wanting; and the strength of humane and moral sentiment may be such as to recoil from inflicting ludicrous degradation. A mind bent on the pursuit of truth views with distaste the exaggerations of the poetic art. Each person is by education attached more to one school or class of writers than to another." KINDS OF COMPOSITION. Five "kinds of composition" are set down in Bain's Rhetoricdescription, narration, exposition, persuasion, poetry.1 Each of these kinds has a special method, a special body of rules. student who has mastered everything that has been given under the "Elements" and the "Qualities" of style, has still something to learn. We have already remarked that the three divisions adopted in this work are distinguished not as separate component parts, but only as different aspects or different ways of approach. We have said that under either the "Elements of Style," the "Qualities of Style," or the "Kinds of Composition," a complete survey might be taken of all the arts of style. When we come to consider the kinds of composition, we see that this remark needs a farther limitation. The kinds of composition may be subdivided, and under each of the subdivisions might be included a complete survey of the arts of style. Every precept of style laid down under the "Elements" and the "Qualities" might be repeated under Description, Narration, and Exposition. Whoever wishes to describe well, narrate well, and expound well, would be all the better for knowing every good advice that can be given in the departments prior in the order of our sketch. Persuasion, again, embraces everything prior to it. There is no precept of style that may not be useful to the orator or the persuasive writer. "Rhetoric" is another name for the whole art of composition. DESCRIPTION, NARRATION, EXPOSITION. These three kinds of composition may be roughly distinguished as follows: Description embraces all the means of representing in words particular "objects of consciousness," whether external things or states of mind; narration, all the means of representing particular sequences of events; exposition, all the means of representing general propositions. These may be taken as rough definitions of them in their elemental purity; in actual composition they are almost always mixed. For the simplest forms of description, narration, and exposition, special rules would be of no practical use--would be affected and superfluous. It is only in the more complicated and difficult forms 1 The design of the present work excludes Poetry, both with and without the accompaniment of metre. that precepts become of service, and then they may be said to be indispensable. The main difficulty in description arises "when we have to describe a varied scene-the array of a battle, a town, a prospect, the exterior or interior of a building, a piece of machinery, the geography of a country, the structure of a plant or an animal." It is to this difficulty that the special rules of description apply. Burke and Macaulay are often said to possess great descriptive power. But, as we shall see, this can mean only that they present with vividness the individual particulars or striking aspects of a scene. Neither of them possesses great descriptive method. Carlyle may be said to have raised the standard of descriptive method; Alison also, and later Mr Kinglake, are very studied in their descriptions. The principles of description, as stated in Bain's Rhetoric, are perhaps the best defined and the least liable to exception of all precepts relating to composition. No person can describe a complicated scene well without consciously or unconsciously satisfying these conditions; and a person with a moderate command of language, by adhering to these conditions, will surpass-at least as regards the first essential of drawing a clear picture-the undisciplined efforts of very high genius. No such exactness of plan is attainable for the narration of complicated events. Still, it is possible to point out to the historian his chief liabilities to confusion, and put him so far upon his guard. We defined the fundamental idea of narration as being the representation of particular sequences of events. But History in its actual development is a much more complex affair. De Quincey recognises three modes of history: Narrative (a record of public transactions); Scenical (a study of picturesque effects); and Philosophical (a reasoned explanation of events). These are real distinctions, and we are not sure that they might not be multiplied. Not that extant histories may be divided into these three classes -such a work as Macaulay's History of England' attempts to combine the three modes-but these distinctions point to three different functions of History. The historian may simply record public transactions without attempting to explain them or draw lessons from them, and without any effort to describe splendid spectacles or interesting incidents. He may give his principal care to making the record of events instructive, may have a studious eye to the lessons of political and social wisdom, or he may give his principal care to making the record of events scenically or dramatically interesting. Now, without saying that these three functions should be kept distinct-that a history should be either plainly narrative, or philosophical, or scenical, and should not aspire to be all three at once-there is an advantage in considering a history under these three aspects separately. We observe first by what arts the historian makes his narrative simple and perspicuous-whether he follows the order of events, where and with what justification he departs from that order, what provision he makes for keeping distinct in our minds the several concurring streams of events in complicated transactions, what skill he shows in the construction of summaries, and other minor points. His skill in explaining events by general principles, and in deducing general lessons, forms a separate consideration. And still another consideration is his scenical and dramatic skill; his word-painting, plot-arrangement, and other points of artistic treatment. Apart from the objects of critical remark thus grouped together may be placed, as a thing for special consideration, the particular form of historical chapter or book that undertakes to delineate the whole social state of a people at some one epoch. The most celebrated example of this is the third chapter of Macaulay's History. For the statement of simple generalities, presenting no difficulty to the apprehension of the reader, little direction can be given. The rules of exposition apply only to the more abstruse generalities. The four leading arts of statement and illustration are iteration, obverse iteration, exemplification, and comparison. The popular expositor must also study the arts of imparting interest to dry subjects, and must learn to appreciate the difficulties of the tyro, and to take every advantage of the previous knowledge of his readers. The arts of PERSUASION, rhetoric proper, open up a still wider field. We have said that all the arts of style are of service to the orator. There are times, perhaps, when the speaker may choose to set the precepts of clear expression on one side. Instead of trying to express himself clearly, he may seek to mislead and cheat his audience with studied ambiguity; but he will do this all the better if he is able, upon occasion, to express himself clearly and attractively. The principal things to attend to in criticising oratory are the orator's knowledge and power of adapting himself to the persons addressed, his verbal ingenuity as shown in happy turns of expres sion, his argumentative power, and his skill in playing upon special eraotions. In the examination of the leading authors, we follow the order of this introductory sketch. We do not take up, in the case of every author, every point here mentioned; we remark only upon the prominent features in each individual case; but we take up the various points in the order of our preliminary analysis. |