The Talking Deaf Man | Page 5

so also such as are ignorant of any Language, do not only not understand others who are speaking that Language, but also do not know how presently to repeat that Voice which they received by their Ears.
Things principally requisite to the Voice, are, that the _Wind-pipe_, the former thereof be solid, dry, and of the nature of Resounding Bodies. By this Hypothesis, two of the most Eminent _Ph?nomena's of the Voice_ are discovered; why the Voice should then at length become firm and ripe, when the Bones have attained unto their full Strength, and due Hardness, which cometh to pass much about the Years of ripe age, when the vital Heat, doth in a greater degree exert itself: The other Ph?nomenon is Hoarsness or an utter loss of the Voice, which is, when the Cartilages, or Gristles of the Throat, especially the Epiglott, or Coverlid of the _Wind-pipe_, is lined or besmeared all over with a slimy Viscosity, whereby they lose their Elasticity, or Springiness. Now these Symptoms of the Voice are also common to other _Wind-instruments_, when they become too much moistned by any vapourous wetting Air. The same reason also is to be assigned why the Voice doth at last quite cease in those who have made too long Harrangues, in speaking, and whose Jaws are quite dried with an immoderate Heat; for in both these cases the top of the _Wind-pipe_ is covered over with a clammy Tenacious Phlegm.
There remains yet two other Symptoms of the Voice, which I have undertaken to explicate, viz. why the Voice sometimes leaps from one Eighth to another; and, as it is rightly said by the Vulgar Expression, that it is broken: and why, when we strive to make our Voice either too sharp, or too flat, it at last plainly faileth us. As to the first, let us consider when and how it cometh to pass; and first, it's what principally happeneth to Orators, when they endeavour to lift up their Voice too high, or strongly; but how this cometh to be, _Organ-pipes_, and the Monochorde, do teach us, _viz._ when some Impediment interposing, doth divide the ordinary Sound into two; if therefore those parts are equal, either of them is by one Eighth more sharp than the former Sound, neither are they distinguished from one another; but if they prove to be unequally divided, then two distinct Sounds are made at the same time, whereof one is flatter than the ether, and this is commonly called a _broken Voice_: But why our Voice should fail us, when we endeavour to make it more sharp, or more flat than it ought to be, the reason is, because we strive either so to contract the Cleft of the _Wind-pipe_, and to press the _Spout-like Cartilage_, by help of the Bone of Tongue, towards the Epiglott, that the going forth of the Voice, and of the Breath, may be precluded, or else, on the contrary, because that the said Cleft, through the drawing down of the Cartilages, is so much widened, that the departing out of the Breath, finds no hinderance.
But here I had almost forgot to compare the more dry, the more moist, the more solid, and the more thin Constitution of the Larynx, or _Wind-pipe_, which also make very much to the rendering the Voice, to be either sharp, or flat. That same humming Noise, which many flying Insects make, not so much by the Wings, (for when they are cut off, the humming still remains) as by a most swift and brisk Motion of certain Muscles, hid in the Cavity of their Breasts, seems to have somewhat of an affinity to the _Voice_; wherefore I desire the Learned to examine, whether those small _Muscles, which are proper to the Cartilages of the Wind-pipe_, cannot perform somewhat like to that.
Many more Particulars concerning the Voice might yet further be inquired into, such as, how it is, that every one may be known by his _Voice_? How that Sound, which in Singing is called Quavering, or Trilling, by a peculiarity, is excited, &c, But seeing that these things do not properly respect the nature of the Voice, I, for Brevities sake, do omit them.

CHAP. II.
Expounding the Nature of the Letters, and the manner how they are formed.
Hitherto we have treated concerning the Voice and Breath, and of the manner of the formation of both of them, in general; now let us see how the said Voice and Breath are, as a fit Matter for them, framed into such or such _Letters_; for the Voice and Breath are alone the material part of Letters, but the form of them is to be sought out from the various Configurations of those hollow Channels, thorough which they pass; Letters therefore, not as they be