While, in reading, distinct enunciation is an excellence to be aimed at, yet the words of a sentence should not be uttered as if completely severed from one another. Every sentence falls naturally into _groups_, the several groups being composed of words related in sense; and for impressive reading the words of each group should be _implicated_, or tied together. For example, in the line, _Once upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and weary_, there are naturally three groups; in the line, _The quality of mercy is not strain'd_, there is but one. In these groups the terminal sound of each word is implicated with the initial sound of the succeeding word. If the terminal sound is a tonic, or a flowing subtonic, the implication consists of a gentle murmuring prolongation of the terminal element coalescing with the initial element of the next word; if the terminal element is a flowing atonic the prolongation will not be accompanied by a murmur; but in either case the vocal organs, while prolonging the sound of one word, prepare, as it were, to begin the next. If the terminal element be one of the abrupt subtonics the vocal murmur is difficult to produce, and in this case, and also when the terminal element is an abrupt atonic, there is a suspension of the voice for a time equal to that occupied by the murmuring prolongation in the other cases; but the organs keep the position which they have in finishing the one word until they relax to take position for the utterance, with renewed exertion, of the opening sound of the next. It must be added that this implication is not confined to the component words of a group; for the sake of impressiveness the groups themselves are often implicated,--but by suspension of the voice and a maintenance of the vocal organs in their previous position, before they suddenly relax to form the opening sound of the first word in their next group, rather than by the murmuring prolongation above described. EXERCISE.--Read with suitable implication: (1) _O Tiber! father Tiber! to whom the Romans pray, a Roman's life, a Roman's arms, take thou in charge this day!_ (2) _But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, in bright succession raise, her ornament and guard._ The nicety with which implication should be effected depends, like exactness of articulation, upon the gravity, complexity, fervor, grace, beauty, or other distinguishing and elevated quality of the thoughts and sentiments contained in the words to be read. Common-place ideas are couched, as a rule, in common-place language, and require no nice discrimination of sounds, or other refinement of utterance, for their full rendering; but in true poetry and impassioned prose implication is no mean instrument of effectual interpretation.