Joshua Steele dedicated his Melody and Measure of Speech (25/9/1775)

Irish planter and writer (1700-1796)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Steele
Spent most of his life in London.
In 1775, he published _An Essay Towards Establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be Expressed and Perpetuated by Peculiar Symbols_.
(Second edition 1779, with the short title Prosodia Rationalis.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosodia_Rationalis
There you can see an example of his "peculiar symbols", which are based on five-line staff musical notation.
This was one of the earliest serious treatments of English prosody (intonation, stress, rhythm, metre).
Having published his most interesting work in his 70s, in 1780 he left London to spend the rest of his life managing his plantations in Barbados.