The music, melody and rhythmus of language; in which are explained…the five accidents of speech…and a musical notation…to which are added, outlines of gesture and a selection of pieces in verse and prose
Edinburgh: printed by Michael Anderson for Macredie, Skelly, and Co., 1818. First edition, 8vo, pp. xxiv, 250, [1]; later half calf and maroon cloth, morocco spine label lettered in gilt, spine gilt, marbled endpapers, extremities rubbed, else a very good, sound copy. The author, a teacher of elocution, wrote the present work with his students in mind. In the introduction he gives credit to Mr. Steele's Prosodia Rationalis, "a work of great merit and ingenuity," for introducing the system which Chapman here sets out to explain and simplify. Steele's system was a result of his effort to prove that the English language "has the same accidents of speech, viz. accent, emphasis, quantity, pause, and quality of sound, as the ancient Greek and Latin languages" (introduction). Item #20404
Price: $850.00
