to show the several parts of any composition; to distinguish carefully between Explanation, Confirmation, Excitation, and Persuasion; to unfold the principles of Unity, Selection, Method, and Completeness; to define and exemplify Narration, Description, Division, and the other modes of setting an object distinctly before the mind; to classify the kinds of proofs:-these and other equally important tasks fall to the rhetorical art as necessary duties. In a word, Invention is a department of Rhetoric, as well as Style, and can be omitted from a view of the whole subject only at a dreadful sacrifice —that sacrifice, in fact, which has made our age so famous for words without sense, words high sounding, graceful and faultless in every outward circumstance, but hollow, meaningless and utterly destitute of power to influence the minds addressed. Style may indeed be the summum bonum of a vapid dandy or of a girl at her first ball; but rational men and women cultivate nobler traits of heart and mind. How eagerly one turns from the perfect model of the tailor or the dressmaker, though it, too, be faultless in every outward circumstance, to minds that can stimulate our own by thoughtful speech. A want of exterior polish is pardoned in a man of talent, much more in a man of genius: on him who would nourish us with "froth" we pour unmixed contempt. (2d) The instruction in Rhetoric is hampered by another fundamental error. Locke's famous sneer at Logic, God did not make man a two-legged animal, and leave it to Aristotle to make him rational, is repeated, and with emphasis, of Rhetoric. "The orator is born," it is said, "and no man not a born orator need waste his time in studying principles." In other words, "Rhetoric, like Poetry, is an attribute of genius. Therefore let him who feels the fine frenzy write." The statement hardly needs refutation, but unfortunately has acquired a wide-spread influence, and done much mischief. Let us apply to it, therefore, one simple test, "The strength of an argument is no greater than that of its weakest link." If a single case can be produced in which the skill in question was the product of continued application, rather than of natural forces bursting into action, the assertion is certainly false, at least as a universal judgment. Such a case can readily be adduced. Hugh Swinton Legaré, of Charleston, S. C., was an orator of national, nay, of European fame. Men of fifty years of age remember him well, although, in the confusion of our public life, he has been forgotten or has remained unknown by younger men. Yet he was a dwarf, despoiled by inoculation with small-pox of his due proportion below the waist; was largely hindered by consequent weakness from physical exercise; was the companion of his mother and sisters, when he should have been gaining masculine vigor and inspiration among other boys; and was morbidly sensitive, and, at times, almost melancholy. His most constant companions were his books, more dearly beloved than all others except the mother to whom his affection was a noticeable trait. His favorite occupation was private study, his pet aversion society. Yet this remarkable man became not only deeply learned, but eminent as an orator of both grace and power. The victim of jealousies which hindered his rapid acquisition of practice, he nevertheless held public office as attorney in both his own State and the United States, winning by his matchless eloquence many important causes even in the Supreme Court, where he had many competitors. He died at an early age, (about fifty,) while Attorney-General of the United States and ad interim Secretary of State. Follow his biography, and we shall easily find the sources of this power. In college, his daily walk was the occasion of the most persevering rehearsal of the masterpieces of ancient and modern oratory and poetry; in later life, his every production-his letters, even-overflow with evidences of that untiring labor, to which his diary modestly refers. Never pedantic, he was as natural when quoting Aristophanes or Sophocles as when alluding to the current sayings of his time. A slave to laborious efforts to accomplish himself, he stands an irrefutable witness to the truth, Orator fit.15 Once more (3d) Rhetoric suffers in the house of her friends. Even they who concede the necessity of cultivating the art, differ widely as to the means by which this culture shall be gained. One 14 His papers on Demosthenes and Cicero, on Athenian and Roman law, were far in advance of the scholarship of his day. His conceptions of the great Philip hater and his rival, Æschines, are, perhaps, the truest ever framed. His knowledge of Roman law was as vast and comprehensive as his erudition in that of his native State, and this at a time when hardly another man in our land knew anything of the subject. Mr. L. was, also, an accomplished linguist, knowing with the nicest exactness not only the classics, but German, French Spanish and Italian, in their literatures as well as their vocabularies, 15 Other cases are cited by Day, Art of Discourse, pp. 18, 19. party, emphasizing the study of principles, say: "Stock a man with rules, and let him work out his own salvation.'" Another party 6 will hear only of the study of models, and say: "Show your pupil how eminent men have written, and let him 'follow suit.'" Need it be added that either side without the other is partial? The study of rules without practice has surely been enough condemned in these papers; the study of models without rules may be as justly censured. Its advocates abhor mere "formal rhetoric"-by which they mean rhetorical principles-and would confine the course to a running commentary on the best examples that can be placed before a class. The rationale of the process they care nothing for; the process is their all in all. O truly mechanical Rhetoric! O marvellous "rule of thumb!" Our age has repented of its blunder of trying to make mechanics by dictum, but has not yet learned that principle and practice are inseparable in Rhetoric; that "the poetry of Goethe and of Coleridge is not less perfect, certainly, because they were intellectual masters of the principles of poetry;" that "These rules of old discovered, not devised, Are Nature still, but Nature methodized." Holding these views, I17 have placed at the head of this article the name of Professor Day's text-book, because, so far as I can learn, there is no other work in the English language that so earnestly impresses upon the student the true nature and value of the art, so clearly instructs him in all its principles, and so fully exemplifies these principles in models from our best writers. Insisting upon Invention as not merely a part of Rhetoric, but as its more important part, Professor Day gives to this portion of his subject nearly two-thirds of his book-208 out of 343 pages. Considering "fine writing" a deadly sin, he teaches that Purity, Significance, Clearness, Energy, are the more important properties of style, while Euphony, Harmony, Rhythm, Beauty, are of less, though by no means of no, importance. Everywhere he makes THOUGHT the more prominent element of discourse, Form an inferior consider 16 Day, Art of Discourse, p. 20. 17 I am careful to speak in the singular number because the opinions here exexpressed of Day's Art of Discourse have been violently combatted. I wish, therefore, to assume all responsibility connected with them. I may add that they were formed after a careful study of the book, and have been confirmed by an experience of it with three separate classes. ation. And so he gives to Rhetoric its natural disciplining and invigorating power; opens the mind of the student to the ways by which he may find the content of his theme, or even first his theme and then its content; and assails with crushing force all that is spurious in thought or expression. It is unfortunate that the diction of this book is not more regularly an exemplification of the principles it announces. At times the text is obscure, often it grows dry, and all through it is of unequal merit as regards expression. Passages which cannot be challenged stand side by side with others that could easily be improved, and suggest that Prof. Day, in revising his older work, had more respect for the stereotype plates than for the success of his book.18 But after all, these difficulties insure the more fully a careful analysis of the work by each student, and prevent his committing it to memory. Any mischief that is done by the book as a model, is more than compensated by the excellent examples which it sets before the student. Besides, (and every practical teacher will support me, I am sure,) a text-book is only the basis of instruction, and young men of seventeen years of age know well enough how to sift the good from the bad. At all events a competent instructor can always do so for them.19 One more remark upon the course in Rhetoric, and we have done. The teacher of Composition in any language knows how little is gained by correcting exercises privately and returning them to the students. The fate of such exercises is always certain. Eight students in ten never read the corrections; the other two most likely misunderstand them. Another plan will work far better. The composition is read before the class and then corrected orally, the writer being seated by the professor's side, and the class hearing the corrections. In this way substantial results are gained, and the student effectually guarded against repeating his blunders. In certain cases, (especially in city colleges, where the classes attend only during fixed hours each day,) small sections of the whole class 18See the Preface dated 1867. 19My classes call the book "hard," but find it interesting. After a term's study, they have "brought in" compositions which I verily believe would have been impossible without this term in "Day." Many of the students, too, had "never before written a composition." will have to be taken from the other work assigned for an hour, and the instruction given to them alone. In conclusion, I would again disavow all intention of merely playing the critic. As I began these papers, so I finish them, with a reference to the actual state of the art of Composition as my apology for writing. If I contribute in any insignificant way to bringing about a revival of the art, I shall have attained my only purpose. JNO. G. R. MCELROY. NEW BOOKS. PARNASSUS: Edited by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Pp. 534. Cr. 8vo. SONGS OF THREE CENTURIES: Edited by John Greenleaf Whittier. Pp. 352. 8vo. Same publishers. THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF ENGLISH SONG: Selected, Edited and arranged, with notes, by Francis Turner Palgrave. Pp. 302. I 2mo. New York: Macmillan & Co. These three English anthologies, all of them made by poets of at least the second order, are each characterized by special merits, and each fitted to fill a different place. That by Mr. Emerson is the bulkiest book, and in every sense the most important. It grew out of his habit of transcribing into a commonplace book, for his own reference and for the use of his children, every poem which seemed to him worthy of preservation and friendship. As might be expected from the goodly show Mr. Emerson makes in his prose works of acquainatnce with out-of-the-way places in literature, there are many valuable poems in this collection which are hardly to be met with in any other modern book. But we are chiefly struck with our poet's love of the recognized masters of English song, and even his preference for the poetry of some, whose excellence is as far as possible removed from his own type of song and of thought. That Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton and Tennyson hold leading places in the number of his selections might have been expected: but that Byron, Scott and Burns should rank behind nobody but Shakespeare, does surprise us. Scott indeed he regards merely as "an accomplished rhymer, and master of the ballad ;" and "Byron's rare talent is conspicuously partial. He has not sweetness, nor knowledge, nor lofty aim. He has a rare skill for rhythm, unmatched faculty of expression, a firm, ductile thread of gold." "I do not know that his song can retain for other generations the charm it had for his contemporaries." "Wordsworth has the merit of just moral perception, but not that of deft poetic execution; .. he is really a |