trations, believed in this subject to be particularly essential. Anecdotes have been chosen wherever practicable, because a blunder that is ludicrous is more easily remembered and avoided. The bearing of the anecdote on the principle illustrated will not always be seen at a glance by most pupils; but the point will be found when searched for, and the profit will be greater for the search. Throughout the author has aimed to be suggestive rather than exhaustive; to quicken thought as well as to convey information. (6.) The multitude of quotations from leading authors on rhetoric serves a double purpose, the language of most of them being referred to throughout the book in illustration of the qualities of style. It is believed that the frequency of credit given will be in most cases sufficient acknowledgment; but in a few instances the memorandum. of the source of a quotation has been lost. Two books, so far the best in their respective departments that intelligent treatment must follow them closely, deserve especial mention these are, "The Art of Extempore Speech," by M. Bautain; and "The Art of Reading," by M. Legouvé. Upon a subject like this, always a favorite theme with the best writers, it would be preposterous to hope for originality. What is true is as old as Aristotle, and what should be announced as new in principle might safely be condemned as untrue. Yet because rhetoric is a means to an end, the application of its principles must vary with the age and the people where it is to be exercised. This is an age of newspapers, and we are a busy people-with little leisure to contemplate beauty of diction, but accustomed to glance down the column to see what the writer is aiming at and whether he hits it. As a practical art, modern rhetoric must accept and yield to this tendency, and its canons of criticism must be applied to the morning journals. It is nowhere stated in this book at what point in the Iliad the first simile occurs; but there are many quotations from newspapers just now most popular, with some effort to distinguish power from bombast, humor from vulgarity and imbecility. This criticism the student is expected to carry further and apply to his daily reading-which is more likely to be of the New York Herald and the Burlington Hawkeye, than of Hesiod and Catullus. In short, this book is written from the standpoint of one whose daily work it has been for some years to read and select and publish manuscripts, who knows from experience the actual difficulties and faults of young writers, and who would like to help them. Hence the treatment throughout is practical rather than scholastic, adding much that is unusual in text-books of the kind, and omitting some things that since the time of Campbell and Blair have been considered conventional. The author hopes that trial will prove these changes to have been made with. good reason, and the book to have contributed something toward general culture in good speech and good writing. NOVEMBER 2, 1883. ELEMENTS OF PRACTICAL RHETORIC. PART I. SENTENCE-MAKING.-Through Facility to Felicity. PART II. CONVERSATION.—Main Purpose, to Promote Sociability. PART III. LETTER-WRITING.-Main Purpose, to Convey Information. PART IV. THE ESSAY.-Main Purpose, to Interest. PART V. ORATORY.-Main Purpose, to Persuade. PART VI. POETRY.-Main Purpose, Contemplation. |