ography, (b) in prose fiction, (c) in epic poetry, ballads, and metrical romances, (d) in dramatic poetry, (e) in lyric poetry, (f) in scientific writings, and (g) in exposition whenever the writer deals with the record of events.

In like manner, subjective narration appears (a) in philosophical history and biography, (b) in the novel of character, (c) in the modern (as contrasted with ancient) epic, as Dante's Divine Comedy, (d) in dramatic literature, (e) in lyric poetry, as Tennyson's In Memoriam, and (ƒ) in exposition where it is necessary to give an account of the progress of principles.

8. Exposition, or expository writing, is that kind of composition in which facts or principles are discussed, and the conclusion is reached by a process of reasoning.

The expository art is applied to all the departments of human thought or knowledge; hence expository composition appears in many forms. Among these the principal are, (a) the treatise, or full discussion of a subject, (b) the essay, or briefer exposition of a subject, (c) the editorial article, and (d) the philosophic poem.

9. Oratory, or persuasion, is that kind of composition in which it is sought to influence the mind by arguments or reasons offered, or by anything that inclines the will to a determination.

I. According to Aristotle, the divisions of oratory are threefold: 1. Deliberative; 2. Judicial; 3. Demonstrative. Bain makes a fourfold classification: 1. The oratory of the lawcourts; 2. Political oratory; 3. Pulpit oratory; 4. Moral suasion. Bain's first agrees with Aristotle's second; Bain's second with Aristotle's first, and Bain's fourth with Aristotle's third. Bain's third is of course a modern department of oratory.

II. Persuasion may employ any one or all the modes of simple communication-description, narration, or exposition.

10. Poetry is a fine art, operating by means of thought conveyed in language.

I. "Poetry," says Prof. Bain, "agrees generically with painting, sculpture, architecture, and music; and its specific mark is derived from the instrumentality employed. Painting is based on color, sculpture on form, music on a peculiar class

of sounds, and poetry on the meaning and form of language." Taking this definition in connection with that of poetry as a synonym of verse, it will be seen how wide is the distinction between poetry in its essence and poetry in its form. Indeed, so thoroughly is excited and elevated imagination identified with poetry that it may even wear the garb of prose. II. Poetry is divided into the following species:

1. Narrative poetry, including (a) the epic, as the Iliad, Paradise Lost; (b) the metrical romance, as Scott's Lady of the Lake; (c) the ballad, as Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome; and (d) the tale, as Longfellow's Evangeline.

2. Lyric poetry, including (a) the song, secular and religious; (b) the ode, as Dryden's Alexander's Feast; (c) the elegy, as Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard; and (d) the

sonnet.

3. Dramatic poetry, including tragedy, as Hamlet, and comedy, as the Merchant of Venice.

4. Descriptive poetry, as Thomson's Seasons.

5. Didactic poetry, as Wordsworth's Excursion.

6. Pastoral poetry, as Allen Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd.

7. Satirical poetry, as Butler's Hudibras.

8. Humorous poetry, as Cowper's John Gilpin.

11. Kinds of Verse. -Verse is of two kinds-rhyme and blank verse.

12. Rhyme is that species of verse in which is found concord of sounds in words at the end of lines.

13. Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of the iambic metre of five or five and a half feet.

The iambic foot consists of an unaccented syllable followed by one which is accented, as prepáre, convéy.

14. Prosody is that division of rhetoric which treats of versification.

It does not come within the scope of this work to enter into the details of prosody, a sufficiently full treatment of which will be found in most rhetorical text-books. A compendious view of the subject is presented in Swinton's New School Composition.

II.

STYLE.

15. Definition and Topics.-Style refers to the choice and arrangement of words, and may be defined as the peculiar manner in which thought is expressed in language. It includes the following topics:

I. The figures of speech. II. The order of words. III. The qualities of style.

I. FIGURES OF SPEECH.

16. A figure of speech is a deviation from the direct and literal mode of expression for greater effect. It is a form of speech artfully varied from the common usage.

17. Classification. Figures of speech may be divided into three classes: I. Figures of relativity; II. Figures of gradation; III. Figures of emphasis. Under this head also may come the grammatical figures-ellipsis, enallage, and pleonasm.

The principal figures of which mention is made in this book are as follows:

I. FIGURES OF RELATIVITY.

18. Antithesis is the statement of a contrast or opposition of thoughts and words, as—

"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As mild behavior and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment."

I. Oxymoron is an antithesis arising from the opposition of two contradictory terms, as "a pious fraud," "O victorious defeat!"

II. Antimetabole is an antithesis in which the order of words is reversed in each member, as "A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits."

III. Parison, or isocolon, is an antithesis in which clauses of similar construction follow in a series, word contrasting with word, phrase with phrase, etc., as “Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In the one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries us with a commanding impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty."

19. The simile, or comparison, is a figure that formally likens one thing to another, as—

“Him, like the working bee in blossom dust,

Blanched with his mill they found."-TENNYSON.

20. The metaphor is a comparison implied in the language used. It transfers a word from the object to which it literally belongs, and applies it to another, as—

He bridles his anger.

"Athens, the eye of Greece,

Mother of arts and eloquence."-MILTON.

I. Metaphor dispenses with the connectives of comparison (like, as, etc.) used in the simile; and instead of stating that one thing resembles another, asserts that it is that other: thus— Simile. He was as brave as a lion.

Metaphor. He was a lion in the combat.

II. Conversion into Simile.—Every metaphor may be converted into a simile, since every metaphor is a condensed simile. The process of expansion is a matter of tact rather than of rule; but so far as any rule can be given, the following may be serviceable. First, it is to be noted that a simile is a kind of

rhetorical proposition, and must, when fully expressed, contain four terms. Now let the metaphor to be explained be "The ship ploughs the land." The following is the rule given by Seeley and Abbott (English Lessons, p. 131): “It has been seen that the simile consists of four terms. In the third term of the simile stands the subject (ship,' for instance) whose unknown predicated relation ('action of ship on water') is to be explained. In the first term stands the corresponding subject (plough '), whose predicated relation ('action on land') is known. In the second term is the known relation. The fourth term is the unknown predicated relation, which requires explanation.” Thus

III. Mixed Metaphors.—It is a well-known canon of the meta-
phor that in the same metaphor figures should not be mixed.
A familiar example is afforded by the following couplet from
Addison:

"I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,
That longs to launch into a nobler strain."

Here the Muse, a goddess, is spoken of as being "bridled."
Then, after raising the image of a horse, the author con-
founds us by viewing the Muse as a ship that longs to launch
itself and into a "strain!" Yet it is Addison who formulated
this capital test of metaphors:

"Try and form a picture on them."

21. Allegory is a narrative with a figurative meaning, designed to convey instruction of a moral character. The Faerie Queene of Spenser and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress are the greatest allegories in English literature.

Allegory has been called "a prolonged metaphor." Subjects remote from each other are brought into a similitude sustained throughout the details. Thus in Bunyan's immortal work the spiritual life or progress of a Christian is represented in detail by the story of a pilgrim in search of a distant country, which he reaches after many struggles and difficulties. In the Faerie Queene the vices and virtues are personified, and made to act out their nature in a series of supposed adventures.