Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

25

Method is of advantage to a work, both in respect to the 30 writer and the reader. In regard to the first, it is a great help to his invention. When a man has planned his dis

course, he finds a great many thoughts rising out of every head, that do not offer themselves upon the general survey of a subject. His thoughts are at the same time more 35 intelligible, and better discover their drift and meaning, when they are placed in their proper lights and follow one another in a regular series, than when they are thrown together without order and connexion. There is always an obscurity in confusion, and the same sentence that 40

The paragraph, 11. 25-29, gives only one side of the thought,- namely, defines where alone want of method is "supportable"; — this leaves what implication open as to where method is necessary? Which side of the thought really belongs to the present theme, - the expressed or the implied? Express in a proposition the implied idea, and note how it aids the development of the thought. 25. Is only rightly placed? See Rhet. p. 119, 17. — 27. Choose to throw down their pearls, etc. See if you can state this so briefly and effectually in literal

language.

30 sq. Comparing the beginning of this paragraph with the beginning of the next, what two main divisions of the subject are suggested? Put them down as headings. Does the order of these opening sentences, as they now stand, give these main divisions proper distinction? Change the sentences by Rhet. p. 181, 4, so as to adjust them better to their office and to each other. What subdivisions does the sentence, II. 31, 32, suggest? Point out what part of the paragraph each subdivision occupies. Why is the second so much shorter than the first? How does the amplification, Il. 32–46, illustrate Rhet. p. 290, 1? How many distinct particulars do you discover in it? Discriminate, and set

would have enlightened the reader in one part of a discourse perplexes him in another. For the same reason likewise every thought in a methodical discourse shows itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures in a 45 piece of painting receive new grace from their disposition in the picture. The advantages of a reader from a methodical discourse are correspondent with those of the writer. He comprehends everything easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains it long.

50 Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood. I, who hear a thousand coffee-house debates every day, am very sensible of this want of method in the thoughts of my honest countrymen. There is not 55 one dispute in ten which is managed in those schools of politics, where, after the three first sentences, the question is not entirely lost. Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttle-fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him till he becomes invisible. 60 The man who does not know how to methodize his thoughts has always, to borrow a phrase from the dispensary, “a barren superfluity" of words; the fruit is lost amidst the exuberance of leaves.

Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent immethodical

down as briefly as possible. Do the particulars, 11. 48, 49, correspond with the particulars in the previous part of the paragraph?

Is the next paragraph as susceptible of being arranged in subdivisions as the one just studied? — 53. This want of method, is the reference of the pronoun exact? Does the amplification in this paragraph deal with the subject or its obverse? Point out by what means and accessories (see Rhet. p. 297) the thought is developed. How is the significance of the phrase quoted from the dispensary brought out by figure?

disputants of any that has fallen under my observation. 65 Tom has read enough to make him very impertinent; his knowledge is sufficient to raise doubts, but not to clear them. It is a pity that he has so much learning, or that he has not a great deal more. With these qualifications Tom sets up for a free-thinker, finds a great many things 70 to blame in the constitution of his country, and gives shrewd intimations that he does not believe another world. In short, Puzzle is an atheist as much as his parts will give him leave. He has got about half a dozen commonplace topics, into which he never fails to turn the con- 75 versation, whatever was the occasion of it. Though the matter in debate be about Douay or Denain, it is ten to one but half his discourse runs upon the unreasonableness of bigotry and priestcraft. This makes Mr. Puzzle the admiration of all those who have less sense than himself, and 80 the contempt of those who have more. There is none in town whom Tom dreads so much as my friend Will Dry. Will, who is acquainted with Tom's logic, when he finds him running off the question, cuts him short with a “What then? We allow all this to be true, but what is it to our 85 present purpose?" I have known Tom eloquent half an

Lines 64-94 are an amplifying paragraph; what means of amplification are here represented? See Rhet. pp. 291, 2; 296, 3. The most of the paragraph is devoted to amplifying what side of the thought? With which of two characters does the writer leave the advantage, and how? Is there a formal conclusion to the essay as a whole? Does the manner of treatment require it? Is the figure at the end luminous enough to stand in lieu of a summarizing conclusion?-65. Any that has fallen, - point out the inexactness here. 68. It is a pity, etc. One is reminded of what Lord Bacon says, in his essay on Atheism: "It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." -81. There is none, -a slight inexactness, by present stand

hour together, and triumphing, as he thought, in the superiority of the argument, when he has been nonplussed on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to tell the company 90 what it was that he endeavored to prove. In short, Dry is a man of a clear, methodical head, but few words, and gains the same advantage over Puzzle that a small body of regular troops would gain over a numberless undisciplined militia.

From THE SPECTATOR [No. 476].

ards,

none used with a singular verb.—88. Nonplussed, is the derivation of this word?

From the indications brought to light in the notes, draw out the

whole plan of the essay in tabular form.

XV.

SIR ARTHUR HELPS.

ON THE ART OF LIVING WITH OTHERS.

THE Iliad for war; the Odyssey for wandering: but where is the great domestic epic? Yet it is but commonplace to say, that passions may rage round a tea-table, which would not have misbecome men dashing at one

The present Selection exemplifies, in a modern and more familiar manner, the kind of essay of which Lord Bacon is the greatest representative: a series of semi-detached observations on a large and weighty subject, not obviously exhaustive of its theme, nor conspicuously maintaining a progressive and consecutive order, yet none the less truly organized, according to that instinctive sequence which a logical mind naturally obeys, and presenting, by the same instinct of completeness, the really important points relating to the subject, though in outline rather than in amplified fulness. Let us study principally the indications of that logically moving mind.

The divisions here marked by Roman numerals are represented in the original by larger spaces between the paragraphs. This method of Roman numeration is much used nowadays to mark main divisions that are real but not obtrusive, divisions interpreted by the general body of the thought, rather than by sharply defining propositions.

What beginning does the first paragraph make toward suggesting the theme? What importance and what lack, regarding it, are brought to light? How is the domestic theme set off against themes dealing (1) with greater relations, (2) with narrower relations? Notice some of the things conveyed by suggestion (cf. Rhet. p. 300). The question 1. 1, But where, etc., implies what answer? Rhet. p. 97. How is this taken for granted in the connective of the next sentence?-3. May rage,