mode of speaking was indeed very impressive; and I wish it could.be preserved as music is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr* Steele, who has shown how the recitation of Mr* Garrick, and other eminent speakers, might be transmitted to posterity In score*3 #

*

*

Having thus far, in Fart I, discussed the sound of speech, Steele turns, in Part II, to a consideration of its measure* Far, as he points out: The art of music, whether applied to speaking, singing, or dancing, is divided into two great branches, sound and 1*

Ibid*, p*17•

2*

Ibid*, p*lU*

3*

John Wilson Croker (editor), Boswell's Life of Johnson (London, I8ti8), P*U39 »

*• 61 -

measure, more familiarly called tune and time* Instead of Which words, I use (for the most part) the Greek terms of melody and rhythmus, being more significant, as generals, than our vulgar terms*! Though he uses Greek terms, Steele speculates on the use of Greek musical symbols*

Finally, he decides that:

• * • the modem scale and notes (which may be called the accidence of our musical grammar) are now so thoroughly known all over Europe, that, with a little alteration and addition, they will serve better for the exponents of what I have to offer concerning rhythmus, than if I was to attempt to follow the obscure track of another system, now totally unknown to the majority, and only very imperfectly to the few*2 On the assumption that -the Greeks derived their notions of the rhythmus in music from the action of walking (viz *, they made the word foot a principal term in the art of prosody),-3 Steele proceeds to explain his conception of the measure or rhythmus of speech in similar terms: So when we lift our foot, in order to walk, that motion is arsis, or light; and when we put it on the ground, in order to proceed, that act of posing is thesis, or heavy* If we count on our fingers every step or cadence we make in walking, we shall find each of them consisting of, and sub-divided by, these two motions, arsis and thesis, or the light and the heavy; and if we count' only on every second cadence or step (which makes a pace), we shall find each pace sub-divided by four motions; two of which will be theses or heavy, and the other two arses or light* this division of the step' by the even number 2, and of the pace by the even number U, naturally arises from the walk of a sound or perfect man.U But, he goes on to explain, there is another measure: The halting of a lame man makes a pace divisible into six, instead of four; that is, the thesis or posing of one of his feet rests twice as long on the ground as that of the other foot; consequently, in each pace of this lame walk, 1*

PR, p*l8*

2*

Loc* cit*

3*

Ibid*, p*22n.

h*

Ibid*, p*20-21*

62 -

there will be one thesis of so much greater weight or emphasis than the other, that the second thesis appears, in comparison with it, to be light. "Wherefore this whole pace is considered only as one cadence, divided unequally into heavy ( A ), lightest (..), ligit (/. ), and lightest C.*)#1 There are, then, according to Steele, "two general modes or MEASURES of time."

As he explains its

The first, wherein each step makes a cadence, and is divided equally "by the even number 2, and the pace, or double cadence, by j and is in music called common time, andante, or the MEASURE of a march* The second, where'the whole pace, making only one cadence, may be equally divided by the number 6, as the double of and is called triple time, or the MEASURE of the minuet and jigg [sic]* But the two steps com­ posing the pace of triple time, as so far dissimilar, that A •• A •• one of them iscomposed by 3 1 , and the other by 1+i; as,

which diversity, when slow, makes the graceful variety of the minuet; and, when faster, the merry hobble of the jigg [sic] .2 All speech, "as well as other m u s i c , according to Steele, is subject to the influence of cadence#

The law of pulsation and remission, as

manifested in "thesis" and "arsis," or "heavy" and "light," affects all utterance#

Measure is the musical "time" of the cadence# A cadence is

measured in common time, cr triple time, depending upon the sequence and number of heavy and light beats within the cadence or rhythmical step* Perpendicular strokes, or bars, in the notation, mark the cadences, which consist of thesis and arsis*

Bars, however, may be supposed* As Steele

explains it: • • • two or more cadences may be comprised within the space called a bar, • • • or there may be a bar at every

1#

Ibid*, p# 21*

2.

Ibid., p *21-22*

3*

Ibid*, p *22*. The italics are mine.

- 63 -

cadence; • • » the bar of itself [is] of no other signifi­ cation than as an eye-mark to the performer, to shew where some cadences are, by which he can easily observe the others. • • *1 The musical examples that Steele offers give visible explanation to this principle. —

rS

a-iL« 1 •> c

Thus: . . _=... « _| dm

m 0 -f-S•> t

“ •• U

_

A t . »«



e

-*4 C

••

*— / i. *"P « JL

3 f

» J

9 f

•>

1

•• A^ 0 • ..l 4 - ^ yVvv^vwv*

A • • >s

^



A m» .. • m

£A3^

3-T-r.r 1 r ^-P-J P f **^1 J* i f r ' F Steele is here trying to explain what musicians today call "dynamic, or stress, accent." As defined in Grove1s Dictionary,^ dynamic accent is extraneous to the time of a piece of music, but it may alter the shape of a phrase*

The definition continues:

It is analagous to what happens in poetry— *His honour rooted in dishonour stood.* — where.we slightly falsify the accent of *dishonour* for the moment, in order to make the sense clear, and thereby alter the metre slightly; whereas in some other context— *Do ifcat you will; dishonour shall be humour,* make no such alteration.^

1*

Ibid*, p*23*

2.

Ibid*, p#22»

3*

Grove*s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed» H.C.Colless 3rd ed., g vols* (WewToiF ,"W T : ------------

k*

Ibid*, l:llu

- 61; -

This allowance for the alteration

of the measurewhen made necessary

by the sense is provided fcr by Steele*As he says, "seme words

and

sentences must be measured by common time, and some by triple time • • « according to the genius of the language* • • «N^ Furthermore, he says, his system will permit anyone Mto read the words according to the melody and rhythmus we shall mark to them*"

2

This statement, of course, could be

Interpreted to mean that the system could be used as a teaching device as well as a method of recording speech* The Greek feet, Steele maintains, would not answer in any suitable degree to the rhythm of English*

In classical Greek, long and short

syllables were In proportion to each other as 1:2, whereas in English, the proportions are several*

According to Steele, English syllables have "the

several proportions of 2 *l.l/2 .l/l;« and

3*l*l/3*l/6* •• •"

Steele admits, however, that he means all this more strictly as ap­ plied to the composition of music than to the rhythm of speech* In speech, for instance, the two genera of time are continually intermixed, and though in music "no less than a whole pace must be allowed for a cadence of triple measure; because * * * it is composed of two unequal steps, * * * the triple cadence [in speech] is only equal to one step."^ Thus, having discussed and provided symbols for light and heavy, piano and forte, accent, quantity, and pause, Steele fulfilled his purpose, which mast • « • to shew clearly, that there are five orders of accidents incident to melody and measure, essentially 1. PR, p«22* 2* Ibid*, p*l8 * 3* Ibid*, p»19* U*

Ibid*, p*23*

6* different in their nature and effects from each other, and very material to be attended to in the consideration of the melody and measure of speech*1 , Far Steele conceived^ speech to consist oft (acute) (melody of slides( and ) loud or soft ( (grave) (

(

( ( ( (measure ) (or ) (rhythmus)

of motion and rest distinguished by

(quantity ( ( (and ( ( (cadence

(long ( and (short,

(heavy ( and (light* 2

In recapitulation of the various symbols which he had proposed for the expression of the five orders of accidents of speech, Steele lists: 1st, ACCENT, Acute / grave \ , or both combined/) O i 2dly, QUANTITY, Longest H , long Y , short Y * shortest 1 • 3dly, PAUSE or silence* Semlbrief rest I , minim rest * , crotchet rest r , quaver rest "1 • „Uthly, EMPHASIS or cadence* Heavy A , light , lightest*• fjthly, FCBCE or quality of sound. Loud C , louder C t , soft •> , softer 99 • Swelling or Increasing in loud­ ness AAAAi^ decreasing in loudness or dying away V \ A A A A A a

u

Loudness uniformly continued \ A / V % /\ / v V V \ / V A / V \ A va / V V , 3 Bars, or cadences, may be subdivided by metrical articulation into un­ equal fractional quantities of time*

But the sum of these quantities must

equal the whole quantity of the bar) and the denominators of the fractional parts, or the signature numbers indicating the number of beats a whole-note 1*

Lop* pit*

2*

Ibid*, p.*2li*

1*

Loc*. oit *

66

gets, must always be either sub-duples or sub-triples of the whole number of the bar«

A n measured rests or pauses are as significant in computation

of time and in value cf place, in regard to heavy and light beats as "ex* press notes of sound*"^ The division of all rhythmical sounds by multiples or sub—duples of two or of three is "so strongly affected by our nature, that either a tune or a discourse will give some uneasiness, or at least not be quite satis­ factory to nice ears, if its whole duration be not measured by an even number of ccnpleat cadences, commensurable with, and divisible, by 2 or by 2 3»" He points out that the last movement of the overture to Nicola Piccinni*s opera, La Buona Flglluola, has this defect, and "every nice ear feels i t F o r this reason, the Judicious composer or orator, unless he wants to make his audience restless, will lengthen his piece with proper ex­ pletives, or with adequate rests or pauses, "so as to make his periods duly commensurable*"

3

Besides, "all rapid pronunciation keeps the audience in a

painful attention, which the want of proper pauses increases, by leaving them no time to assist their apprehension by recollection*"

U

Although indicating the tentative opinion that "perhaps the number 5, as being composed of the prime number 2 and 3" should be considered a cadential divisor,*’ Steele later changed his mind and stated definitely that "a division into five equal parts nature will not admit*"^ 1.

Ibid*, p*2U-5, 116.

2* Ibid*, p*2£-6» 3. Ibid*, p*26* li. Ibid*, p«£0. *>. Ibid*, p*23*

6 . Ibid*, p*llJi*

Omond, however,

~ 67

points out that "recent music • • » disproved this assertion*" only too clearly Steele's great debt to music*

This shows i Though he contributed

nothing to that field theoretically, his work consisted in synthesizing and adapting the musical theory developed up to his time to the analysis and notation of the melody* and measure of speech* At this point, Steele makes the statement for which he is held most often to accountt And whoever would pronounce our heroic lines of ten syllables with propriety, must allow at least six cadences, by the assistance of proper rests, to each line, and fre­ quently eight; as

J. n

a

our

Oh, happiness f A A •• *•

A

J

b e i n fly's

A

1

I

and

A

aim! A

in six bars or cadences; or in eight bars, as the following: j

r

i

k

1

A ••

1 4

cue b e t a ' s

Oh, happiness! A

. 1

A**.

A

J i end And A

ft 4

1

aW. A

A

The reason for his dividing a decasyllabic line into six bars or cadences of time, however, might be called the basis of the "rationality" of his prosody; for it is based on the rhythm of speech, as opposed to those other systems that maintain that the rhythm of speech is based on the proso­ dy* As Steele puts it: • • * [it] is as little as can be allowed for the reader or speaker to fetch his breath; and this in the plain narrative stile [sic], for-if there be required any very pointed ex­ pression, more rests or pauses must be thrown in, which must 1*

English Itotrists, p*9lu

2*

PR, p*26*

necessarily either increase the number of bars, or, by using shorter notes in some parts, throw the syllables of two bars into the time of one, or partly one, partly the other» Wherefore our heroic lines are truly hexameters*1 Steele's choice of the word hexameter to describe a hexacadential line was a very unfortunate one* For him to decry classical Greek feet in English and then to use the name of a six-(Greek)-foot line to describe his "vocal scansion" of an English line was not only unfair, but confusing* The confusion arises from the essential difference between metric and cadential measure* A hexameter is a measure of the prosodial content of a verse; that is, the measure of the words, the syllables, or, in other words, the sequence of sounds in the verse*

A hexacadence, on the other

hand, if such can be the term, would signify the measure of the utterance of the verse, taking into account not only its formal prosody, or sequence of sounds, but such other factors as (l) the physiological requirements of the speaker, in his having to take breaths for speech as well as life purposes, for instance; (2 ) the phonetic limitations of the speaker, in that the sequence and order of stresses demanded by the rhetoric of the verse would affect its facility as well as its time of utterance; and (3) the "expressive" requirements of the line-— pitch, volume, pause, emphasis, quantity, etc*— necessary to communicate the sense of the line within its metrical framework* English heroic lines are, therefore, not hexameters, * even though they may very well be hexacadences* After iterating the fact that a rest can receive the beat of the cadence, whether heavy or light, just as well as "an express note of sound," Steele explains two peculiarities in his notational system*

First:

If there be only one note, or syllable which fills the whole extent of a cadence, of course, that one note is at 1* Ibid*, p*27•

first heavy, and then the latter continuance supposed light* For these affections are always alternate, except cut off by rests, or long-holding tones, without change of articula­ tion. If a cadence be sub-divided into many notes or syllables, they shall be nearly divided under the several degrees of emphasis of heavy ( A ), light ( »*•), and lightest as thus,

"

*4

ti

i »

ft

t.

Ok

♦ •

*r-pt c &

J J

The latter part of this explanation would, then, justify the second: aim in,the Ihere this nark '~a”" or •• ~ 1 is used, it is to shew, that as many syllables or rests as are written over that line or embrace, are all to pass as one in respect of the 4, or the • Steele then gives "a general precept and example in the following sentence:"

JU

Z t

A

ff

1*

I\

pyoae... o r A

nn n

bervitrvc.C- wv A A

r .V6VS6, A

•••

A

n

nr A

uiinc'feViev A

oust __

\



u

hhb A

1 a

1

yV»i^mU5 A

rr A .*

-70

n

1

n

pe

Iselj

n

to it

culiav’ A

A

r r i

rr

A.*.

A

r i t Modern I r mur rt

lan