but the arrangement which the writer has followed, and this skeleton we call an index. It is a valuable exercise to take some piece of compact composition from a standard author, and, after careful study, to analyze it logically, in order to discover the skeleton arrangement which the writer has adopted. If one of the Essays of Lord Bacon be treated in this way, it will be found to be not a mere collection, in a compact form, of disconnected thoughts on a given subject, but a composition carefully arranged according to a definite plan, and of which a perfect logical analysis or index may be made.

4. Lastly, it is necessary to spend a great deal of labour in examining and correcting one's own early attempts at composition. The importance of this can scarcely be exaggerated. Little inaccuracies and inelegancies which were overlooked during the first writing become evident when the composition is read through afterwards; and many improvements may be made, especially in the choice and arrangement of words, by the writer becoming his own critic. All the great and enduring works of literature are those upon which much labour has been spent in correcting and polishing. The Greek and Latin authors whose works have come down to us as perfect models of composition were accustomed to spend years in correcting and finishing. Isocrates spent ten years over one oration. Virgil laboured at the 'Eneid' for eleven years, and even then regarded it as imperfect. When Pascal was engaged on his famous Letters he wrote and rewrote several of them seven or eight successive times, and even spent twenty days on the composition of one

of them. Among our own countrymen, Pope, Addison, Goldsmith, Hume, and many others, are known to have laboured incessantly in correcting their own writings. Some of Dr. Johnson's best compositions are said to have been written off without any correction whatever; but all of these treat of subjects upon which he had thought and conversed familiarly for years, until they were clearly and definitely arranged in his mind, and had thus been really corrected long before they were committed to paper. Skill in composition is a habit which can be acquired only by dint of great labour.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE USE OF WORDS, WITH REGARD TO— 1. COPIOUSNESS. 2. ACCURACY.

WORDS are the materials which a writer or speaker uses in order to express his thoughts; and they are as necessary to him for his purpose as the stones and bricks and timber to a builder for the construction of houses.

We may perhaps better illustrate their use by comparing them to a merchant's capital, by means of which he is enabled to carry on his transactions with others. The success of a merchant depends mainly upon the amount of capital which he has at command, and upon the judicious use which he makes of it; so also the success of a writer or speaker will depend in no small degree upon the number of words which he has at command in the storehouse of his memory, and then upon the judicious use which he makes of them. There are thus with regard to words two essentials to good Composition which we shall denote by the terms COPIOUSNESS and ACCURACY. By Copiousness we denote the possession of a sufficiently large stock of words always ready for use; by Accuracy that careful discrimination which enables one to recognise the exact meaning of every word used, and therefore to select from the stock of

words those which will serve best to express the thought in one's mind.

1. Much would be done towards improving composition if the gradual acquisition of a larger vocabulary were looked upon as an essential part of education. Men are apt to think, however, that they have at command quite as many words as could possibly be of any service to them, and thus are indifferent about making acquaintance with new ones. They would, however, discover their error by making a rough calculation of the number of words which they are in the habit of using, and then comparing it with the whole number of words in the language. They would find that the English language possesses large storehouses full of rich and useful words, some of which have lain forgotten and neglected until we have come to regard them as obsolete and their use as pedantic, while others are never used except by a select educated few, who know their value; and out of a large stock of many thousands of useful words most of us are contented with meagre vocabularies of a few hundreds. If a man were to count on a few successive pages of a dictionary the words which he recognises distinctly, he would find that they form a small proportion to the whole number; if he were to count, not those which he recognizes when others use them, but those which he actually uses for himself, he would find the proportion still smaller.

A man should be careful, however, while seeking by the acquisition of a growing vocabulary to obtain readier means for expressing himself clearly, to avoid at the same time the use of unusual words in a pedantic

and bookish manner. In education the best methods for increasing one's vocabulary of useful words are— to use the dictionary freely in reading good authors, and to note down carefully the words whose meaning is unrecognised; to practise careful translation from some other language into our own, using an English dictionary as well as a dictionary of that language; and to exercise oneself in paraphrasing passages from our best English authors.

Those engaged in English education remark a striking deficiency in the use of connective words. This does not arise from poverty in the language, but from simple carelessness on the part of those who ought to use thankfully what words the language offers. The word "and" is used as almost the only copulative in the language, and the word so perhaps stands next in frequency, but is generally misused in the place of therefore. It is common but improper to use it in such cases as the following:-"It is very cold to-day, so I shall not go out;" here it should be displaced by the word therefore, whose special function it is to connect two sentences, of which the former denotes a cause and the latter the consequence.

A student should select in composition from a tabulated arrangement of connective words such as the following: