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iSIacfe'S Series of S»ci)00l €zxt ^titM— continued. 
 
 BLACK'S CLASSICAL TEXTS 
 
 ODYSSEY. Book IX. Edited, with Introductions and Notes, ty 
 
 A. DoDGLAS Thomson, D.Litt. 
 
 Lecturer on Greek in the University of Ediriburgh. 
 
 In preparation. 
 
 MAN AND HIS HOME 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 
 
 By A. J. Herbertson, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., T.R.G.S. 
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 By A. T. Walden, B.Ai, New College, Oxford, and J. J. Manley 
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 In preparation, 
 
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 In preparation. 
 
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 FOR ELEMENTARY FORMS 
 
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 F. B. Kirkman, B.A. 
 
 * BLACK'S TALES FROM GERMAN HISTORY 
 
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 I. DIE ALTEN DEUTSCHEN 
 
 This volume will deal principally with the Nibelungen Saga, 
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A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
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A MANUAL 
 
 OF 
 
 ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. FOWLER, M.A. 
 
 FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD ; 
 
 ASSISTANT MASTER AT CLIFTON COLLEGE ; 
 
 EDITOR OF 
 
 * NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE* 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 
 1899 
 
\^'n<io 
 
 ■1 
 
 '7^. 
 
 H, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This little book aims at giving more systematic guidance 
 in the art of essay-writing than is usually attempted. Many 
 teachers, I am aware, are sceptical as to the value of such 
 an attempt. They feel the importance of spontaneity and 
 individuality, and they are rightly of opinion that an essay 
 cannot possess these qualities if it proceeds rigidly on lines 
 laid down for the writer by somebody else. On the other 
 hand, if must be matter of common experience that much 
 of the time spent on the writing of essays is fruitless because 
 it is aimless ; and it seems to me that, without introducing 
 any rules that would fetter individuality, something may be 
 done in several directions to make the practice of essay- 
 writing both easier and more fruitful than it is at present. 
 
 First, I believe that a good many hints on style and 
 treatment may profitably be given. Without attempting to 
 lay down arbitrary rules, one may say that there are certain 
 positive qualities which every good essay ought to possess, 
 and these may be usefully indicated. In particular, in 
 every essay which undertakes to prove anything, the argu- 
 ment ought to be clear, orderly, and logical, and hints 
 may be given on the construction and setting forth of a 
 consecutive argument. Or, again, different styles are 
 proper to different subjects, but most subjects fall into one 
 
VI A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 of half a dozen classes, and some suggestions may be made 
 as to the style proper for each class. Even those who 
 disbelieve in the value of positive hints may admit the 
 usefulness of negative cautions. The beginner may be 
 taught to avoid a good many pitfalls, and warned against 
 common mistakes ; for experience shows that the majority 
 of young writers are liable to the same kind of errors, and 
 the experience of the teacher ought here to be of some use 
 to the pupil. 
 
 Secondly, I believe that more ought to be done in the 
 way of pointing the pupil to the sources from which he 
 may obtain material. To write an essay " all out of one's 
 own head " is only a profitable exercise if the head has 
 something in it. To ask a boy who has perused little 
 beyond the "vacant chaff" of the illustrated magazines 
 and newspapers, and who has never been expected to 
 converse in any dialect but a slovenly slang, or upon any 
 subject but athletics, to write an essay upon a theme 
 entirely out of his range and without preparation, is to set 
 him an impossible task. The true preparation for essay- 
 writing ought doubtless to begin very early — in the home 
 and the preparatory- school ; in the adoption by parents 
 and schoolmasters, for themselves as well as for their 
 pupils, of a higher standard of thought and speech than 
 that which is commonly observed. But such a suggestion 
 may seem presumptuous here, and its consideration is 
 beyond my present purpose. My wish is merely to propose 
 that the pupil should more often be taught what books to 
 read for his essay and how to read them — how to assimilate 
 and not merely to " convey " ; or, again, that he should be 
 given a hint of some train of thought that he may follow 
 up for himself. The object clearly kept in view in the 
 giving of all such help should be to stimulate thought in 
 
PREFACE Vll 
 
 the pupil, not to supersede it : to save the time too 
 often spent in an aimless " moving about in worlds not 
 realised" which leads to no result, and to set it free for 
 intelligent thinking. The references which I have given 
 to the subjects in Part III will, I hope, be found useful 
 for this purpose. But I think myself specially fortunate 
 in being able to give (in Part II) a selection of the " Notes 
 for Essays " written from time to time for the Sixth Form 
 at Clifton College by Mr. S. T. Irwin. It is not for me 
 to praise their helpfulness ; they speak for themselves : 
 but I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to their 
 author for his generosity in allowing me to draw freely 
 upon his stores. The book owes much in all its parts to 
 his counsel and encouragement, and without his aid I 
 should not have ventured to undertake it at all. It will 
 be observed that the " notes " are not " skeleton outlines," 
 the utility of which seems to me open to grave question. 
 It is only right to explain that they were written to be 
 given to the Sixth Form after their own essays had been 
 produced ; but I believe that it will be found a good plan 
 to let a pupil use them as part of his material. Their 
 informal character will save them from having the cramping 
 effect of an outline, whilst their suggestiveness will set the 
 student on many fruitful tracks of thought which he would 
 not have been likely to discover for himself. 
 
 One word on the vexed question of the value of essay- 
 writing. I believe that the value varies indefinitely 
 according to the way in which it is taught and practised. 
 If some of the most unprofitable hours of school life have 
 often been those which were devoted to the production of 
 themes, it has been because the pupil had no material of 
 his own, was not put in the way of fiinding any, or perhaps 
 was given a quite unsuitable subject. Let proper care be 
 
Vlll A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 exercised in the choice of subjects ; let them be subjects 
 on which there is something to be said, and something 
 that is within the writer's reach; and the English essay 
 may be made a splendid instrument for training the 
 faculties of thought and expression. If the art of Latin 
 Prose Composition, which has hitherto been the best of 
 all instruments for developing these powers, is to be 
 practised, as seems likely, by only a small proportion of 
 those who are educated in secondary schools, it will become 
 more and more incumbent upon teachers to see that this 
 humbler method, which has the advantage of being less 
 costly in time, is not neglected. But let us remember that 
 the school essay only fulfils these high uses if we make 
 our standard and aim a high one. We are not to look 
 upon it as the first step in the training of a journalist ; but 
 as leading to a wider intelligence, clearer reasoning, and 
 a due appreciation of the resources of our language and the 
 beauty and greatness of literature. 
 
 It remains for me to acknowledge my indebtedness to 
 several friends for valuable suggestions and criticisms — 
 particularly to Mr. Walter Keatinge, Lecturer in Education 
 at Oxford, and Mr. C. H. Spence of Clifton College^ 
 
 J. H. FOWLER. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 VI. The Qualities of a Good Essay . . i 
 
 2. The Great Essayists — Are they available as 
 
 Models? ... 4 
 
 3. The Choice of Words . . 9 
 
 4. The Structure of Sentences ... 13 
 
 5. The Structure of Paragraphs : Prose Rhythm 17 
 
 6. Ornaments of Style . . 20 
 
 7. Vices of Style . . . 26 
 
 8. The Use of Quotation . . -29 
 ^ '9. The Writing of the ' Essay : Practical Hints . 32 
 
 Sects. 1-2. The Subject . '. 32 
 
 Sects. 3-5. The Beginning . ; -33 
 
 Sects. 6-9. The Middle . . • • 35 
 
 Sects, io-ii. Selection . . 37 
 
 Sect. 12. Arrangement . . -39 
 
 Sect. 13. The Conclusion . 41 
 
 10. Hints for Special Subjects . . 43 
 
 A. Historical Essays . . 43 
 
 B. Political Philosophy . 46 
 
 C. Literature ... -49 
 
 D. Moral and Social Questions . 52 
 
CHAP. 
 
 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 PART II 
 
 NOTES FOR ESSAYS 
 (contributed by Mr. S. T. Irwin) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. History (a) Ancient . 5^ 
 
 (i) Medieval and Modern . 65 
 
 2. Political Philosophy . 72 
 
 3. Literature (a) Ancient 82 
 
 (*) Modern . . 93 
 
 4. Moral and Social Questions . 105 
 
 PART III 
 SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 
 
 1. History (a) Ancient . . 115 
 
 (6) Medi/eval and Modern . . . 123 
 
 2. Political Philosophy . . 128 
 
 3. Literature (a) Ancient . 132 
 
 (A) Modern . . 138 
 
 4. Moral and Social Questions . . 144 • 
 
 5. Imitative Themes : Narratives, Speeches, Dialogues 148 
 
 6. Miscellaneous . . . 149 
 
 Appendix . . . 153 
 
 Index to Part I (Introduction) . . 161 
 
 Index to Part II (Essay-Notes) 163 
 
A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE QUALITIES OF A GOOD ESSAY 
 
 Most of us, perhaps, begin an essay with little more than 
 a hazy notion that three or four pages of foolscap, as the 
 case may be, have somehow or other to be filled with 
 remarks bearing upon the appointed subject. Let us try 
 to substitute for that hazy potion as to what is wanted a 
 more definite one ; and the task of writing will at once 
 become pleasanter and more profitable. 
 
 An essay ought to be good in two respects — matter and 
 style. The things we say ought to be true and important ; 
 and we ought to say them in the right way. These two 
 excellences — the excellence of the thing said and of the 
 way of saying it — include all others. 
 
 To write an essay without good material is like attempt- 
 ing to make bricks without straw. The nature and amount 
 of the material required varies, of course, enormously with 
 the nature of the subject set. Books are the quarry from 
 which most material is to be dug. One of the chief objects 
 
2 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 of this manual is to put the student in the way of consult- 
 ing the right books. But there are many subjects for 
 which the requisite material is not to be found in the 
 definite statements of particular books. The material is to 
 be obtained only from our general knowledge and our power 
 of intelligent judgment. If we ask where that knowledge 
 and that power are to come from, we shall most probably 
 be brought back to books again. It is by reading, and 
 thinking on what we read, that we store our mind with 
 knowledge and cultivate our power of judging. So that 
 there is no more essential counsel to be given at starting 
 than this homely one : Read wisely. Read good literature. 
 Read "the best that has been thought in the world." 
 And to this injunction may be added a second : Converse 
 wisely too, when the chance presents itself. There are 
 some ways in which conversation is of even more direct 
 help than reading. In trying to express our own ideas, we 
 make them clearer to ourselves and more consistent. In 
 trying to frame questions, we realise better what the 
 difficulties are. And, finally, our questions may obtain 
 from our friend an answer when the book which we 
 consult returns none. 
 
 Material cannot be considered good until it has been 
 operated upon by the mind. This is the process which we 
 call selection. 
 
 The virtues of style — the qualities that go to make the 
 right way of saying things — are mainly these two : clearness 
 and sincerity. Clearness implies order— the logical arrange- 
 ment of the argument, a correct division into sentences 
 and paragraphs, the words and clauses of each sentence in 
 their right place. Sincerity implies saying what you mean 
 and meaning what you say — using no words that you do 
 not understand, measuring your epithets, never repeating 
 
THE QUALITIES OF A GOOD ESSAY 3 
 
 phrases from books without due consideration, never writing 
 a sentence for the sound rather than for the sense. To 
 these two qualities a third might perhaps be added — the 
 quality of beauty or grace. But in so far as beauty or grace 
 is a thing apart from and beyond clearness and sincerity, it 
 is a quality out of reach of all but the great writers. There 
 are certain of the minor graces of style, e.g. the legitimate 
 use of simile and metaphor and other ornaments, that will 
 repay study ; and there are some of the more obvious vices 
 and tricks of bad style that should be noticed in order that 
 they may be avoided. For the most part, however, the 
 essayist will keep in the right path if he steadily remembers 
 that clearness and sincerity are themselves the two most 
 essential elements of a good and beautiful style. "The 
 style is the man " says the French proverb. In other 
 words, our style is not to be learnt from rules or imitated 
 from books ; it is to be the expression of ourselves. 
 
CHAPT.ER II 
 
 THE GREAT ESSAYISTS ARE THEY AVAILABLE AS MODELS ? 
 
 The great essayists, from Bacon to R. L. Stevenson, form 
 so important and so precious a part of English literature 
 that the question naturally suggests itself: What use can 
 we make of them ? have we not here models available for 
 our imitation? A little reflection will show that the 
 difference between the essay in literature and the scholastic 
 theme is not merely a difference in the degree of ex- 
 cellence but a difference in kind. Yet if the essential 
 difference between the two things that are called by the 
 same name be borne in mind, something may be learnt 
 from the great masters of the essay that cannot be acquired 
 so well from the reading of any other species of literature. 
 Dr. Johnson defines an essay — and, obviously, he means 
 the essay in literature — as " a loose sally of the mind ; an 
 irregular, indigested piece ; not a regular and orderly com- 
 position." The two latter definitions (which are very bad 
 ones, because they are merely negative), and perhaps the 
 first, might be said to apply to the scholastic essay as it 
 generally is, but they can hardly be said to present us with 
 an ideal. However humble our essay, we want it to be just 
 ' that which Dr. Johnson expressly excludes — a regular and 
 orderly composition. The examiner, we have been told, is 
 
THE GREAT ESSAYISTS 5 
 
 apt to resent " a loose sally of the mind." No phrase could 
 mark more admirably the contrast between the literary 
 essayist's aim and our own ; or, let it be added, the 
 difference between his rights and ours. He has the 
 privilege of genius, which we have not. His acknowledged 
 mastery of the language and his consciousness that he has 
 a gift in his hand which the world will not willingly lose 
 but must take as he chooses to bestow it — these things 
 determine his attitude to the reader and the reader's 
 attitude to him. Nothing, for instance, is more character- 
 istic of many of our best essayists (Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, 
 Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, Stevenson) than the freedom 
 with which they introduce anecdotes of their personal 
 experience or with which they express their personal 
 likings and antipathies. Such intimacies on the part of a 
 great man are a privilege conferred upon his readers, but 
 on the part of a lesser man they would be an impertinence. 
 And, generally speaking, a touch of egotism, light and 
 gracious, runs through most of the essayists and is one of 
 their most winning charms. The lesser writer not only 
 has not earned the right to be egotistical, he is not master ' 
 of the lightness and grace that alone make egotism 
 tolerable. 
 
 Lightness and grace — the two words suggest at once 
 the unattainable charm of the literary essay, its perfection 
 of ease. As we read we seem to be listening to the most 
 delightful conversation in the world. The words flow as 
 if unpremeditated. It is the mouth speaking out of the 
 fulness of the heart and brain. But though the charm is 
 unattainable, some slight portion of it may be gained by 
 steeping ourselves in those writers who have it in fullest 
 measure, and it can hardly be gained in any other way. 
 We do not want to write with the freedom of the masters 
 
6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 of literature, but we, too, should not be content without a 
 certain degree of lightness and grace. And we must 
 remember that though the great essayists seem to write 
 with an almost wilful negligence, this is only because they 
 have acquired the ars celare artem. That ease of theirs 
 was gained in most cases by consummate pains. Speaking 
 of literary eminence, the late Dr. Jowett, himself one of the 
 most perfect masters of style in his generation, has truly 
 said, "No one reaches that without immense labour," ^ 
 and R. L. Stevenson, in his delightful Memories and 
 Portraits, has told how he "played the sedulous ape" to 
 the great writers in innumerable note-books.^ 
 
 Is it possible to detect the secret of the grace that we 
 admire in the masterpieces of these writers ? One part 
 of the charm is due to the fact that they have removed from 
 their finished building all signs of the scaffolding. That is 
 one lesson which we should learn. We must not let the 
 mechanism of our essay be too apparent : all possibility of 
 literary grace is gone if we have to say " fifteenthly." 
 
 ^ JcmieWs Life, vol. i. p. 438. 
 
 ^ "Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, 
 in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which 
 there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the 
 style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was 
 unsuccessful and I knew it ; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful 
 and always unsuccessful ; but at least in these vain bouts I got some 
 practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of 
 parts. . . . 
 
 "That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have 
 profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and there was 
 never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's ; it was so, if we 
 could trace it out, that all men have learned ; and that is why a revival of 
 letters, is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier and 
 fresher models. 
 
 ' ' And it is the great point of these imitations that there still shines 
 beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him tiy as he 
 please, he is still sure of failure ; and it is a very old and a very true 
 saying that failure is the only highroad to success." — Memories and 
 Portraits, chapter iv. 
 
THE GREAT ESSAYISTS 7 
 
 Another lesson to be learnt is the lesson of unity. An 
 essay should be an artistic whole ; it should have a central 
 idea to which all its parts are subordinated. Again, we 
 may learn from observation of the great writers something 
 of those two most difficult arts — how to begin and how to 
 end gracefully. 
 
 The quality of lightness seems emphatically to be " born 
 and not made." So great a writer as Dr. Johnson, be- 
 cause he was without it, made " all his little fishes " (in 
 Goldsmith's phrase) "talk like whales." But it may be 
 cultivated by observation. We should notice, for one 
 thing, hqw carefully the essayists refrain from sermonising. 
 They do not lecture their reader ; they take him into their 
 confidence, get him on their side, and induce him to laugh 
 with them at what is foolish or contemptible. Again, 
 they prefer to suggest rather than to prove : like the 
 Platonic Socrates, they ask questions, and seem rather to 
 draw an assertion from you than to make it themselves. 
 True lightness is, of course, not to be attained without the 
 gift of humour, and whilst we remember that, we should 
 also remember that nothing is so heavy as humour that 
 is forced, unnatural or misplaced. The surest way of 
 cultivating a true taste for humour is to read the essayists, 
 especially Lamb and Thackeray ; the surest way of losing 
 all discrimination is to read the so-called comic papers. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 It is not necessary to give here a complete list of the 
 famous English essayists, but those who should first be read 
 are perhaps Steele, Addison, Goldsmith, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, 
 Hazlitt, De Quincey, R. L. Stevenson. A good selection, 
 with an excellent introduction, is Mr. J. H. Lobban's English 
 
8 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 Essays in the "Warwick Library" (Blackie). I quote his 
 definition of an essay, "A short discursive article on any 
 literary, philosophical or social subject, viewed from a personal 
 or historical standpoint " ; and his remark (with reference to 
 the titles chosen by the eighteenth-century writers) that " the 
 typical essayist must be at once a rambler, a spectator, a tatler 
 and a connoisseur." Macaulay stands somewhat apart from 
 the succession of English essayists as given above ; but as 
 the first essayist with whom most readers come in contact, 
 and as the great master of the rhetorical essay, he too should 
 be mentioned. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CHOICE OF WORDS 
 
 Words are the material of which every essay is composed, 
 and we cannot have a good essay without right words. 
 The beginner's difficulty here is Hkely to be the very 
 hmited vocabulary he uses in ordinary Hfe. If he excludes, 
 as in duty bound, the slang terms and slovenly short-cuts 
 to a meaning which are generally allowed to him in con- 
 versation, he has only a very small store of words to draw 
 upon, and he is driven to eke this out with words he has 
 encountered in poetry or with the pretentious phrases of 
 the inferior newspapers. As most of our hints about 
 diction must necessarily take the form of cautions against 
 words that ought to be avoided, they may seem to limit 
 this already small vocabulary still further. One positive 
 piece of advice should therefore be given at the outset : 
 Try to enlarge your vocabulary by reading the great prose 
 writers. It is not necessary to follow the example of 
 Rossetti, who went to the British Museum and jotted 
 down in a note-book antiquated words of a pleasing sound 
 which he might introduce into his poetry. It is not the 
 exceptional words that we want to learn, but the words 
 which, whilst they are seldom required for commonplace 
 conversation, are regularly in use amongst those who handle 
 
10 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 serious subjects. As we read the great authors their 
 vocabulary will insensibly " soak " into us. We shall 
 become familiar with their words, and with the exact use 
 of them. 
 
 To this positive advice, which is the most important 
 that can be given, the following negative cautions may be 
 added: (i) Avoid slang of any _ kind. Slang (when it is 
 not a mere following of fashion) is generally produced by 
 laziness — not taking the trouble to think what is the exact 
 word that is wanted ; and laziness, though it may be 
 forgiven in conversation, is unpardonable in essay- writing. 
 
 (2) Avoid unnecessary Latinisms. To exclude words de- 
 rived from the Latin (though William Morris practically 
 did it) would be to impoverish the English language 
 unduly. Such an experiment is only interesting as a 
 reaction from what is known (somewhat unfairly) as 
 Johnsonian English. But it is a safe rule that we should 
 never use a long or difficult word where a short or simple 
 one will do equally well; and if we follow this rule we 
 shall find ourselves using comparatively few Latinisms. 
 
 (3) Avoid purely poetic words. Do not call a " horse " a 
 " steed " or a " charger." It is true that poetic prose has 
 been written by several of the greatest English prose 
 writers, Jeremy Taylor, De Quincey, Ruskin. But, if we 
 are tempted to imitate them in this, it is well to remember 
 that " a beginner who wants to write poetic prose wishes 
 to succeed where only a few men of genius have tried, and 
 only a few of those few have succeeded " (Abbott and 
 Seeley, English Lessons, p. 98). (4) Avoid hackneyed and 
 vulgarised expressions. Some words that are good enough 
 in themselves have been " soil'd by all ignoble use,'' and 
 must be avoided, or never used in a context that will 
 suggest their baser use; e.g. "awful." Under this head 
 
THE CHOICE OF WORDS ii 
 
 come such hackneyed personifications as " Neptune " for 
 " the sea," " Morpheus " for " sleep," and such periphrases 
 as " the cup that cheers but not inebriates." Semi-jocular 
 expressions are the most offensive of all ; examples will 
 easily occur to the reader. (5) On the other hand, we 
 must equally avoid all affectation of unusual speech. Even 
 great writers are apt to fall into mannerisms, which are 
 intolerable when they are caught up and repeated without 
 discrimination. The fashion of the moment is to imitate 
 the mannerisms of R. L. Stevenson ; thirty or forty years 
 ago people reproduced the mannerisms of Macaulay or 
 Carlyle. (6) Do not be afraid of tautology. The one desire 
 of the indifferent journalist is to avoid using the same 
 word twice. This desire is the most fertile source of all the 
 faults mentioned above. The true remedy for monotony 
 is not variety of words but variety of ideas. No great 
 writer is ever afraid of tautology. If he has occasion to 
 repeat an idea, he repeats the word fearlessly. Listen 
 to Coleridge : 
 
 The western wave was all aflame, 
 
 The day was well-nigh done ! 
 
 Almost upon the western wave 
 
 Rested the broad bright Sun ; 
 
 When that strange shape drove suddenly 
 
 Betwixt us and the Sun. 
 
 And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, 
 
 (Heaven's Mother send us grace !) 
 
 As if through a dungeon grate he peered 
 
 With broad and burning face.^ 
 
 (7) Avoid fine writing, rhetorical or journalistic phrases, 
 
 1 On the other hand, a descriptive periphrasis is useful, when it gives 
 fresh information or reminds the reader of a characteristic that is important 
 in the context : e.g. ' ' Goldsmith's difference with Garrick had long been 
 adjusted, and the Drury Lane manager v/ou\d now probably have accepted 
 
12 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 or any expressions whose meaning you have not fully 
 thought out. When we find ourselves on the point of 
 using any high-sounding expression, let us pause a moment 
 and consider whether we have any meaning that could 
 not be expressed quite simply. (8) Avoid all incongruity 
 of association. Words have a history ; and we must re- 
 member not merely their derivation and meaning but the 
 associations they call up. Foreigners are, of course, 
 specially liable to fall into mistakes of incongruity from 
 ignorance of the associations of words,^ but instances occur 
 frequently in the writings of youthful essayists at home. 
 
 Finally, in all attempts to improve the language of our 
 essay, we should bear in mind this great principle : Dignity 
 must cojne from the thoughts, not from the words. Let our 
 words be the clear and natural expression of our meaning, 
 not drapery to adorn or conceal it. 
 
 a new play from his pen, especially as that astute observer had already 
 detected signs of a reaction in the public taste." This is something quite 
 different from the inferior journalist's passion for "the sage of Chelsea" 
 as a circumlocution for " Carlyle. " 
 
 ' An English bishop in India was addressed by a native as "Almighty 
 and spanking Sir." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES 
 
 In the construction of sentences these three virtues of 
 style should constantly be kept in view : ( i ) clearness^ 
 (2) variety, (3) right emphasis. 
 
 (i) Clearness. Avoid ambiguities of all kinds. If the 
 antecedent of a relative or personal pronoun is doubtful, 
 re-write your sentence, and, if necessary, substitute a noun 
 for the pronoun. 1 If it is possible to misunderstand your 
 sentence by taking an adverb or participle or other word 
 as qualifying the wrong member of the sentence, a little 
 rearrangement will generally get rid of the ambiguity.- 
 
 (2) Variety. Sentences are either long or short, complex 
 or simple ; and the long complex sentence is either 
 periodic, in which the sense is not completed until the end 
 of the sentence, or loose, in which qualifying clauses are 
 
 1 An article on "The Bye-ways of Journalism" in Cornhill, March 
 1899, quotes the following from a Glasgow newspaper's account of a 
 shipwreck ; ' ' The captain swam ashore, and succeeded in also saving the 
 life of his wife. She was insured in the Northern Marine Insurance 
 Company for ;^5000, and carried a full cargo of cement." 
 
 "^ The same article provides the following example from a report of an 
 accident: "The unfortunate victim was taken to Guy's Hospital, where 
 he now lies, progressing favourably, although he is sedulously attended 
 by Dr. J. R. Rolsertson, the resident surgeon, and some of the leading 
 members of the medical staff." (How ought this sentence to be re-written?) 
 
14 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 " tacked on " to the end of the principal clause.^ Each 
 kind of sentence has certain disadvantages, if it is used 
 too continuously. A long series o. very short or very 
 long sentences is monotonous and wearisome. A succes- 
 sion of periodic sentences involves a constant strain upon 
 the attention of the reader, because he cannot take in 
 the drift of the sentence as he goes along, but has to carry 
 everything in his mind till he is given the key to the 
 meaning in the final word. A succession of loose sentences, 
 with qualifying clauses following, is apt to present a slovenly 
 appearance. A good style, though it may tend to use 
 one sort of sentence rather than another, will combine 
 the several kinds judiciously. 
 
 (3) Right emphasis. This depends partly on having 
 the words in each sentence in their right order, partly on 
 dividing the sentences at the right points. The em- 
 phatic places in each sentence are the beginning and 
 the end. Special emphasis is obtained by putting a 
 word out of its natural order in the sentence ; this 
 device should only be used occasionally.^ Under the 
 second head, the right division of sentences, come such 
 questions as the choice between a subordinate clause and 
 a fresh sentence ; the use of parentheses ; the choice be- 
 tween a comma, a colon, and a full stop. No definite 
 rules can be given on such points, and the principle of 
 variety, already mentioned, must be allowed weight in the 
 decision. But right emphasis requires that a principal 
 s-tatement should be given in a principal sentence ; that 
 
 ' A good example of the periodic sentence will be found in the extract 
 from Philemon Holland (No. i in Appendix). Any modern writer will 
 furnish examples of ho^e structure. 
 
 2 Example : — " Low he lies, to whom the proudest used to kneel once, 
 and who was cast lower than the poorest ; dead, whom millions prayed 
 for in vain " (Thackeray). 
 
THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES 15 
 
 a parenthesis should not be used very often, and that, 
 when it is used, it should convey a statement that is 
 strictly " by the way " ; that a full stop should mark all 
 the natural halting- places in the narrative or argument.^ 
 The same principle of right emphasis suggests the rule 
 that when several consecutive sentences or clauses iterate 
 or illustrate the same idea, they should, as far as possible, 
 be formed alike.^ 
 
 NOTE 
 
 It would be a good exercise in the structure of sentences 
 and choice of words to re-write in intelligible English the 
 following extracts from a resolution, which appeared in the 
 Cheltenham Examiner, 3rd August 1898, and were set for 
 criticism and correction in the Trinity College, Clare College 
 and Trinity Hall Scholarship Examination, November 1898 : — 
 
 " The notices in question were issued, first, in consequence 
 of no permission being sought to hunt over his estate, and 
 secondly, because the meets of the beagles were not advertised, 
 and no opportunity was allowed for the protection of farming 
 interests, more particularly in regard to the care of stock, which 
 is the case with duly advertised meets, and thirdly, that no 
 opportunity is afforded to gentlemen to join in the sport, if no 
 previous notice is given to those living in the locality. . . . 
 
 " The Committee therefore unhesitatingly expressed their 
 sincere regret at this most unfortunate incident, doubtless 
 prompted in the interests of agriculture, but, nevertheless, 
 
 ' The full stop ' ' indicates that the construction is complete, and that 
 an assertion has been fully made ; though other sentences in the same 
 paragraph may follow to modify the thought." The colon "generally 
 indicates that the sentence might grammatically be regarded as finished, 
 but that something follows without which the full force of the remark 
 would be lost." The ■ semicolon "is used similarly, but it indicates a 
 closer connection in the clause that follows." The comma "represents 
 the shortest natural pause in reading or speaking the sentence." — Prof. 
 Nichol, Primer of English Composition, pp. 9-10. 
 
 ^ Passage No. 4 in Appendix illustrates this. 
 
i6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 being oblivious to the ill-feeling it would be certain to engender, 
 as emanating from a hunting man and the member of a Hunt 
 Committee. 
 
 " In conclusion, the Committee hope that the action they 
 have taken will tend to allay all future ill-feeling and complete 
 harmony will be restored in the district." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF PARAGRAPHS 
 
 Every essay is, or should be, divided into three parts — 
 a beginning, a middle and end. The beginning and end 
 will naturally each require a separate paragraph; the middle 
 may consist of one or more paragraphs, according to the 
 length of the essay and the nature of the subject. Here 
 again it is impossible to give definite rules; but the beginner 
 is apt, either to use no paragraphs at all or to divide his 
 essay into too many. Rightly used, these divisions are a 
 great help to the clearness and force of an argument. They 
 mark, more emphatically than a full stop, the larger breaks 
 in the sense : the introduction of a new subject, or new 
 point of view, or the advance to a fresh step either of 
 argument or narrative. But they must be reserved strictly 
 for this purpose, not employed where a full stop marks the 
 break sufficiently. A short essay will seldom require more 
 than three or four paragraphs altogether. 
 
 Each paragraph should, as far as possible, be a separate 
 whole: in other words, it should have a central thought 
 which gives it unity, and it should develope that thought 
 with a certain completeness.^ The first sentence of a 
 
 ^ A good test of the unity of a paragraph is this : Can its main sub- 
 stance be compressed into a single sentence ? 
 
ts a manual of essay-writing 
 
 paragraph requires special care. It has a backward as 
 well as a forward connection — linking on the old subject 
 as well as introducing the new. The difficulty of managing 
 the transition neatly is increased in English by the absence 
 of those connecting particles which are used so freely in 
 Latin and Greek. But almost any word (especially if it is 
 repeated from a previous sentence) can mark a connection, 
 if it is made emphatic by its position.^ 
 
 Much may be learnt, on all the points contained in this 
 and the previous chapter, by the careful study of a few 
 pages in any great writer. Note especially when he begins 
 a new paragraph, and what his final and opening sentences 
 are in each case. 
 
 PROSE RHYTHM 
 
 Prose has its rhythms as well as verse. It is quite 
 possible, by a study of the specially impressive periods of 
 great orators or historians, to construct an elaborate theory 
 as to the cadences that are most pleasing in English prose. 
 But probably few even of the most careful and painstaking 
 writers of prose have formed their style upon any such 
 theory. They have been guided to the right rhythms by 
 the possession of a good ear, or by the unconscious imita- 
 tion of rhythms that have pleased them in their predecessors, 
 (i) The reading aloud of passages from the great writers 
 is a very helpful exercise ; and many will find it a good 
 plan to put their own sentences to a similar test in the 
 process of composition. (2) Care must be taken to avoid 
 
 1 " It is scarcely surprising that Goldsmith . . . should engage in 
 that most tantalising of all enterprises, the pursuit of dramatic success " 
 (end of paragraph). ' ' For acting and actors he had always shown a 
 decided partiality" (beginning of next paragraph). In this example (from 
 Mr. Austin Dobson) the connection is marked by the emphatic position of 
 "for acting and actors," repeating the idea, though not the actual word, 
 " dramatic," 
 
THE STRUCTURE OF PARAGRAPHS 19 
 
 the rhythms of verse. The temptation to slip unconsciously 
 into blank-verse or the lilt of Locksley Hall or the Lays of 
 Ancient Rome should be sternly resisted. Such sentences as 
 "So this city of the waters, like Tyre of old, grew strong," 
 or "Where sandy deserts stretched for many a mile," are 
 neither prose nor poetry.^ (3) The principle of variety in 
 the structure of sentences has been already mentioned 
 (Chapter IV). It is of the utmost importance for the 
 writing of rhythmical prose. (4) Special care should be 
 taken to avoid ending successive sentences with the same 
 word or with a similar sound. Nor should consecutive 
 sentences be accidentally begun in the same way; the 
 reiteration of the same word in this prominent place 
 ought only to be admitted for the sake of emphasis. (5) 
 The recurrence of similar sounds (whether whole words 
 or merely terminations) in the same sentence often has 
 an unpleasant effect ; e.g. " I feel myself impressed with 
 the idea in my breast." To avoid this, another word 
 should be substituted: as Thackeray substitutes "un- 
 timely " for " before her time " in the sentence, " The 
 darling of his old age killed before him untimely," and 
 Milton "impendent '' for " impending " in " Lest the wrath 
 impendent, raging into sudden flame." 
 
 ' Oratorical and poetical prose both aim deliberately at an impressive- 
 ness of sound, and therefore approach more nearly than ordinary prose to 
 the rhythms of poetry. Whole sentences in some of the finest passages 
 of Modern Painters are verses faintly disguised: e.g. "Pride of I 
 piirple I rbcks, and | river | pools of [bliie, ||andt^n| der wfl| derndss|ofgl(t | 
 tering trfes 1 1 and m(s | ty lights | of ^ven | ing 6n | immeis | urA | ble hills. " 
 But such examples are not for ordinary use. It should be remembered 
 that prose is speech, and poetry song ; the rhythm of the second is melody, 
 of the first only harmony. How is this harmony to be gained ? Accord- 
 ing to Prof. Saintsbury, in the carefully written prose of the eighteenth 
 century the principle is generally observed that ' ' the cadence as well as 
 the sense of a sentence should rise gradually towards the middle, should, 
 if necessai-y, continue there on a level for a brief period, and should then 
 descend in a gradation corresponding to its ascent." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ORNAMENTS OF STYLE 
 
 I. Metaphor. — Canon Ainger once wittily paraphrased 
 the instructions of the editor of the Dictionary of National 
 Biography to his contributors by the sentence : " No 
 flowers, by request." The caution may well be laid to 
 heart. However much we may despise florid writing in 
 theory (and most of us conscientiously believe that we do 
 despise it) the probability is that we shall be more florid 
 than we ought to be when we begin to write. Are flowers 
 of speech, then, a blemish of style ? Certainly not, if they 
 are properly used ; but the ornaments of style are just the 
 things which require the greatest skill and experience to 
 introduce wisely, and it is better not to aim at them at all 
 until the essentials of a reasonably good style have been 
 secured. Still metaphor, the chief ornament of style, 
 cannot be avoided altogether. Even if we think we 
 have excluded it, we shall find on reflection that we have 
 used it freely, as M. Jourdain found that he had talked 
 prose all his life without knowing it. For language, even 
 commonplace language, is full of unconscious metaphor, 
 of words that have been transferred from one application 
 to another. When a metaphor has reached this stage, it 
 practically ceases to be a metaphor, and may be used 
 
ORNAMENTS OF STYLE 21 
 
 fearlessly in its derived or applied sense. But judgment 
 is necessary to determine when this stage has been reached. 
 The metaphor which is unconscious to the writer may 
 raise a lively and ludicrous image in the mind of the 
 reader. When Sir Boyle Roche uttered his famous threat, 
 " I smell a rat, Mr. Speaker ; I see it floating in the air ; 
 but I'll nip it in the bud,'' he was doubtless surprised that 
 its effect was to convulse his audience with laughter. A 
 bad metaphor, or an incongruous mixture of metaphors, 
 is nearly always due to the failure of the writer or speaker 
 to realise the image which his words convey. Taking 
 pains to realise each metaphor as it is used will generally 
 preserve any writer, who possesses a tolerable sense of 
 humour, from absurdity. But often some knowledge of 
 the history of words is necessary to make this realisation 
 of metaphors possible. If we are content with the loose 
 and hazy notion of the meaning of words, which is obtained 
 from the careless reading of indifferent journals, we are 
 always liable to go astray. 
 
 Such rules as can be given for the use of metaphor are 
 chiefly negative, (i) Avoid stale, ovenvorked metaphors — 
 phrases that have not entirely lost their metaphorical 
 character by constant use, but yet have ceased to raise any 
 fresh, attractive image in the mind of the reader. It is best 
 not to write about " the flames of sedition " or " the terrible 
 thunders of excommunication " or " the gathering shadows 
 of a political storm," if a simpler expression will answer 
 the purpose. (2) Avoid an incongruous mixture of meta- 
 phors, e.g. '■'^ Ks, a politician Cicero was a trimmer to the 
 core." " Bitter ie3.\ousy of one another, blazing often into 
 war, sapped the prosperity of the Italian republics." " He 
 plumbs untold depths ; he often raises a lump in the 
 throat " (intended by a reviewer as a compliment to a 
 
22 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 pathetic writer), is unhappy as suggesting an operation by 
 an unskilful surgeon. (3) Take care that your metaphors are 
 in keeping with th^ tone of their context. A too homely 
 metaphor will easily destroy the dignity of a whole passage. 
 As a rule a metaphor ought slightly to raise the tone 
 rather than lower it — to suggest a comparison with some- 
 thing loftier, not humbler, than the subject. Still care 
 should be taken to avoid a too pretentious metaphor. 
 When a local reporter describes the flooding of " Marine 
 Parade " as "a great marine revolt against our local require- 
 ments of tidal flow,'' we feel that the bombastic expression, 
 instead of impressing us with the dignity of the Town 
 Council, recaUs the picture of Mrs. Partington keeping 
 back the ocean with her broom. (4) Avoid unnecessary 
 metaphors. If a sentence gains nothing either in clearness 
 or accuracy by the use of a metaphor, it is better to 
 reject it. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be remembered that to 
 discourage metaphor unduly is to impoverish thought 
 and to impoverish language. The great imaginative 
 writer is distinguished from the commonplace one by 
 nothing more than by the fertility and freshness of 
 his metaphors. But he realises them all : each thought 
 comes to him with the freshness of a picture, and his 
 style is "vivid" and "picturesque" in the best sense of 
 the term. It is not excess in the true use of metaphors 
 that is to be deprecated — for such excess is perhaps 
 only to be found once in a few centuries, in a youthful 
 Shakespeare or Keats — but the excess to which the 
 imaginative writer is prone when he tries to hide the 
 poverty of his ideas under a cloak of finer words. 
 
 2. Simile. — Formal similes (in which a comparison is 
 not merely implied, as in a metaphor, but fully expressed) 
 
ORNAMENTS OF STYLE 23 
 
 are rare in prose. Their chief use is in highly rhetoricar 
 or poetical passages. There can seldom be any reason for 
 introducing them into an essay. If they are to be in- 
 troduced, it should be remembered that a simile repeated 
 at second-hand has no merit and no literary value, unless 
 it is given frankly as a quotation. To be meritorious, a 
 simile should be original in its application, and it should 
 describe something in the essayist's own experience or/' 
 observation, or reading of history or fiction. 
 
 3. Alliteration properly belongs to poetry, but it 
 is used in rhetorical and poetical prose. In highly 
 elaborated prose, as often in poetry, very subtle allitera- 
 tive effects are noticeable, as in the " m " and " 1 " 
 sounds which pervade Ruskin's sentence about " mighty 
 mountain symphonies, soon to be more loudly lifted 
 and wildly broken along the battlements of the Alps." 
 In such a sentence the alHteration is not confined to the 
 first letter of a word, and the effect is not the less real 
 because it may be partly unintentional — the result of an 
 instinctive, rather than a deliberate, choice of the right 
 musical sound. These triumphs of alliteration may be 
 admired, but can hardly be imitated ; and the more cheap 
 and obvious uses of alliteration — too familiar in newspaper 
 headlines — should be rejected with contempt. 
 
 4. Balance of words and clauses was the favourite 
 literary device of Lord Macaulay. Overdone in his 
 writings, and still more in the writings and speeches of the 
 generation that admired and imitated his prose, its use 
 has provoked a reaction in favour of a less formal and less 
 artificial style. But the figure is by no means wholly con- 
 temptible ; when employed with judicious moderation it is 
 capable of imparting a dignity and a finish which are too 
 often conspicuously absent from modern prose. If, how- 
 
24 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 ever, the second member of the sentence can be cancelled 
 without injury to the meaning, it is evident that the device 
 has been wrongly used. Two kinds may be distinguished 
 — (a) balance with antithesis, where there is a contrast 
 between the two words or clauses, e.g. " He looked like a 
 great man and not like a bad man " ; (b) balance without 
 antithesis, where the chief effect is additional emphasis or 
 an ampler roll of the sentence, e.g. " He had ruled an 
 extensive and populous country and made laws and treaties, 
 had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down 
 princes." 
 
 5. Climax. — Both in a sentence and a paragraph it is 
 obvious that the total impression will be greater if the 
 strongest epithet, the most telling fact, the most convincing 
 argument, is kept to the last. To arrange the words in 
 any other order is to weaken the impression, because the 
 final words are those that naturally remain longest in the 
 mind of the reader or hearer. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 A few examples of the ornaments of style from English 
 prose writers are added. 
 
 (i) Metaphor. — Compounding all the materials of fury, 
 havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for awhile 
 on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all 
 these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on the menacing 
 meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst and 
 poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the 
 Carnatic. — Burke on Hyder Ali {Oratorical Prose). 
 
 The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was con- 
 demned to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the Senate, or 
 to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or 
 the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent 
 despair. — Gibbon {Historical Prose). 
 
ORNAMENTS OF STYLE 25 
 
 (2) Metaphor and Simile. — A dull purple, poisonous haze 
 stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks 
 (metaphors) of mossy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests 
 like lying fire on defiled altars (simile). Watchtowers (meta- 
 phor) of dark clouds stand steadfastly (metaphor) along the 
 promontories of the Apennines. From the plain to the moun- 
 tains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into 
 the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral 
 mourners passing from a nation's grave (simile). — Ruskin 
 {Poetical Prose'). 
 
 (3) Alliteration. — Its forests are jombre-Zeaved, /abyrinth- 
 jtemmed. — Ruskin. 
 
 ZJead wall, rfark railing, /enced /ield, ^ted ^rden, all 
 passed away like the dream of a prisoner ; and behold, _/ar as 
 ybot.or eye can ;ace or ^^nge, the moor and cloud. — Ruskin. 
 
 (4) Balance with antithesis. — These are the old friends 
 who are never seen with new faces, who are the same in wealth 
 and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. — Macaulay. 
 
 Balance without antithesis. — With the dead there is no 
 rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never 
 sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never 
 comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long. No 
 difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy 
 can excite the horror of Bossuet. — Macaulay (the same passage 
 continued). 
 
 (5) Climax. — See a good example combining antithesis and 
 climax in the Appendix, No. IV. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 VICES OF STYLE 
 
 If the chief virtues of style are, as was said in Chapter I, 
 clearness and sincerity, the chief vices of style are obscurity 
 and insincerity. Obscurity is not always a vice in a writer. 
 It will be found, for example, in a great philosopher who 
 is struggling to express ideas for which language provides 
 no adequate expression. But obscurity, as we meet with 
 it on the humbler level of the school essay, is always a 
 vice. It arises from one of two causes. Sometimes the 
 failure is merely one of expression. The writer knows 
 what he wants to say, but he has failed to bring out his 
 meaning. This fault can be corrected by a study of the 
 principles of orderly arrangement and the proper structure 
 of sentences and paragraphs. But often the expression is 
 obscure because the thought is not clear in the writer's 
 mind. This is the worst kind of obscurity — " the lie in 
 the soul," as Plato would call it. It can only be cured by 
 honest thinking. 
 
 Literary insincerity takes innumerable forms. Only 
 some of the most common can be mentioned here. The 
 many varieties of fine writing are all forms of insincerity. 
 They are all ways of dressing up the thought to make it 
 appear grander than it really is. When the thought is 
 
VICES OF STYLE 27 
 
 obscure to the writer himself, he may sometimes, by 
 wrapping it up in pretentious language, persuade himself 
 that he is really giving utterance to something very pro- 
 found. To do this is to cultivate "the lie in the soul," 
 and is the worst of all literary insincerities. More often 
 fine writing is due to a foolish notion that longer or less' 
 usual words are grander, and therefore more literary, than 
 the short words in common use. This idea is universal 
 amongst inferior journalists, and from them it spreads to 
 all who take their notions of culture from journalism. 
 Thus a railway porter, who has spoken of the " back part " 
 of the train to his mate, will be careful to say " rear por- 
 tion '' when he addresses a first-class passenger. Some of 
 the common forms of fine writing have already been men- 
 tioned in connection with the choice of words (Chapter 
 III) and the use of metaphors (Chapter VI). To these 
 may be added (i) the illegitimate use of picturesque ex- 
 pressions. When such expressions are truthful, they add to 
 the charm and vividness of a narrative ; but when they 
 are mere exaggerations they become tasteless and offensive : 
 e.g. "The very gutters were choked with Flemish blood." 
 (2) The use of the historic present, common in many 
 languages, is seldom natural in English. " As he uttered 
 these words, he rushed forward, and seizing in his power- 
 ful arms a sheaf of the spears directed against him, en- 
 tangled them in his own body, and expired with them in 
 his grasp," is better in every way than the same sentence 
 with its verbs in the present tense. (3) Other marks of 
 the " forcible-feeble " style, the style which is always trying 
 to call attention to what it says by an emphatic way of 
 saying it, are the excessive use of italics and capitals, and 
 a fondness for rhetorical questions and notes of excla- 
 mation. 
 
28 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 A more hateful vice than fine writing is tlie so-called 
 realism of the modern journalist. To say " casualty " for 
 '' accident " is bad enough, but to write " railway smash " 
 is far worse. The old-fashioned journalist wrote as if he 
 had some sense, though a mistaken one, of the dignity of 
 his profession ; the newer type of journalist seems to be 
 entirely without this self-respect. The love of a peri- 
 phrasis is still with him, but he likes it best when it is 
 gruesome ; and whereas his predecessor would have 
 described an old gentleman as " now declining into the 
 sere and yellow leaf" or as " having passed the span of life 
 allotted by the Psalmist," the new has been known to write 
 him down as "on the cemetery side of seventy." ■"■ 
 
 ^ This phrase was actually inserted as a correction in a contributor's 
 article by the editor of a Northern newspaper. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE USE OF QUOTATION 
 
 In the course of essay-writing several questions, not always 
 easy to answer, may arise with regard to the use of quota- 
 tion. The practice of good writers varies so indefinitely 
 in this matter that it would be absurd to lay down arbitrary 
 rules ; but a few hints may be given. It should perhaps 
 be premised that their object is not to solve the doubts of 
 the dishonest casuist who wishes to know how closely he 
 may follow his authority without the confession of inverted 
 commas, but to aid in removing more legitimate perplexities. 
 Deliberately to take a sentence from an author and 
 serve it up, with the phraseology slightly altered, as one's 
 own is, in plain English, stealing. It is necessary to say 
 this emphatically, because the beginner, even the con- 
 scientious beginner, is apt to start with the notion that this 
 is the way to use the authorities to which he is referred. 
 To paraphrase a sentence from an author is almost 
 invariably to substitute a bad sentence for a good one, but 
 it does not make the sentence our own. What, then, are 
 we to do ? What is the use of reading if we are not to 
 reproduce what we read ? The answer is that if we make 
 sure that we understand what we read and then allow 
 sufficient time to elapse before writing our essay, what 
 
30 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 we read becomes our own by the mysterious process of 
 assimilation ; the author's thought passes into ours ; we 
 have not stolen something, but learnt it, and it is ours to 
 use freely. There will be no question now of altering 
 phraseology; the precise words that we have read are 
 forgotten, but the essential thought remains. 
 
 On the other hand, we shall often come across sentences 
 in our authorities that it is desirable to quote verbatim. 
 This is especially the case with definitions, which need 
 to be stated carefully and accurately. These are things 
 to be treasured up and remembered in the precise form 
 that a good writer has given to them. Again, a sentence 
 may be quoted because, though not a definition, it is 
 perfect and final' in its literary form. It is the especial 
 privilege of the poet to cast his thought in moulds so 
 perfect that they seem (as was said of Virgil) to have been 
 prepared for him from the foundation of the world ; but 
 that distinction is sometimes, though less commonly, 
 attained in prose. To quote such noble expressions is not 
 merely to do homage to their perfection ; it is also to adorn 
 our own essay. One incidental use of such quotations 
 is to invest our essay in a humble degree with the charm 
 of literary association — the same charm which cultured 
 readers of Virgil and Milton find in their Hterary epithets 
 and allusions. Or a quotation may be of some saying 
 memorable from the occasion on which it was first uttered 
 — like Galileo's "And yet it moves," or Philip's "Time 
 and myself are two," or Louis the Fourteenth's " L'Etat 
 c'est moi." 
 
 Sometimes a quotation is to be given, not so much for 
 what it is in itself, but for the source from which it comes. 
 We strengthen our case by an appeal to an authority 
 whose verdict will be respected ; and we give his exact 
 
THE USE OF QUOTATION 31 
 
 words to prove that we are not misrepresenting his 
 opinion. 
 
 Excessive quotation is generally due to one of three 
 causes, against each of which a word of caution may be 
 useful, (i) Laziness. Be sure that you do not quote 
 simply to save the trouble of understanding what you read 
 and properly assimilating it. (2) Ostentation. Never quote 
 to display the depth or variety of your reading. Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy is perhaps the most conspicuous 
 example of this vice in English literature, but there have 
 been many less famous offenders. (3) Diffidence. This is 
 a more pleasing fault, but it is a fault nevertheless, in 
 literature as well as in life. We must learn to form our 
 own opinions, and not to trust at every step to external 
 authority. The literary objection to excessive quotation 
 may be put briefly thus : every quotation calls off attention 
 from the direct progress of the argument to some extraneous 
 consideration : it is only justified, therefore, if the value 
 of the extraneous consideration overbalances this dis- 
 advantage. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE WRITING OF THE ESSAY : PRACTICAL HINTS 
 
 I. The first essential is that the essay should be on the 
 subject that is set, and not on something else. We must 
 be sure therefore, at starting, that we have a clear and 
 definite idea what the subject is. In some cases, of course, 
 the subject is so simple that there is hardly a possibility of 
 mistake ; but where the subject takes the form of a lengthy 
 question, and even sometimes where it is only a word or a 
 phrase, it is too possible to jump to the conclusion that 
 we know what we are meant to write about when really 
 we have something quite different from the true subject 
 in our minds.^ 
 
 The title, then, should be carefully read. Observe any 
 qualifying words : these are to be noted as carefully as a 
 lawyer would note them if they occurred in a will. In par- 
 ticular, notice any unusual word or expression?' It may be 
 
 1 It is hardly a superfluous caution to recommend the copying out of 
 the exact title. Many a hopelessly irrelevant essay has owed its irrelevance 
 to the fact that the writer began by copying out a shortened and inaccurate 
 form of the subject and proceeded to write upon that. 
 
 ^ A careless reading of the question (Part III. No. 322), " How is 
 the influence of natural scenery affected . . ? " would perhaps result 
 in an essay on "How are we affected by the influence of natiural scenery? ' ' 
 — a more familiar but a very different subject._Againjjn{^o. 201, every- 
 thing depends upon the word "form " ; an essay on the " matter " of the 
 dialogues would be irrelevant. 
 
THE WRITING OF THE ESSAY 33 
 
 a mere synonym, substituted for the ordinary form for 
 novelty's sake, but the probabihty is, if the question is well 
 set, that there is a reason for the variation ; the whole 
 question may turn upon a difference that seems insignificant 
 on a first careless reading. 
 
 2. If the subject is a quotation, we need not hastily 
 assume that it contains a true statement.^ Let us examine 
 it dispassionately before we begin to write. If the dictum 
 is obscure, we should explain it before we discuss its truth. 
 If it is ambiguous, we must distinguish carefully the differ- 
 ent meanings it may bear, and leave no doubt about the 
 meaning which we select for the purpose of our own 
 essay.^ 
 
 3. An essay has naturally three parts — beginning, 
 middle and end. The second is the main part of the 
 essay ; the first and third parts should, as a rule, be quite 
 short. It may be well to marshal our ideas and arguments 
 before we decide how to begin. The best opening is 
 often one that suggests itself when we are not looking 
 out for it. 
 
 4. As to the beginning, we have to avoid two com- 
 mon mistakes. We must take care (a) not to make 
 the only important statement of our essay, or set out the 
 only important argument, in the first sentence. If we d( 
 that, the whole of the rest of our essay becomes a 
 superfluity; we argue in a circle, and have advanced no 
 farther at the end than we were at starting. We must 
 equally beware of (b) beginning too far away from our 
 main subject. The epic poet, we are told, must plunge 
 
 ^ Nos. 169, 171, 199, 219, 222, 324 in Part III, all contain disput- 
 able assertions. 
 
 ^ In the two subjects, " As manners make laws, manners likewise 
 repeal them," and " True wit is nature to advantage dressed " (Part II. 
 Nos. 24 and 46), the italicised words are obscure or ambiguous. 
 
 3 
 
34 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 at once tnedias in res, lest he weary his readers before he 
 has got their attention. To some extent this counsel 
 applies to the essayist also. He too wants to arrest his 
 reader's attention at starting, and to fix it at once upon 
 the subject in hand, not upon some subject two or three 
 degrees removed firom the real one. Our introduction, 
 then, must be brief, interesting (if possible), and without 
 covering or exhausting the theme, must have close relation to it. 
 A point of difference between the essay as we find it in 
 literature and the less ambitious scholastic exercise may be 
 remarked here.^ The literary essayist is his own master. 
 He has leave to treat his theme as he pleases — play with 
 it, wander from it, do what he will with it so long as he 
 interests us. If he gains and keeps our interest, he has 
 the justification of success. But he must interest, or he 
 will have no readers. We, on the other hand, are secure 
 of our reader, the long-suffering examiner. He does not 
 ask us to interest him; he only asks us to write to the 
 point. Hence we are hardly entitled to use the hcence of 
 the literary essayist who begins with story or epigram or 
 phrase cunningly devised to catch the eye, and often 
 shows his skill by the revelation of some subtle or fanciful 
 connection between his chosen starting-point and the 
 actual theme. Such fanciful beginnings need not be 
 forbidden to us, if we know how to manage them. But 
 they involve, as a rule, an accurate literary taste that only 
 comes with experience and are not to be attempted with 
 too light a heart. They also generally require space, and 
 therefore we are debarred from using them unless we are 
 embarking on a fairly long essay. Otherwise our introduc- 
 tion will be disproportionate to the main part of our com- 
 position. 
 
 ^ See also Chapter II. 
 
THE WRITING OF THE ESSAY 35 
 
 5. One further hint about beginnings may be useful. 
 There are two ways of unfolding an argument, the logical 
 and the natural. The logical order is the more strictly 
 correct, the more exhaustive and the more convincing ; 
 it is also the more artificial and the less interesting. The 
 natural order, is the order of argument in conversation. 
 In an informal discussion with a friend we begin with the 
 first point that occurs to us, and the order in which 
 subsequent points are taken is more or less haphazard, 
 one point suggesting another as the discussion proceeds. 
 There is no arrangement at all, except perhaps in a 
 " summing-up " at the close. So in writing an essay we 
 may imitate the chance beginning of conversation. But 
 if our essay is conversational, it must be the dignified 
 and orderly conversation of the philosopher's porch that 
 furnishes our model. 
 
 6. The middle, the body of the essay, is, however, the 
 most important part. How are we to treat that? We 
 have, let us suppose, satisfied ourselves by careful thought 
 (§1) that we understand what our subject is; but it does 
 not therefore follow that we know what to say about it. 
 If we are without adequate knowledge, we must acquire it 
 by reading. But it is sadly possible to be in too great a 
 hurry to read. Reading about a subject before we have 
 thought it over for ourselves is the surest way of produc- 
 ing a merely second-hand essay. If we begin by reading 
 what an experienced writer has said on our subject we 
 are almost certain to follow him tamely — not merely to 
 reproduce his views but to adopt the order of his argu- 
 ments. We must make it an invariable rule to think for 
 ourselves first, however inadequate our knowledge, however 
 untrained our judgment. This is the great secret of 
 independence and originality. After we have thought for 
 
36 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 ourselves, we may read as widely and deeply as we like — 
 the wider and deeper the better. Reading at this stage 
 will strengthen instead of weakening us. Even if it upsets 
 all the conclusions we had tentatively formed for our- 
 selves, we shall have made the new conclusions our own, 
 assimilating them in a way that is impossible without 
 previous thought. 
 
 This sort of preparation for the reading, which is 
 itself to be a preparation for writing, takes time, and it 
 may at first sight seem so unfruitful that we shall be strongly 
 tempted to omit it. Our mind, we feel, is a tabula rasa 
 on the subject of the essay ; the natural and easy plan is 
 to fly to a book for ideas. We may brace ourselves for 
 what seems an irksome and even useless duty by reflecting 
 that, if we succeed in writing an essay without putting 
 into it any thought of our own, we have lost at least 
 three parts of the intellectual training that the writing of 
 the essay was meant to give. That is a sufficiently serious 
 consideration, or will be when, in years to come, we look 
 back upon our training and ask what it did for us. 
 Essay-writing will do much for us, but only if we do not 
 shirk the duty of thinking. And in nine cases out of ten 
 our mind is not such a tabula rasa as we imagined when 
 we first read the subject given to us. Ten minutes' 
 patient thinking will probably draw out some ideas that 
 are worth following up. The chief value of an essay, both 
 intrinsically and as a piece of training, lies in its being an 
 expression of a bit of yourself. Think first, and it will be 
 this. Read first, and the chances are that there wUl be 
 very little of yourself in the essay. 
 
 7. If our mind really is a tabula rasa with regard to 
 the subject, and it is necessary to read before we can do 
 anything, we should let some time elapse between the 
 
THE WRITING OF THE ESSAY 37 
 
 reading of our authorities and the writing of our essay. 
 This will give us time to assimilate our reading. 
 
 8. Spread the process of thinking and reading over as 
 long a period as possible. It is not easy without experi- 
 ence to realise the value of unconscious thought or the 
 delightfulness of having part of our work done for us by 
 the processes that will go on quietly operating, if we 
 give them a chance. But every practised writer knows 
 the value of such aids too thoroughly to forego them 
 willingly. " I am still a slow study," wrote R. L. Stevenson, 
 in one of his letters from Vailima, "and sit for a long 
 while silent on my eggs. Unconscious thought, there is 
 the only method ; macerate your subject, let it boil slow, 
 then take the lid off and look in, and there your stuff is — 
 good or bad." It matters comparatively little whether 
 you devote a long or short time to the actual writing of 
 your essay. The essential thing is that your thought should 
 have time to mature. 
 
 9. Do not begin to write till you have satisfied yourself 
 that your ideas are clear. "He who writes an essay," 
 says Niebuhr, " let him say what he will, makes pretension 
 to teach." The word " teach " is perhaps a little too 
 ambitious. But it is a good plan to imagine a reader 
 whom we wish to convince — not a child, but an intelligent 
 and critical reader, who has an eye for every weak place 
 in our argument. If we are to defend our position ade- 
 quately, there must be no confusion in our own mind 
 about what that position is. 
 
 10. Selection. After the preparation of thinking and 
 reading, and before the actual writing, come the processes 
 of selection and arrangement. These may take place within 
 the mind entirely ; but in most cases it will be an advan- 
 tage to jot down on paper rough notes of our material, to 
 
38 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 cancel what we do not intend to use, and to place in some 
 sort of numerical order the points we propose to bring out 
 in our argument. 
 
 As we review our material, we must ask of each point 
 in turn, Is it relevant ? Is it important ? The answer 
 will partly depend upon the length to which we intend our 
 essay to run. Many points may be relevant and even 
 important if the essay is to be a long one with some pre- 
 tensions to exhaust its subject, and yet had better be 
 omitted altogether from a short essay. An essay may be 
 overweighted and confused by raising more questions than 
 can be satisfactorily dealt with in short compass. It is 
 sometimes necessary deliberately to confine oneself to a 
 single aspect of a subject — especially v/hen the subject 
 given is a large abstraction like " Liberty " or " Truth." 
 
 Having settled what points we wish to bring forward, 
 we still have to decide upon their relative importance. 
 Which ought to be emphasised, or fully explained and 
 argued? Which should be mentioned only lightly or 
 casually, dismissed in a single sentence ? 
 
 If we have decided — whether from considerations of 
 space, time, knowledge or ability — to limit ourselves to one 
 or two aspects of a large subject, it may sometimes be 
 advisable to show that we recognise that there are other 
 points of view from which our subject might be treated, 
 even though we have resolved to exclude them. Perhaps 
 the most natural place for alluding to and dismissing such 
 points is in the opening paragraph; but no general rule 
 can be laid down. There is no more necessary part of 
 the art of essay-writing than the learning to do such things 
 gracefully, but only practice and observation can teach it. 
 
 II. A hint about the right treatment of the obvious or 
 commonplace may be useful. Whilst the essays of most 
 
THE WRITING OF THE ESSAY 39 
 
 beginners unfortunately contain little that is not common- 
 place, the cleverer or the more conscientious student 
 is sometimes tempted to omit an important point simply 
 because it is obvious. Is this a valid reason for omission ? 
 Is there any principle that should guide us ? Some help 
 may be gained from bearing in mind the definition of a 
 part of a subject, as that through the omission of which 
 the whole would fall into confusion. Nothing that is an 
 essential part of our subject must be omitted, however 
 obvious. Anything else we are free to omit if we like. 
 But if we are bound to include a point, we are not bound 
 to dwell upon it, when it is familiar ; the bare mention of 
 it will be sufficient. 
 
 As to the inclusion of topics that do not fall within the 
 definition of "a part," let us be careful how we use them. 
 They are digressions. It is lawful to use them as amoena 
 deverticula, '' pleasant resting-places," for the reader. But 
 they should be kept very strictly within bounds, and they 
 must never be used to the exclusion of a true "part." 
 In a very short essay they ought not to be introduced 
 at all. 
 
 12. Arrangement. Having decided on the points we 
 wish to bring forward in our essay, in what order are we to 
 take them? (i) There ought to be a regular sequence of 
 ideas, not a hopping backwards and forwards. The 
 opening, therefore, will often of itself suggest the right 
 order. It has been said already (§ 5) that two openings 
 are generally possible — a natural or conversational one, 
 which is more or less accidental, and a logical one, which 
 begins at the logical beginning. The remark applies to 
 the whole arrangement of an essay : it is open to us to 
 take the arguments in strict scientific order or to let them 
 gradually [unfold themselves from their casual starting- 
 
40 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 point. But the due sequence of ideas must be observed 
 in both cases : some points cannot be properly understood 
 till others have preceded, and some points are closely 
 related to each other, and should therefore come close 
 together. (2) Remember to take one point at a time. Do 
 not confuse and over-burden a sentence by putting two 
 ideas into it. If we have one idea in each sentence of 
 our essay, we may very well be content with the achieve- 
 ment. Such over-weighting of sentences does not generally 
 proceed, however, from an embarrassment of riches in the 
 shape of ideas pressing for utterance : it is far more often 
 due to indistinctness of thought. If we think each point 
 out thoroughly, we shall not want to take two in one 
 sentence. (3) Never lose sight of the central thought of 
 our essay. That will help us to keep each point in 
 proper subordination to it, and to treat it in due order and 
 at right length. (4) If the subject given is a debateable 
 one — e.g. "The use and abuse of athletic sports," " Ought 
 women to have the franchise ? " — there are two ways of 
 proceeding. We can either enumerate all the pros, and 
 then all the cons, or we can give the pros and cons alter- 
 nately, weighing one against another as we go along. In 
 both cases we shall give our " summing-up " and verdict 
 in the concluding paragraph of the essay. That verdict 
 may be an open one, if we like. It is not in the least 
 necessary that we should pronounce strongly for or against 
 a particular side of a question. But it is, to say the least, 
 desirable that, if we give the pros and cons alternately, 
 we do not oscillate helplessly from side' to side in the 
 process. We must distinguish between facts (which never 
 contradict each other) and mere allegations or opinions • 
 and make it clear with how much of an argument we 
 sympathise, and how much we respect without adopting. 
 
THE WRITING OK THE ESSAY 41 
 
 13. The Conclusion. No part of an essay usually 
 requires more care than the third or final part. It must 
 not consist of more than one paragraph, and it may consist 
 of only a single sentence. But upon it depends the final 
 impression which we leave upon the reader. However 
 well sustained may have been the argument of the main 
 body of the essay, we spoil all if we conduct it to "a 
 lame conclusion." 
 
 What makes a good conclusion can best be learnt by 
 studying the end of a few essays by great writers, or 
 speeches by great orators, or chapters in a great history, 
 and asking ourselves to what they owe their undoubted 
 impressiveness. They do not all conform to one type. 
 One gives you a climax — the strongest and most convincing 
 of a series of arguments reserved to the last. ''VAnother 
 presents you with a summarv — the arguments that have 
 preceded rapidly enumerated, that the whole force of 
 them may be brought home to you at once, and that you 
 may be left with a feeling of their total value.C3)A third is 
 impressive without being either climax or summary : it is 
 a point worth emphasising for its own sake, and the 
 language in which it is expressed is chosen with a special 
 care : you are given at the last a s aying t ha t ^^ ; ^ ou will like 
 t g_ carry away wi t h you. 5()A fourth seems a sort o f ar^j ^i- 
 climax d eliberately sought : the stress of argument is over, 
 and the essay ends quietly, just as a sonnet is sometimes 
 allowed to die away in soft music in its fourteenth line ; 
 there is "" ^' RpTf"""*"'"" " °nly ^ gentle farewell. (>A fifth 
 ending is of the nature of a Rog^gsjjpt : it adds a point 
 that has been forgotten, or perhaps one for which no 
 natural place could be found in the chain of argument 
 that occupied the main part of the essay. All these 
 varieties of ending may be imitated, but the last should be 
 
42 A MANUAL OF ESSAY -WRITING 
 
 seldom used ; it is generally a refuge of laziness or, if 
 deliberately cultivated, it becomes a tedious affectation. 
 
 A golden counsel is Respice finem. Have your con- 
 clusion in mind from the moment when you begin to 
 write. The precise form of it may be determined later. 
 But your whole essay will gain in strength and unity if you 
 keep in view some goal to which you are tending. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 A good example of a formal ending (not of an argument, 
 however, but of a discursive essay) is the concluding paragraph 
 of Leigh Hunt's essay on sleep : — 
 
 " Sleep is most graceful in an infant, soundest in one who 
 has been tired in the open air, completest to the seaman after 
 a hard voyage, most welcome to the mind haunted with one 
 idea, most touching to look at in the parent that has wept, 
 lightest in the playful child, proudest in the bride adored." 
 
 Admirable examples of beginnings are the opening sentences 
 of Hunt's essay on " Deaths of Little Children " and Hazlitt's 
 " On Going a Journey " (" One of the pleasantest things in the 
 world is going a journey ; but I like to go by myself.") 
 Lamb's essay on " Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist " plunges 
 in medias res with " A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the 
 rigour of the game." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS 
 
 A. Historical Essays 
 
 I. Material. — (i) Cultivate from the first the habit of 
 reading the great historians for yourself . Do not be content 
 with the dry bones of the school text-book. If you begin 
 without any special liking for history, you will be surprised 
 to find how interesting the more important questions 
 become, when they are handled by a great writer, who is 
 cramped by no limitations of space but writing out of the 
 fulness of his knowledge and the consciousness bf a clear 
 judgment. For Greek history Grote's and Thirlwall's are 
 greater books than any written since : Holm (especially 
 his notes) should be consulted for the results of more 
 recent research. For Roman history use Arnold, Mommsen, 
 Merivale, Bury, Gibbon. The lives of Caesar by W. Warde 
 Fowler and Cicero by J. L. Strachan-Davidson in the 
 " Heroes of the Nations '' series will be found very helpful. 
 Cunningham's Ancient Western Civilisation gives a most 
 useful outline of ancient history on its economic side. 
 E. A. Freeman's Historical Essays, and J. R. Seeley's 
 Lectures and Addresses, besides being full of important matter, 
 have the additional advantage of being written in essay 
 
44 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 form, so that they have a certain value as models for 
 imitation. For modern history the wealth of material is so 
 great and increasing so rapidly that it is scarcely possible 
 to make a selection here. But the great literary historians 
 are the best to begin with — Hume, Hallam, Macaulay, 
 Carlyle, and (in spite of grave faults) Froude. J. R. 
 Green's Short History of the English People, if scarcely in 
 the same rank with these, deserves mention as a brilliant 
 introduction to the subject. 
 
 (2) Get as near as you can to the sources of history. To 
 dig a fact out for oneself from a contemporary historian 
 or chronicle or inscription is a higher joy, and a better 
 piece of education, than reading it in a later history which 
 is "thrice removed from the truth." In ancient history 
 questions constant reference should be made to Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Livy, Sallust, Cicero, 
 Caesar, Tacitus and Plutarch, and we should learn to esti- 
 mate the comparative value of their evidence. For one im- 
 portant period of Greek history G. F. Hill's Sources for Greek 
 History between the Persian and Poloponnesian f^w(Clarendon 
 Press) is very useful. The Introduction to the Study of 
 History of MM. Langlois and Seignobos of the Sorbonne 
 (there is a translation published by Messrs. Duckworth, 
 7s. 6d.) gives an account of the critical and constructive 
 processes involved in the study of history as it is understood 
 by the more scientific scholars of the present day. Its 
 theories need not be accepted, but it contains much 
 valuable detail. 
 
 II. Treatment. — (i) Avoid mere narrative unless you 
 are directly asked for it. The function of the historical 
 essay, as a rule, is not to give a detailed narrative of 
 events (which it is the business of the historian to relate 
 — or, as some would say, hardly even the business of the 
 
HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS 45 
 
 historian, but rather of the chronicler or annaUst who 
 provides raw material for the historian to work upon). 
 The historical essay aims at giving a " colligation of facts," 
 some general principle that explains the facts by binding 
 them together. It cannot be written without a clear 
 knowledge of the facts. Attempts at generalisation that 
 have no knowledge behind them are the merest vapour- 
 ing. But the essay should assume that the reader as 
 well as the writer is familiar with the facts, and only needs 
 to be reminded of their bearing upon the general principle 
 which is to be maintained or illustrated. 
 
 (2) Avoid especially the retailing of historical anecdotes. 
 Such anecdotes are of inestimable value in their proper 
 place, but their proper place is in biography or history, 
 seldom in the historical essay. Yet, though we must not 
 relate them, we may still use them. Assuming that our 
 reader is at least as familiar with them as we are, we 
 may aptly refer to the light they throw upon the character 
 of a nation or an individual. 
 
 (3) Bear in mind the value of a historical parallel. An 
 essay is lifted into a higher class altogether, if it shows 
 knowledge that goes beyond the period actually under 
 discussion, and a power of appreciating the essential 
 points of likeness and difference between two events that 
 happened in different countries and different ages. No- 
 thing requires greater caution than the use of historic 
 parallels. It may be said with equal truth that history 
 is always repeating itself, and that history never repeats 
 itself. The same causes always produce the same effects, 
 but we never get precisely the same cause (the sum total 
 of the antecedents) twice over. There is such a thing 
 as being deceived by resemblances that are of no more 
 importance than the " M " which is found in both 
 
46 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 "Macedon" and "Monmouth." In proportion to the 
 difficulty of finding an instructive parallel is the triumph 
 of succeeding. You throw a light upon, you clear up 
 your own idea of, two events or periods at once. 
 
 (4) In some questions a sketch-map (which should be 
 neat without being elaborate) or a chronological table 
 may both make an essay clearer and save time which 
 would otherwise be occupied by descriptive writing. 
 
 B. Political Philosophy 
 
 I. Material. — There are few more important epochs 
 in the life of a thoughtful man than the one which is made 
 by the first reading of a great book of political philosophy 
 — Plato's Republic or Maine's Ancient Law, Adam Smith's 
 Wealth of Nations or J. S. Mill's Political Economy. To 
 read such a book intelligently for the first time is to gain a 
 new and profound interest in life, to look beyond oneself and 
 one's own circle of acquaintances, or grade of society, or 
 country, to the life of humanity in all its complex relations 
 and in all its gradual and varied development and progress 
 towards a goal far out of sight. Nor is it merely a new in- 
 terest that is gained : the knowledge is of the highest im- 
 portance and utility. No doubt the practical man, by 
 common sense and experience of men, arrives without this 
 knowledge at a sound judgment on many of the political 
 and social questions which are presented to him. But he 
 reasons from narrow premises, and his conclusions are 
 liable to be upset if there is any serious change in the 
 circumstances. At any rate, there is, as Mr. Leslie 
 Stephen has said, a striking contrast between such a man's 
 "keen, vigorous good sense upon immediate questions of 
 the day " and " the paltry little outworn platitudes which 
 
HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS 47 
 
 he introduces when he wants to tag his arguments with 
 sounding principles." 
 
 From the "paltry Httle outworn platitudes," of which 
 the uninformed political essay usually consists, a thoughtful 
 study of any of the greater works on political philosophy 
 will save us. The difficulties of the subject are, to 
 most readers, great at starting, but they rapidly diminish 
 as interest is aroused. With Plato's Republic, Jowett's 
 Introductions should be read. Maine's Ancient Law 
 and Bagehot's Physics and Politics are probably the 
 two books that have done most in England since "the 
 sixties " to promote the study of political philosophy. 
 Some of the generalisations of the former have been 
 disputed in the light of wider research, and the specula- 
 tions of the latter, presented with much skilfulness and 
 charm, need to be accepted with reserve ; but the illumi- 
 nating and stimulating power of these works will not be 
 exhausted for a long time to come. Raleigh's Elementary 
 Politics is an admirable first introduction to the subject 
 on its many sides ; Jevons's Primer of Political Economy 
 an excellent first book for that special branch. So many 
 economic questions are still unsettled, and so many of 
 the conclusions of the older and greater books need to 
 be modified, that it is difficult to give advice about 
 authorities here. It is always best to read this (or any 
 other) subject in a really great writer, but, on the other 
 hand, it is important not to be misled by statements or 
 arguments that may have been disproved since they were 
 written. L. L. Price's Political Economy in England 
 (Methuen's University Extension Series) is most useful in 
 presenting a historical account of the science and showing 
 what parts of the writings of the chief economists are best 
 worth studying. Seeley's Lectures on Political Science 
 
48 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 (Macmillan) and Sir G. C. Lewis's little book on The Use 
 and Abuse of Some Political Terms are especially helpful 
 in teaching the accurate use of terms like "liberty," 
 "oligarchy," "sovereignty." To the classical student Warde 
 Fowler's City-State of the Greeks and Romans, and A. C. 
 Bradley's Essay on " Aristotle's Conception of the State " 
 in Abbott's Hellenica may be warmly commended. Burke's 
 three pieces on the American War — his Speech on Taxa- 
 tion in 1774, on Conciliation in 1775, and his letter to 
 the Sheriffs of Bristol in 1777 — have been described by 
 Mr. John Morley as " the most perfect manual in all 
 literature for the study of great affairs, whether for the 
 purpose of knowledge or action." "They are," he says, "an 
 example without fault of all the qualities which the critic, 
 whether a theorist or an actor, of great political situations 
 should strive by night and by day to possess.'' 
 
 II. Treatment. — (i) Keep your political philosophy in 
 close touch with your historical reading. This point is worth 
 emphasising strongly, because so many essayists who 
 generalise on political philosophy are apt to make surpris- 
 ingly little use of the material ready to their hand in 
 history. Cultivate the habit of reading history as material 
 for political science. (2) In the actual writing of your 
 essay, be as concrete and definite as you can. Do not make, 
 for example, general remarks about ancient Greece that are 
 only true of one state or one period, but quote a definite 
 instance, and be sure that it is applicable. Try to give 
 instances from your own reading instead of merely repeating 
 an instance given by an authority. (3) Remember what has 
 been said (p. 45) about the value and danger of historic 
 parallels. (4) Bear in mind that the institutions suited to one 
 age or state of society are not necessarily suited to another. 
 "The whole history of civilisation," as Bagehot says, "is 
 
HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS 49 
 
 strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable 
 at first and deadly afterwards." (5) Preserve an open mind 
 on disputed questions. This is the exact opposite of the 
 advice sometimes given, " Take one line strongly and argue 
 from that : you will write better and more easily if you are 
 a partisan." The right attitude of the essayist who is still 
 a learner is not that of the convinced partisan, but of the 
 seeker after truth. Do not disguise your opinions, but for 
 your own sake make sure that you are justified in holding 
 them. Put yourself at different points of view. Especially 
 try to understand the attitude of mind of people whose 
 political or religious views are different from those in which 
 you may have been brought up : begin by regarding them, 
 not as strange creatures but as fellow-men, possibly as 
 reasonable as yourself. This is the first indispensable 
 condition of forming an impartial judgment ; nor need we 
 fear that if we begin thus we shall be left always "halting 
 between two opinions." 
 
 C. Literature 
 
 I. Material. — The chief difficulty here, and one that 
 is obviously not to be surmounted in a day, is inexperience. 
 Good taste in literature, as in other things, may be largely 
 instinctive ; but wide as well as careful reading is necessary 
 to the formation of a sound and safe judgment. Clearly 
 we must read as much as we can of the best, and as little 
 as possible of what is third-rate. If we ask, "What is 
 best ? " the answer is to be found in the accepted judg- 
 ment of the world. Securus iudicat orbis terrarum. We 
 cannot go far wrong if we read what has been applauded 
 by successive generations. But how are we not merely 
 
 4 
 
so A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 to read, but to become competent to criticise what we 
 read, to admire and to discriminate ? The following hints 
 may be found helpful.^ 
 
 (i) Cultivate catholicity of taste. Try to place yourself 
 at different points of view, to understand what has been 
 pronounced admirable by better and more experienced 
 judges, though it does not appeal to you at first. 
 
 (2) Be readier to trust a Kking for, than an indifference 
 to, a particular style. 
 
 (3) Keep your personal feeling distinct from your 
 literary estimate. Do not shrink from owning a personal 
 debt to a comparatively small writer, but do not exalt the 
 personal debt into a literary judgment. 
 
 (4) Do not be ashamed to have personal preferences, 
 but do not regard them as final. Remember that the 
 preferences of a man (say) at eighteen, at thirty-six, at fifty- 
 four are not, and ought not to be, the same. There ought 
 to be development, and the later taste ought to be the truer. 
 
 (5) If you wholly fail to appreciate an author whom the 
 consensus of critics has pronounced to be great, be modest 
 enough to believe that the fault is probably in yourself 
 Never profess to admire what you do not, but wait quietly : 
 appreciation may come in time. 
 
 (6) Learn to mistrust the newspaper or society verdict 
 on contemporary productions. That verdict is almost cer- 
 tain to over-rate their value. And your own bias is likely 
 to be in the same direction. The writing that lies nearest 
 to you in point of time is generally the easiest to under- 
 stand, requires least effort of imagination, least experience of 
 
 ^ Of the hints that follow the first five are reproduced from the Intro- 
 duction to my Nineteenth Century Prose (A. & C. Black) — an attempt to 
 examine the elements of literary style with the help of some selected master- 
 pieces, 
 
HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS 51 
 
 literature. That is why it is necessary to discount the 
 value you will at first be inclined to set upon such books. 
 
 (7) Carry each new writer, whether in prose or verse, to 
 the touchstone of the great writers. This principle, laid 
 down by Matthew Arnold in his Preface to Ward's Poets, 
 will be found to supply a severe but invaluable test : 
 phrases that looked like pure gold when we first en- 
 countered them will be discovered to be tinsel when we 
 set them by the side of the genuine ore. Nor need we 
 fear that this practice will lessen our pleasure in reading 
 by making us over-fastidious. On the contrary, in pro- 
 portion as our standard rises, as our taste becomes surer, 
 our delight in all that is greatest and best in literature 
 will grow more intense. 
 
 For direct guidance in literary criticism the following 
 will be found useful. The introductions to Ward's English 
 Poets (4 vols., Macmillan), especially Mr. Arnold's general 
 introduction already referred to, and the critical notices in 
 the corresponding series of English Prose Selections edited 
 by Craik (5 vols., Macmillan); M. Arnold's Essays in 
 Criticism ; Saintsbury's Nineteenth Century Literature and 
 History of English Literature ; all the volumes of the admir- 
 able series, English Afen 0/ Letters (Ma.cmi\\a.n); the literary 
 essays of W. Bagehot, R. H. Hutton. 
 
 For Greek literature, read Jebb's Primer and his lectures 
 on the Growth and Influence of Greek Poetry ; Symonds's 
 Studies of the Greek Poets. 
 
 For Latin literature, read Mackail's volume in Murray's 
 University Extension Series ; the paper on Virgil in F. W. 
 H. Myers's Classical Essays ; Tyrrell's Lectures on Latin 
 Poetry ; Sellar's Roman Poets of the Republic and of the 
 Augustan Age. 
 
 II, Treatment. — (i) Be concrete. Avoid vague, in- 
 
52 A MANUAL OF ESS AY- WRITING 
 
 definite remarks, whether of eulogy or disparagement. 
 Remember the value of a quotation in giving point and 
 definiteness to your criticism. And let the quotation be 
 of your own choice, from your own reading, if possible. 
 As a means to this (and for their own sake) learn by heart 
 lines and phrases that impress you. Ask yourself why 
 they impress you : study them till you find out their secret. 
 (2) Measure your adjectives. Reserve superlatives for what 
 is really great. If we use them for what is only second- 
 rate we have no means left of distinguishing degrees of 
 excellence. (3) Avoid tfie cant phrases of current criticism. 
 Never use an epithet without being sure that you know 
 what it means and that it means what you want to say. 
 (4) If you compare writers, do not .unfairly disparage the 
 one who interests you less. Even great critics are apt, 
 from the love of antithesis, to bear false witness of writers 
 whom they merely mention to point a contrast or heighten 
 a eulogy. (5) Distinguish between historical merit (the 
 merit, for example, of a forerunner in art or literature) and 
 the absolute merit of perfected achievement. Keep this 
 important distinction clearly in view both when you read 
 and when you write. (6) As in history, remember the 
 value of an apt parallel from another age and country. 
 Such a parallel enlarges the horizon of an essay ; and we 
 feel greater confidence in the judgment of a writer who 
 shows that his knowledge is not confined to his immediate 
 subject. 
 
 D. Moral and Social Questions 
 
 I. Material. — Probably the majority of those who 
 use this book will not undertake, or at any rate will 
 not yet have begun, the systematic study of moral 
 
HINTS FOR SPECIAL SUBJECTS S3 
 
 philosophy. But something will naturally be learnt of 
 its principles in a sixth form in connection with the 
 reading of Plato's Republic, or St. Paul's Epistles ; and 
 there are questions of rights and duties and our various 
 relations to our fellow-men to which the attention of 
 every intelligent boy may be directed from the moment 
 when he begins to think for himself There is no better 
 way of learning to think clearly and logically on such 
 questions than by trying to express one's thoughts in an 
 essay and submitting them to be corrected by a more 
 experienced judgment. The reading of Plato's Republic, 
 with Jowett's Introduction, will be found admirably stimu- 
 lating and suggestive. The wisdom of the eighteenth 
 century should be read in Johnson's conversations as 
 recorded in Boswell. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and his 
 Past and Present, and any of Ruskin's ethical writings 
 (The Crown of Wild Olive, and Sesame and Lilies, for 
 example) will be invaluable in awakening thought on some 
 of the problems of life and the social system of England 
 at the present time. For information as to the history of 
 moral ideas, the precise meaning of " obligation," definitions 
 of the several virtues, and the like, some handbook of 
 moral philosophy, such as Calderwood's or Muirhead's, 
 should be consulted. Raleigh's Elementary Politics, 
 Buxton's Handbook to Political Questions, and the more 
 recent books on Political Economy, throw light on some 
 social questions. 
 
 II. Treatment. — (i) Avoid moral platitudes. It is fair 
 to assume that both you and your reader are "on the 
 side of the angels," and that neither needs to be persuaded 
 of the superiority, in theory at least, of right to wrong, of 
 virtue to vice. If we take for granted the general moral 
 principles admitted by the conscience of humanity, or even 
 
54 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 those that are taught by Christianity, there still remains a 
 wide field for profitable discussion in the practical applica- 
 tion of these principles to the daily life of the individual 
 or nation, in the apparent conflict of duties, in the defini- 
 tion of our duty to our neighbour and to ourselves under 
 the complex conditions of an advanced state of civilisation. 
 In the consideration of these and other questions it is 
 quite possible to be morally in earnest, without prematurely 
 adopting the tone or language of the pulpit. (2) There 
 is an opposite fault of which the cleverer student, who 
 is perhaps a little weary of the commonplaces he has 
 heard in sermons, and anxious to strike out a line of his 
 own, may be usefully warned. This is the tendency to 
 indulge in moral paradox, merely for the sake of being 
 original. It is the easiest thing in the world to cultivate 
 a sort of originality by saying that black is white, or at 
 least gray ; yet it is not really clever, but only very foolish. 
 There is no fear, it is true, that we shall seriously damage 
 the world's morality by adopting this line; but there is 
 some slight danger that we may more than half persuade 
 ourselves by our sophistries, and blunt the fineness of 
 our own conscience. (3) Think out any real problems 
 that are presented to you conscientiously. There can be no 
 more valuable education for life than is to be obtained in 
 this way. Think them out modestly also, maintaining your 
 own independence of judgment, but remembering your 
 own inexperience, and the long 'history of the world, and 
 the probability that (as Herodotus said, more than 2000 
 years ago) " the good and beautiful things (to, koXo) have 
 been long since discovered." 
 
PART II 
 
 NOTES FOR ESSAYS 
 
 (contributed by MR. S. T. IRWIN) 
 
 The following " Notes for Essays " are merely what they 
 profess to be — not " Skeleton Outlines.'' They are in- 
 tended to be suggestive, not to exhaust their subject. If 
 they are used as material for essays they should be read 
 and considered carefully, but the essayist ought not to 
 follow them slavishly : he should in each case try to get a 
 starting-point of his own, and to let that starting-point 
 determine to some extent his treatment — his selection of 
 points to be discussed and the order in which he will 
 discuss them. 
 
 In one respect at least these Notes may be serviceable 
 as models for the treatment of many other subjects. Un- 
 like the Skeleton Outlines to be found in old-fashioned 
 manuals of Composition, they are not designed to show 
 how easy it is to say the perfectly obvious things (which 
 are also, as a rule, the things least worth saying) on any 
 subject. They may serve to point out that a more excellent 
 way is within the reach of those who do not shirk the trouble 
 of observing and thinking for themselves. 
 
 For the references which have been occasionally added, 
 I alone am responsible. J. H. F. 
 
S6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 I. (a) History (Ancient) 
 
 1. "Hardly any people worked so hard at politics as the 
 Greeks.^'' What measure of success did they achieve 1 
 
 Their success in one sense is written on our language. 
 All the theory of politics we find expressed in Greek 
 words ; forms of government, political relations of all sorts, 
 they developed and discussed ; and besides they contrived 
 to realise better than any nation has ever done true 
 political and social equality. If we consent to ignore 
 slavery and think of freemen only, Athens realised this 
 ideal as no nation has ever done. And they worked hard 
 for it : whether we think of their frequent o-rao-ets, of their 
 unsatisfied love of debate, of their intense interest in 
 politics, in every case politics is seen to be the absorbing 
 business. 
 
 On the other hand, they never had that practical 
 success which fell to the Romans. Their proud exclusive, 
 intellectually aristocratic, temper made it impossible for 
 Greeks to understand the measure of compromise which is 
 necessary before a federated state or an empire is possible. 
 They were keenly excited about political questions, but 
 they never, like the Romans, possessed that practical wisdom 
 which is for ever putting the Duke of Wellington's question 
 : — "How is the king's government to be carried on?" 
 Hence their failure in history. 
 
 2. Contrast the Persian with the other Oriental Empires of 
 Ancient History. 
 
 I. The Persians may literally be said to have begun 
 the movement of history. The Egyptian and Semitic 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 57 
 
 Empires, whatever their wars or aggressions, were more 
 or less stationary, nor did their wars enlarge their horizon 
 to any great extent. The Persians, on the other hand, 
 came down upon the old civilisations of Asia like a force 
 wholly new, sweeping down from the mountains upon the 
 world of the plains, and, on the other side, over-running 
 Western Asia and invading Europe. This Western move- 
 ment was the precursor of all those movements of Gauls, 
 Goths, and Huns which fill so much space in later history. 
 2. The monotony and want of progress which char- 
 acterise the earlier civilisation, considerable as it was, are 
 in striking contrast with the enterprising temper of the 
 Persian rulers. " The restless march of progress " is seen 
 not only in the pushing conquerors who do not pause till 
 " they have embraced in their empire all that there was 
 of civilisation from the Himalayas to the ^gean Sea," 
 but in the way that empire was organised. The Romans 
 alone, among ancient nations, knew what good government 
 was, but the Persians made a beginning ; they had some 
 faint conception of the responsibilities of empire, and 
 they were not even above learning from the Greeks and 
 other subject nations. Their system of royal roads and 
 post (Herodotus, v. 52) shows how much they were in 
 advance of earlier empires. In the administration of 
 their empire they began the differentiation of official 
 functions, separating, for instance, the political governor 
 from the commander-in-chief, and in this and other ways 
 initiated the world into the modern idea that the order of 
 progress is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 
 
 3. Athenian flexibility — How did this quality affect Athens 
 for good or iin 
 
 I. The fruits of it in the best period of Athens were 
 
58 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 energy, lucidity of thought, and directness of purpose ; 
 together with that quality of measure which achieved such 
 happy results in the sphere of art and social life. So rich 
 a combination of gifts made Athens " the teacher of 
 Greece," as Pericles truly called her. 
 
 2. Her literature attests the grace and lucidity brought 
 her by this quality; and Marathon, Salamis, the conduct 
 of the Confederacy, and her expeditions to Egypt and 
 Sicily show her many-sided energy. 
 
 3. The national temper, which formed such a contrast 
 to Spartan narrowness and Bceotian dulness, and the 
 statesmanship of Pericles, devoting itself not more to 
 national finance than to national art, illustrate fully the 
 range of this flexibility. 
 
 4. But at the same time it exposed Athens to serious 
 risks — to a want of steadiness, moral and political. Pericles 
 knew of this want and combated it, but later statesmen 
 acquiesced in it. In fact they directly fed the national 
 vanity by the production of dazzling schemes which should 
 appeal to the imaginative and quick-witted Athenians, and 
 thus secured popularity for themselves ; quickness and 
 novelty became the constant attraction, to the detriment of 
 all safe or serious politics. Egypt cost them very dear, 
 and Sicily all but ruined them. When Pericles urged 
 the people against extension of territory, he foresaw the 
 damaging political results of flexibility, the desire to get 
 new things before the old were secured. 
 
 5. In time this passion for novelty and for amusetnent 
 demoralised the whole national life. To such a demoral- 
 isation Demosthenes bears witness in the public life oi' 
 Athens, and St. Paul in her intellectual life — a frivolous 
 self-indulgence destitute of real aims. 
 
 [References. — Thucydides, ii. 37-41, ii. 65.] 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 59 
 
 4. How far ivere the Romans and Spartans alike in their 
 ideas ? 
 
 In both nations we find the same conservative notions, 
 the same instinct of order. The sense of discipline, the 
 respect for the " mos majorum," the suppression of the 
 individual for the benefit of the state, are found alike in 
 both. In both again are seen the same weaknesses — an 
 overpowering interest in war and all that belongs to it, an 
 unchivalrous and exclusive temper and a contempt for 
 or indifference to the things of the mind. Both, by the 
 necessities of their position, were compelled to make war 
 their dominant interest, but the narrowing influence of 
 this state of things is seen far more in Sparta than in 
 Rome. " Terra potens armis atque ubere glebae " is an 
 instructive description of Virgil's country, because it shows 
 that the Roman was a husbandman with a home as well 
 as. a soldier; the Spartan lived in a barrack. The Greek 
 philosopher admired Sparta more than Athens, because 
 it regulated the life of its citizens and did not permit a 
 reckless individualism ; but the discipline of Rome is seen 
 in its politics, in the evolution of its constitutional changes, 
 as much as in its wars. Sparta knew httle or nothing of 
 real political life. Rome, again, was exclusive by nature, 
 or the Plebs first, and Latium and Italy afterwards, would 
 not have had such a hard fight for their privileges ; but 
 from the beginning she had understood that compromise 
 was of the essence of government, and her teachableness 
 broke down her exclusiveness point by point till she seems 
 by comparison (as Bacon declared) the least exclusive of 
 ancient peoples. Lastly, her unintellectual character 
 became intellectual to some extent by contact with other 
 peoples; and she differs from Sparta in her recognition of 
 the value of such contact. She quickly discovered the 
 practical importance of the art of eloquence, and was far 
 
6o A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 from sharing the Spartan contempt for long speeches. 
 Long before this, the national intellect had discovered its 
 real strength in devising a legal system. Sparta can show 
 nothing like the conception of law which Rome attained 
 whilst ^till barbarous — a conception which even civilised 
 Athens never reached in her brightest days. 
 
 5. "The disease of tyranny, like the absolutism of the Tudors, 
 had eventually in many Greek states a healing effect." 
 
 1. The absolutism of the Tudors was a welcome change 
 after the anarchy to which a weak monarchy and the 
 rivalries of powerful nobles had reduced the country. The 
 nation was better able to realise itself as a distinct whole. 
 Civilisation gained by the fostering care of one paramount 
 influence ; and liberty gained both by the increasing self- 
 respect of the nation, and by there being at worst one 
 source of oppression in place of many such sources. The 
 people learned " to fly from petty tyrants to the throne," 
 and, becoming more united, to face the throne itself when 
 its tyranny became unendurable. 
 
 2. Similarly we may say of Greek states that faction 
 created so much weakness in the central government that 
 the increase of order and the increase of wealth under the 
 rule of the despot conduced to the public prosperity. 
 Civilisation had time to advance and was directly en- 
 couraged. Peisistratus, for instance, did a good deal to 
 promote that intellectual activity and interest which soon 
 became the leading characteristic of Athens. By weaken- 
 ing the Eupatrids, too, he indirectly aided the democracy, 
 and left the whole nation, as the Tudors did, more on 
 equal terms ; while the fact that all classes alike resented 
 despotism drew the whole state nearer together. When 
 the tyrants were expelled, the aristocracy were unable to 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 6i 
 
 cope with the growth of the classes below them, so steady 
 had been the increase. in numbers, vigour and self-respect. 
 The constitutional changes of Cleisthenes were made much 
 easier by the prosperity secured by the strong government 
 of Peisistratus. 
 
 [Reference. — Excursus on " The Tyrants " in Abbott's 
 Commentary on Herodotus, bk. v.] 
 
 6. Why is the distinction between ancient and modem 
 history said to be untenable 1 
 
 1. The origines of many, or most, modern nations go 
 back into what is generally called ancient history, and 
 modern history must include those origines. 
 
 2. Much of ancient Rome was perpetuated in the 
 Papacy and in the Eastern Empire long after modern 
 history is supposed to begin. 
 
 3. "The Rome of Trajan was much nearer to us 
 intellectually than any European country four centuries 
 ago " (M. Arnold). 
 
 4. If history is a history of civilisation, it must be 
 continuous ; and to explain how modern nations came by 
 their own, we must inquire to whom and for what they 
 were, indebted. 
 
 7. " The Roman soldier was more important for Rome's 
 dominion than the Roman general." Discuss this. 
 
 Rome was engaged in wars from her earliest days, and 
 from that time the tradition of discipline and endurance 
 
62 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 began for the Roman soldier — " disciplina qua stetit ad 
 hunc diem Romana res'' (Livy). The "religio," the 
 binding sense of duty, taught the Roman his business 
 whether as soldier or as citizen, and to this was added 
 the sturdiness of the national character.! 
 
 For the Roman general, on the otheir hand, there were 
 no traditions of strategy ; he belonged to an unimaginative 
 people, a people curiously deficient in great men. More- 
 over, there was little scope for strategy in the early wars 
 of Rome, and no time or opportunity for the general to 
 learn it. Whether we consider the double command (the 
 two consuls) or the possible recall after only a year's 
 experience — one might say the almost certain recall — of 
 any officer who was beginning to learn the art of war, we 
 are met by the fact that Rome's political system did all 
 the harm it could to her military proficiency. It is only 
 in the days of repeated consulships and prolonged com- 
 mands that we begin to hear of such proficiency. History 
 bears out the superiority of the Roman soldier. It was he 
 who called forth the admiration of Pyrrhus, and whose 
 worth Hannibal so well understood. Even Marius and 
 Csesar himself were more than once saved by their 
 soldiers. 
 
 8. Contrast the amusements of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 The Romans in their best time were a more serious 
 and practical, and a less pleasure-loving people than 
 the Greeks. This was shown in the almost commercial 
 character of their religion, and it is not less remarkable in 
 the comparatively slight importance which seems to have 
 been attached to their amusements. With the Greeks, 
 on the contrary, "the poems of Homer, the contests at 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 63 
 
 Olympia, the plays of Euripides, were the bonds that held 
 Hellas together " (Mommsen). 
 
 When the native Roman character had been corrupted, 
 they learnt to be more pleasure-loving, but they could not 
 apply a Greek intelligence to their amusements. Their 
 pleasures did more than anything else to refine the Greek 
 peoples ; they helped largely to brutalise the Romans. The 
 typical Englishman is said by foreigners to take pleasure 
 in "going out to kill something." The Roman populace 
 of the Empire took theirs in seeing something or some- 
 body killed. The drama could never get a real footing in 
 Rome. It was too intellectual a recreation : migravit ab 
 aure voluptas. 
 
 The three points which may be taken to illustrate the 
 superiority of Greek amusements are : 
 
 1. They were more intellectual and refined, more 
 educating. No Roman festival would have found an 
 audience for Herodotus, such as he got at Olympia. 
 
 2. Their national importance : the encouragement 
 which the states thus afforded to physical and intellectual 
 excellence, and the consequent development of public 
 spirit in the community. 
 
 3. Their superior humanity. 
 
 [References. — Becker's Charicles and Gallus.\ 
 
 9. Show that Roman slavery impoverished as well as 
 demoralised the nation. 
 
 I. To take the last word first— the natural element of 
 brutality in the Romans was much stimulated by the ir- 
 responsible power they wielded over their slaves and the 
 constant exercise of cruelty towards them; and the enforced 
 
64 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 idleness of those classes whom the slave-system pauperised, 
 destroyed both their vigour and their self-respect. 
 
 2. The things actually and literally "impoverished" 
 were the soil of Italy and the government. When grazing- 
 land replaced crops in a fertile soil, the one effect was 
 produced ; and the other when small farmers and free 
 labourers, from being self-supporting, were driven to Rome 
 by the large estates, and became a heavy and permanent 
 charge on the state-treasury. Money, too, went out of the 
 country and there were no Roman exports to make up the 
 deficiency. Again, the purchase of slaves was not always 
 cheap : they were seldom bred and a fresh stock was 
 constantly needed. If we add to this that their labour 
 was unwilling and rarely intelligent, we shall see how 
 impoverishing the system was. There should be added 
 also the cost of slave wars, which the brutal treatment of 
 slaves several times brought on the nation. 
 
 [References. — Mommsen's History of Rome ; Lecky's 
 History of European Morals, vol. i.] 
 
 10. Illustrate the importance of family names in Roman 
 history and literature. What was there peculiarly Roman 
 about the sentiment 1 
 
 The Roman imagination seems to have been exception- 
 ally developed in connection with names. The word nomen, 
 standing for race, is significant, as also the fact that the 
 Greeks in contrast seem to have had no sentiment about 
 them. Indeed, in Rome, as compared with Greece, the 
 family fills much more space, as is shown among other 
 things in the far-reaching patria potestas. Hence the 
 superior importance of names. The great exploits of 
 early Rome, and the conspicuous parts played in domestic 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 65 
 
 politics, are specially associated with families {e.g. the 
 Fabii, Claudiae gentis insita superbia). Again, the old 
 Roman virtue is bound up with the history of the great 
 families, as is evidenced by the saying that early Roman 
 history is a collection of aristocratic chronicles. The 
 power of the great names over the national imagination 
 is illustrated by Virgil's lists in his most patriotic passages ; 
 and not less by the care he takes to connect the Trojan 
 heroes with Rome by what we might otherwise think 
 rather trivial etymologies. If the family and not the 
 individual is the early unit, it is not surprising that here, 
 as elsewhere, the Romans should show their ingrained 
 conservatism, and retain longer than others the living 
 symbol of this primitive fact. Again, it was as heads of 
 houses, not as individuals, that the patriciate claimed their 
 original position and privileges ; and it was only natural 
 that they should preserve those privileges in this way, by 
 carefully cherishing this most obvious sign of the continuity 
 of family life. The Romans rarely destroyed an institution 
 even when it had become useless ; names were to them 
 not merely things highly ornamental, but actually useful as 
 a visible security for their best traditions. 
 
 I. {b) History (Medieval and Modern) 
 
 11. What was gained by the English people from Danish 
 and Norman conquests ? 
 
 I. The Danes brought an infusion of new blood — the 
 blood of a people less heavy, more travelled, and more 
 enterprising, if less civilised than the Saxons in the arts of 
 settled life. 
 
66 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 They rapidly assimilated the English civilisation, and 
 the progress of the wars with them did much to help on 
 that unity of the English people in Church and State as a 
 single solid government which the Normans completed ; 
 while their own naval enterprise laid the foundations of 
 England's sea-power and her commerce. 
 
 2. This centralisation was effected with much more per- 
 manence by the Norman Conquest. Moreover, the Nor- 
 mans cennected both our religion and our literature, as 
 well as our ideas of law and government, with the civilisa- 
 tion of a larger world, and first made us a continental 
 power. 
 
 The great symbol of our advance is language — the 
 language of Shakespeare and Bacon, as distinguished from 
 that " pure Anglo-Saxon " which is sometimes ignorantly 
 praised at its expense. 
 
 Of the four things Wordsworth desires to be restored to 
 his country — "manners, virtue, freedom, power" — the 
 first and last may be said to be the gifts of the Norman 
 Conquest. 
 
 12. "/« the twelfth century asceticism was the only kind of 
 protest which told with sufficient force " (Morison). Against 
 what different characteristics of the time was the life of the 
 monks a protest 1 
 
 1. To us, as to the Romans, the absence of disturbing 
 violence in a community is hardly a matter of morals or 
 religion. It is a necessity of existence. But in the 
 twelfth century there was either no central authority, or 
 that authority was too weak or too prudent to insist on 
 this "necessity." 
 
 2. In many parts of Europe, where the turbulence of 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 67 
 
 feudalism was rampant, the only example of the disciplina 
 qua stetit res-publica was to be seen in a monastery. 
 
 3. The so-called Christians of that time were often 
 openly irreligious and immoral, and put no sort of curb on 
 their passions. Even the Church outside the monasteries 
 was greedy and ambitious. Inside men saw the sincerest 
 and strictest piety and humility starving even legitimate 
 desires. 
 
 4. Outside was a state of war : war and rapine were the 
 only regular occupations. Inside was the peace which 
 alone makes civilisation possible ; there alone ordinary in- 
 dustry could secure its reward. 
 
 5. Moreover, this monastic life — a kingdom of God 
 upon earth — had its sanctions in another life ; and the 
 world outside was so far Christian as to believe in these 
 sanctions. Was it strange that the contrast between the 
 monks and the rest of the world was impressive, or even 
 that it produced wholesale conversions ? 
 
 [References. — Montalembert, Monks of the West; Maitland, 
 Dark Ages; Morison, Life of St. Bernard; Church, Life of St. 
 Anselm; J. H. Newman, Lives of English Saints.^ 
 
 13. "A popular government under the forms of despotism " 
 (Macaulay). Justify this description of the English govern- 
 7nent under the Tudors. 
 
 1 . Macaulay quotes Froissart elsewhere for the character 
 of the English people nearly two centuries before as proving 
 that the government could not choose but be "popular": 
 " C'est le plus pdrilleux peuple qui soit au monde, et plus 
 outrageux et orgueilleux." 
 
 2. Not only were the people not disposed to endure 
 oppression, but .the government were not in a position to 
 
68 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 oppress the nation as a whole. There was no standing 
 army. 
 
 3. What, then, is meant by "the forms of despotism"? 
 The high-handed proceedings of Henry VII. in taxation, of 
 Henry VIII. in punishing those who opposed him, and in 
 his anti-papal legislation, of Mary in the persecutions, of 
 Elizabeth in her imperious language to Parliament, look 
 like sheer absolutism. "The great charter was often 
 violated " ; " Elizabeth often assumed the power of legis- 
 lating by means of proclamations " ; " benevolences were 
 levied." 
 
 4. The reconciliation of Tudor tyranny with Tudor 
 popularity is not difficult if we remember that the English 
 people respected the dynasty which had restored English 
 prestige on the Continent, and which had forced through 
 popular reforms {e.g. the Star Chamber, as a protest against 
 the law's delays), even though it used the substance as well 
 as the forms of despotism ; and that these princes were at 
 much pains, being thoroughly English themselves, to watch 
 successfully the temper of Englishmen. 
 
 5. The Parliament in the days of Henry VII. was weak, 
 yet the classes to whom its members belonged had a policy, 
 and the king carried it out. Henry VIII. got rid of 
 Empson and Dudley solely to make himself popular. 
 His Reform Parliament carried out their own wishes as 
 well as the king's. When his taxation produced a protest, 
 he withdrew it. The removal of ministers, the putting to 
 death of prominent men, did not trouble the nation, if it 
 did not make life harder for the country at large. The 
 gratifying of such whims was among his prerogatives^ and 
 the tyranny of kings was preferred to that of nobles. 
 Indeed the people seemed, as Macaulay says, to connect the 
 violence of these magnificent princes with the bold front 
 they showed to encroaching foreigners. The whole reign 
 of Edward VI. with its various risings shows what material 
 for turbulence there was in the country, and the scant force 
 at the disposal of the government. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 69 
 
 14. " The spacious times of great Elizabeth " (Tennyson). 
 Explain and justify the epithet here applied to the Elizabethan 
 age. 
 
 1. The epithet is literally true, since the new world 
 opened to voyagers was a definite enlargement of space for 
 our countrymen. 
 
 2. In a metaphorical sense also the new world enlarged 
 the horizon of all who stayed at home. 
 
 3. In the same sense the re-discovery of the old world 
 and its literature (in the previous century) had given a 
 further enlargement to the imagination ; so, looking back- 
 wards or forwards, men had endless vistas opened to them 
 of which they had never dreamt before. 
 
 4. The Reformation gave men a right to explore for 
 themselves, a right which they had not enjoyed while the 
 Church claimed unresisted to order men's reading and 
 thinking. 
 
 The point brought out by the epithet is not that great 
 things were done, so much as that the sphere in which 
 great things could be done had been indefinitely widened, 
 and that the world seemed suddenly to have become much 
 larger. 
 
 [References. — J. R. Green, Short History of the English 
 People; Froude, History of Engla7id, vol. viii. chap, xii.] 
 
 15. Account on general as well as historical grounds for 
 the long triumph of the Whigs in English politics. 
 
 I. When the arbitrary government of James II. had 
 disgusted both Whigs and Tories, it was the Whigs who 
 took the leading part in the protest. This gave them a 
 
70 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 claim as deliverers on the majority of Englishmen. William's 
 war — and it was a Whig war always — became before his 
 death a war of national defence. 
 
 2. The great Whig families who were chiefly concerned 
 in the Revolution commanded immense influence, and 
 among their members were men of great ability. Their 
 great estates secured them many votes directly and indirectly, 
 and enabled them to control Parliament. Consequently 
 when George accepted the invitation to be king, it was to 
 those Whig nobles who had averted the Jacobite schemes 
 at Anne's death that he naturally turned. He knew nothing 
 of, and cared nothing for, English politics ; the Whigs were 
 left to govern as they pleased, possessing in this way all 
 the royal influence as well as their own. 
 
 3. Walpole bettered this position of his party by the 
 way he managed the House of Commons, and by the way 
 he conciliated the trading classes, and fostered the fear of 
 Jacobitism among all classes. The bungling over the 
 rising in 1 7 1 5 still further discredited Jacobites and Tories. 
 AValpole gave the country twenty years of quiet and comfort, 
 and carefully eschewed all burning questions ; for he well 
 knew that Parliament was not the country, and that the 
 country would only let the great families and the ministers 
 fill its seats and guide its rules, so long as their own 
 strongest prejudices were respected. The dislike of 
 foreigners and of foreign religions was one of the strongest 
 of English feelings, and did as much as anything to keep 
 out the Pretender ; and of this Walpole made the most. 
 
 4. It has been said that the average Englishman is a 
 Whig, and that his sturdy independence and tolerant spirit 
 were fostered by the Whig party till "their principles 
 became his h.ibits," and that therefore they were long loved 
 and long satisfied the nation. On the other hand it is 
 urged that the average Englishman is practical, short of 
 imagination, and loves a via media (such, for instance, as 
 the English Church). He is not run away with by any 
 passionate loyalty, such as forgets misgovernment in its 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 71 
 
 devotion ; nor, again, is he so enamoured of ideas in 
 politics as to desire sweeping changes and a total break 
 with his traditions. The Whig minister, therefore, who 
 provided him with a king in subjection to Parliament, and 
 who confessed at the same time, with Walpole, that "he 
 was no reformer " and had no mind for heroic measures, 
 ■was just the minister he wanted — at least in the eighteenth 
 century, and especially the first half of it. 
 
 16. " There have been royal and imperial ministers ; and 
 there have been popular ministers ; but in England for the last 
 century and a half we have had Parliamentary ministers.'" 
 Explain the distinction here intended. 
 
 1. Royal and imperial ministers may dominate a 
 sovereign or be dominated by him, but in either case they 
 represent autocracy in some form. 
 
 2. A popular minister (as Pericles) may likewise be 
 autocratic ; but he may also be only the mouthpiece of 
 the largest and strongest section of the community, and 
 wait on every occasion till public opinion has declared 
 itself 
 
 3. Royal and popular ministers are alike in this, 
 that they are neither helped nor hindered to any great 
 extent by the political precedents of the country they are 
 governing. 
 
 4. Parliamentary ministers, on the other hand, while 
 they have to wait (in a sense) for a country's permission 
 to govern, are really pushed to the front by their experi- 
 ence and position in Parliament, and their achievements 
 in a Parliamentary sphere. Such a minister earns his pro- 
 minence by Parliamentary work ; and only supports the 
 most popular programme in the traditional place and by the 
 traditional methods. 
 
72 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 [References. — Seeley, Introduction to Political Science, 
 Lectures 2-4 ; Morley's Walpole, chap, vii.] 
 
 IL Political Philosophy 
 
 17. "War never leaves where it found a nation.^' The 
 effects of war on national temperametit. 
 
 1. A nation is materially altered by a war: by loss of 
 men and loss of money, by the indirect hindrance of trade, 
 by the direct increase of the burden of taxation. These 
 affect both the winning and the losing side. 
 
 2. The national temperament is soured or elated by 
 failure or success ; the nation's relation to its leaders is 
 altered, and domestic politics are affected. There is a 
 new confidence or a new dissatisfaction in the government 
 of the day, or in the constitution of the country. The 
 war discovers new powers or unsuspected incapacities ; and 
 these presently engender a new self-respecting energy or 
 an aggressive ambition, a demoralising self-contempt, an 
 implacable spirit of revenge, or a serious spirit of reforma- 
 tion ; or, again, a defeat or succession of defeats may be 
 so crushing to the conquered country that nationality is 
 almost effaced. 
 
 Where war helps a nation, as it has been known to do, 
 it is in the following way. The selfish and isolated pursuit 
 of material interests, comparatively harmless in peace, is 
 not equally-harmless in war ; the whole nation is then more 
 drawn together ; and those who are more interested in 
 the saving of private treasure than in the shedding of the 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 73 
 
 nation's blood are doing their best to sap national life, for 
 they confess themselves hucksters and not citizens. 
 
 Thus we say that to a healthy nation a just war is a 
 strong incentive to public sympathies, exposing all that is 
 unsound in national life ; and, at the same time, it is a 
 discipline inflicting salutary sufferings, while it steadies 
 and strengthens the national character till it can nerve 
 itself for further efforts. 
 
 But, above all, war may stir the national imagination 
 and make it loyal to an idea, the idea of patriotism. 
 Where the interest in an idea triumphs over the interest 
 in material things, there a nation has raised itself to a 
 higher scale of being. 
 
 [References. — Thucydides, iii. 82; Tennyson's Maud; 
 H. Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, " The Morality of Strife."^ 
 
 18, Why is it that we learn more of the character of a 
 nation in time of war ? 
 
 1. Because there is more to learn. The phrase "one 
 crowded hour of glorious life " supplies in the epithet 
 " crowded " the reason why a time of war is a true test of 
 worth and weakness : so many more points in national 
 character are seen at once and together. 
 
 2. The nation acts more like one man in a time of 
 excitement ; small personal aspects are lost sight of in a 
 public attitude, or, if not lost sight of, show the meaner 
 type of nation. 
 
 3. A time of peace and trade leaves the selfish motives 
 to operate more or less harmlessly ; but a time of war at 
 once makes them dangerous. 
 
 4. A nation's character, like an individual's, is often not 
 really known till some great interest is at stake. The 
 
74 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 reserved man or the unambitious nation may both have a 
 store of courage and endurance ; and, much as they dislike 
 a struggle, may easily find things precious enough to fight 
 for, and so "bear themselves that the opposer may be ware 
 of them," revealing qualities before unsuspected ; or, again, 
 a time of stress may show a nation, supposed to be sound 
 and strong, to be unsound and liable to panic. 
 
 5. The saying, "Happy the nation that has no history,'' 
 and the difficulty of discovering much about the years of 
 peace in ancient history show that (for the historian at 
 least) a time of peace is disappointingly barren of material 
 for the illustration or estimate of national character. 
 
 19. Can there be such a thing as a mixed constitution ? 
 Could the Roman Republic be so described ? 
 
 1. Speaking strictly, we might say that this was im- 
 possible,' since, in the case of conflicting elements in the 
 so-called mixed constitution, the one which permanently 
 triumphs must be said to be the governing element. For 
 instance, the ephors directed the Spartan State, and 
 determined the character of its government ; the other 
 authorities, if they " reigned," did not " govern." Similarly, 
 to-day, government by a representative House of Commons 
 (whatever name it receives) is the leading fact in our con- 
 stitution, and not the existence of various " estates." 
 
 2. But the '^oxi. permanently introduces a real difficulty; 
 English history illustrates this. Catholic emancipation is 
 pressed by a powerful minister, but George HI. will not 
 yield his prerogative ; and, again, an aristocratic and un- 
 reformed House of Commons, with the King behind it, is 
 successfully defied by the Middlesex electors. Here are 
 political conditions which suggest the idea of a divided 
 authority and a mixed constitution. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 75 
 
 3. The case of Rome is still stronger. The expulsion 
 of the kings left a close oligarchy in possession of the 
 government; yet within fifteen years the tribunes were 
 conceded to the plebs against the wishes of that oligarchy. 
 In the Punic wars the senate seemed all-powerful, yet a 
 Flaminius is made consul in the teeth of that senate. 
 And it is not till the century of revolution and the 
 Gracchan period that we find a really constitutional 
 democracy. 
 
 It would seem, then, that there have been mixed con- 
 stitutions, or, at least, that there have been states where 
 the real authority was found, within a very narrow limit of 
 time, to have oscillated between one part of the constitu- 
 tion and another. 
 
 20. " Chivalry or feudality is especially Celtic and barbarians- 
 it is incompatible with a sense of justice" (Dr. Arnold). 
 Explain this statement and discuss its accuracy. 
 
 1 . It is remarkable how the idea of something like caste 
 in the Middle Ages effaced the Roman conception of 
 citizenship. The graduated justice dealt out to different 
 classes under the feudal system put civilisation back many 
 centuries, and the Roman idea of equality before the law 
 was a long time in being recovered. 
 
 2. The deference to rank ; the absolute submission to 
 a liege lord ; the notion that crime is a different thing for 
 different persons (" Benefit of clergy " may serve for one 
 illustration, and the eulogies of cruel princes by contem- 
 porary historians for another) — all these point to a state 
 of society where humanity is only kept alive by sentiment, 
 and in no way protected by a moral code in the concrete, 
 that is, by law. 
 
 3. All the virtues that we associate with chivalry are 
 
76 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 possible to generous barbarians ; but none of the weak- 
 nesses or vices peculiar to the institutions of chivalry are 
 found in a society which enjoys justice. 
 
 21. " The aristocratic principle was never stronger than in 
 the ancient democracies" Illustrate this. 
 
 1. To take Roman history first. The democracy was 
 never realised till the time of the Gracchi ; after all the 
 struggles of patricians and plebeians there was a patrician 
 oligarchy governing in the Punic wars. And after the real 
 union of the two orders, and when the nobility had become 
 a nobility of office, the Roman plebs were as eager as their 
 betters to exclude the rest of Italy from their privileges ; 
 and though they subsequently accepted a compromise, the 
 exclusive aristocratic spirit of the citizens of Rome only 
 broke down when the tyrant (the emperor) had taken the 
 place of the democracy and forced upon it a recognition of 
 the world outside, and the claims of the provinces to good 
 government. 
 
 2. It was the same in Athens, where the numbers of 
 slaves made the democracy of freemen into a sort of 
 aristocracy at once. Not less was the idea of the " city- 
 state " aristocratic in its conception. The Athenian treat- 
 ment of the subject allies, the position of resident aliens 
 at Athens, are both incompatible with any ideas of the 
 equality of man. 
 
 22. " For just experience tells in every soil 
 
 That those who think must govern those who toil." 
 
 Another lesson of " experience " which others insist on 
 is that to let one class decide on the interests of another 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 77 
 
 class is to put a confidence in human nature which its 
 inherent selfishness has never justified. But the labouring 
 class, as soon as they are in a position to decide on 
 their own interest, are also in a position to decide on 
 interests in which " thinking " is vitally necessary, and 
 when the same danger of class selfishness -is even more 
 formidable. For " thinking " this class, as a whole, has 
 rarely the leisure, and still more rarely the inclination, 
 being often quite indifferent to the most important state 
 problems. It has hardly any horizon but its own limited 
 one ; it has no experience of its own, and no artificial 
 experience, such as education provides for the classes 
 above it. 
 
 Education tends to make men less selfish ; but if it 
 cannot be trusted to do enough to make the educated 
 classes take a disinterested view of the claims of the 
 labouring classes, still less likely are those who are without 
 it to give a disinterested opinion on the great questions of 
 the Empire. 
 
 Enlightened patriotism is the last fruit of the training 
 of statesmen, and even faintly to appraise such men and 
 their motives — the business of voters — requires some 
 fragmentary elements of this training, or some knowledge 
 of what it means. 
 
 The difficulty of protecting the welfare of a country 
 against selfishness from above and from below is the great 
 problem for a self-respecting democracy, and the first thing 
 to attempt is obviously to secure such a degree of leisure 
 and education for every one as shall enable those who 
 "toil" to be to some extent those who "think." If this 
 is not done, ignorance will be more and more formidable, 
 and government more and more of an unworthy art. But 
 if statesmen try to make public opinion, instead of acquies- 
 cing in the doctrine that those who " toil " have a better 
 right to their opinion than those who "think," respect for 
 thinking will increase, and public opinion become more 
 enlightened and more trustworthy. 
 
78 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 23. IVhat is the difference between a state being "civilised'''' 
 and being " humanised^' 1 
 
 1. When a state is humanised, it possesses the most 
 spiritual, and the least material, part of civilisation. The 
 general diffusion of material well-being has no necessary 
 tendency to secure this better part of civilisation. A 
 demand for comfort is not a demand for beauty, either 
 literary or artistic, or even for those graces of manner 
 which are the best evidence of man's social progress. 
 
 2. The real superiority given to a nation thus human- 
 ised is so marked that it covers any deficiency in the pro- 
 vision for national comfort — even in the provision for 
 what we call good government. For this reason Greeks 
 and Romans are still our teachers ; for this reason 
 Periclean Athens and the Rome of the Antonines may be 
 said to be " nearer to ourselves " and more civilised than 
 any country in Europe four hundred years ago — more 
 civilised than many countries even at the present time. 
 
 3. If " life may as well be called an art as any other," 
 that nation which makes the most provision for its infinite 
 variety understands the art best, is most humane ; 
 for it recognises all the wants of human nature, the 
 pleasures no less than the necessities and the utilities. 
 
 A civilised nation has secured the comfort and good 
 government of its citizens ; a humanised nation has secured, 
 or is trying to secure, the best that human life has to give. 
 
 24. " As manners make laws, manners likewise repeal them " 
 (Johnson). In what sense is this true of " manners " ? 
 
 I. " Manners " include both custom and public opinion. 
 ( I ) To take an instance from ancient times, we may recall 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 79 
 
 Solon's law, which made it punishable, as an offence against 
 the State, for a man to have taken no side, when Athens 
 was convulsed by party-strife. One of the two parties 
 being at least more in the right than the other, it argued a 
 lack of patriotism that a man should have risked nothing 
 in the cause of good government. Only where politics 
 were an absorbing interest, and where indifference to them 
 was very rare in ordinary life, could such a law have been 
 put forward. Nor, again, if the government had been 
 suffered by the citizens to possess a standing army, would 
 such a regulation have been necessary. (2) Another 
 example may be found in the legislation of to-day. A bill 
 for the protection of ancient monuments would never have 
 been thought of except where the sentiment of antiquar- 
 ianism had been generally accepted ; for in this respect 
 our " manners " have undergone a considerable change in 
 the last fifty years. 
 
 2. The change in the French Constitution which we 
 call the French Revolution, as well as our own first great 
 Reform Bill, were brought about by the growth of a new 
 sentiment. When the distinctions between classes are felt 
 to be largely unreal ; when the peasant " learns to venerate 
 himself as man " ; when, finally, the old awe, in presence of 
 rank and wealth, gives way, the question of rights is an 
 immediate consequence of a change in manners. In the 
 same way, the feeling about slavery, and about cruelty 
 generally, produced a bill in Parliament which made 
 slavery illegal, another which created the Factory Act, and 
 another which remodelled the Army Discipline Act. These 
 are but a few illustrations out of many. 
 
 3. If law is to stand loosely for convention or established 
 use (which is not, I think, Johnson's meaning) " manners " 
 are almost identical with the law of manners or "custom." 
 The phrase will then mean that the manners of many 
 individuals, or individuals who are very prominent, can 
 make or unmake a prevailing custom, and this custom 
 (from its uniformity partly, and partly from the sane- 
 
8o A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 tions which society can enforce) has come to be called 
 a law. 
 
 25. " All the good things connected with manners and with 
 civilisation in this European ivorld of ours have depended for 
 ages on two principles — the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit 
 of religion" (Burke). 
 
 Burke is here thinking of that social civilisation which 
 is briefly summed up in the word manners. To this the 
 great contributors have been the refining and humanising 
 sentiments which Christianity and Chivalry have engrafted 
 on the Europe of to-day. The refinement introduced by 
 Christianity had a double influence in giving men an ideal 
 remote from their material interest, and in softening the 
 relations of ordinary life. It recognised and established 
 new virtues, and came forward as a champion of the 
 weak and oppressed, for whom the harsh and unchivalrous 
 civilisation of Rome made so little provision. Chivalry, 
 following in the wake of Christianity, by elevating the 
 position of women, and laying especial stress on honour 
 and self-respect, created a second ideal of a more secular 
 type ; and in this way want of humanity and want of 
 courtesy have come to be considered not merely as wrong 
 but as degrading. When Europe gets rid of religion and 
 disowns the motto " noblesse oblige " (in its widest sense), 
 then, says Burke, we may expect to see all classes 
 materialised, and the relations of society as a whole 
 dominated once more by a rough and selfish, or even by a 
 brutal, indifference. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 8i 
 
 26. " The principles of a free Constitution are irrecoverably 
 lost when the legislative power is nominated by the executive." 
 
 Gibbon uses these words of the censorship in the days 
 of Augustus, and the extinction of the legislative power 
 was carried still further by Tiberius when he practically 
 put an end to the comitia. The censors who nominated 
 the senate (when vacancies had to be filled up) in old days 
 had, it should be remembered, no prominence in the 
 executive. The point of Gibbon's remark is this. The 
 times of the triumvirs had left but one expiring spark of 
 freedom, and that was in the senate. Augustus, by his 
 assumption of the censorship, and Tiberius, in a less 
 disguised way, filled that body with their creatures, and 
 removed all recalcitrant members. Henceforth the 
 emperor's fiat made and unmade the laws. Check or 
 criticism of any kind was at an end. 
 
 In English history Cromwell by force, Walpole and 
 George III. by fraud of different kinds, contrived to 
 provide themselves with a packed House of Commons. 
 As the people, or their representatives, are supposed to 
 make the laws, a House of paid or pledged voters, repre- 
 senting nobody but their paymaster or patron, silences the 
 voice of the people and robs them of their law-making 
 power. In such a House the executive, who are properly 
 the servants of the people, and of the legislative assembly, 
 are no longer ministers but masters, and irresponsible 
 masters. 
 
 27. " We must not expect to find our ideas of the individual 
 among the Greeks." What has happened since their time to 
 make this impossible 1 
 
 I. The Greek idea of liberty was liberty in a political 
 6 
 
82 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 sense. The citizen's rights were everything, and much 
 above the man's. The government, provided he was 
 part of it, might coerce him individually, pretty well as it 
 liked. His house was by no means his castle, in our 
 sense. The state was so important to a Greek that our 
 demands would seem absurd to him. 
 
 2. What we claim is liberty to enjoy, the liberty of the 
 individual, to be as much let alone (in one sense) by the 
 state as by powerful citizens or foreigners. 
 
 3. The growth of this sentiment is quite recent. 
 Christianity, in its care for the individual soul, began it ; 
 but it had no great access of strength before the days of 
 Rousseau, the American War, and the French Revolution. 
 The abolition of slavery was in part cause, in part effect, 
 of the growth of this sentiment. Even before the Revolu- 
 tion Goldsmith had written of the peasant " learning to 
 venerate himself as man." This is something wholly 
 different from the conception of a citizen in a society 
 which rested on a basis of slavery. 
 
 [References. — Essay on " Aristotle's Conception of the 
 State " in Hellenica ; Seeley's Introduction to Political Science.'] 
 
 III. {a) Literature (Ancient) 
 
 28. " The great virtue of ancient literature is its sanity " 
 (M. Arnold). Explain and illustrate. 
 
 I. We mean by intellectual sanity the power that enables 
 a writer "to keep his head," o-wfeiv <^pkva,, as the Greeks 
 said. It is the power that prevents his liberty from be- 
 coming license. It is seen more easily in form than in 
 matter, though it is evident in both. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 83 
 
 2. Style is a something protected by "wholesome, 
 regulative " laws. The virtue of the ancients made them 
 (in their own phrase) content to be " more ignorant than 
 those laws " ; in other words, too modest and too sane to 
 presume to break the canons of their art. 
 
 3. Caprice, eccentricity, redundancy, exaggeration, are 
 so many vicious results of hurry. The leisurely judgment, 
 the patience and the discipline, exhibited in classical 
 literature, are the results of an unshaken belief in the 
 value of measure and order : such a creed will never 
 permit the fantastic or the inconsequent. 
 
 4. However great the virtues of " romantic " literature 
 may be (and a romantic genius of the first order must 
 always be a law to himself), it lacks that security which is 
 pre-eminently suggested by the epithet "classical." 
 
 5. Sanity, in short, means that mental quality which 
 deprecates any overstepping of those established boundaries 
 which protect the practice of literature. A writer with 
 this quality will never allow individual feeling to display 
 itself at the expense of his art and its worthy traditions , 
 and this virtue will also influence his choice of subjects, 
 and cause him to prefer a great one, which helps him, to a 
 trifling one which he has to make great. But subjects 
 have been infinitely multiplied by the greater complexity 
 of modern life. Those, therefore, who have the handling 
 of them will do well to see that they shall not be 
 approached in a spirit of less sobriety and dignity thar 
 the few great ones belonging to the ancient world. 
 
 29. "Homer, the Bible of the Greeks." Discuss the signifi- 
 cance of the phrase. 
 
 I. Not only did Homer "give their gods to the 
 Greeks" (Hdt. ii. 53), but they found, or thought they 
 
84 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 found, all knowledge in him. No one who wrote on any 
 subject could omit to quote him ; the mere associations 
 that clustered round single words or phrases recall our 
 own use of the language of our English Bible. Such 
 quotations never failed to add force of some kind, 
 authority, humour, or pathos. 
 
 2. The philosophers quote him like every one else, 
 and when they criticise * his religion or morality, we are. 
 reminded of modern criticism on such things as the story 
 of Jael, or the story of Uzzah. 
 
 3. The significance of this state of things lies in the 
 evidences it affords of the intellectual and literary charac- 
 teristics of the Greek mind. The Trojan war or the 
 wanderings of Ulysses are not primarily of religious or 
 historical import, nor seen at first sight to carry authorita- 
 tive lessons like those in the Bible. But to the Greeks, 
 with their instinct for beauty, their first, greatest and most 
 beautiful book seemed the corner-stone of their civilisation. 
 They accepted the paradox that " from beauty comes 
 poetry and from poetry civihsation " (Grattan). 
 
 30. '■'■Herodotus is history' s fresh youth, 
 
 Thucydides is judgment, age and truth " 
 
 (Barton Holyday). 
 Illustrate this comparison. 
 
 The fresh youth of history is a time when verse and 
 prose, history and poetry, are not sharply distinguished 
 either in their subject or their language. The theme of 
 Herodotus is much larger than the one he actually proposes 
 to himself, and everything is relevant to it, everything 
 interesting. The division of labour has not begun ; there 
 is little philosophical examination of causes, or sifting of 
 evidence ; even where there is a desire to tell the truth. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 85 
 
 there seems something like a want of humanity in telling 
 only the truth, when so much that is half true or even 
 untrue is attractive to hear of Divine agencies are 
 recognised and regarded as no less worth discussing than 
 human agencies. 
 
 Though only a short interval separates the birth of 
 Thucydides from ' that of Herodotus, the whole view of 
 things has changed in the later historian. The world is a 
 whole age older. Thucydides only wants to tell facts ; to 
 tell the fact so far as he can get at it by painful search, 
 that the truth of past experience may guide men in time 
 to come. His severe style, he is resolved, shall help to 
 that end ; it shall in no way recall poetry (i. 21); it shall 
 only deal with things entirely human ; it shall narrate 
 only what happened, to the exclusion not only of what 
 unauthorised persons say happened, but of all digressions, 
 or illustrations (i. 22). Lastly, he has more judgment than 
 his predecessor. He distinguishes causes real and apparent 
 (i. 23), the effects of long war on a nation's temper (iii. 82), 
 together with other aspects of national character ; the 
 phenomena of disease (ii. 49), and superstition (vii. 50), 
 the influence of wealth on politics (i. 83, 141), the history 
 of migrations (i. 2, 12), the characteristics of early ages 
 (i. 2-17). This is that power of "judging" which comes 
 with the world's riper experience, with "age." 
 
 31. " The history of Greece is more poetical, and its poetry 
 more historical than that of any other country.'" 
 
 I. By the first part of this sentence is meant that 
 appeal to imagination which Greek history makes in virtue 
 of the exciting, the dramatic character of its incident, 
 This is seen not merely in the Persian war, with the 
 triumph of a small civilised country over a continent of 
 
86 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 barbarians, and all the momentous issues of that contest 
 to the world ; it is no less visible in the rapid rise and fall 
 of greatness in the Greek states themselves, and particularly 
 in such a case as the climax of Athenian insolences at 
 Melos, and the great catastrophe in Sicily which immedi- 
 ately followed. 
 
 2. Greek poetry is historical in the sense that the life 
 and interests of the nation are bound up with its poetry. 
 The Greek dramas very rarely tell of Greek history in the 
 strict sense, but with the most liberal anachronism the 
 heroic personages in the dramas discuss every phase of 
 Greek national and political feeling. And in Homer, 
 Theognis and Pindar, no less than in the dramatists, we 
 know at once where we are in Greek history. The poets 
 are always national, none merely individual. 
 
 32. " The manhood of poetry is the drama, as its childhood 
 is the epic." Illustrate from Greek literature. 
 
 The epic is the childhood of poetry, not because it is 
 inferior as poetry, but because it represents a smaller field 
 of interests, and a smaller resource in art. The world 
 is fresher when epic poetry is written ; everything is of 
 interest, but that " everything " covers a small part of what 
 a mature mind can explore. The child's mind, and the 
 mind of men generally in early ages, moves about " in 
 worlds not realised." To hear stories of great deeds, to 
 have the tale of its own life told to it again, to have life 
 altogether in the concrete, is enough for the early age. 
 
 When the manhood of a people comes, and when it 
 has gone through great trials and achieved great triumphs, 
 as the Athenians had after the Persian wars, it acquires 
 with all its new experience an extraordinary intellectual 
 development. The Greece of Homer's day was satisfied 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 87 
 
 with stories — noble stories though they were and nobly 
 told. Athens in the time of Pericles was a home of active 
 thought in every department : thought which was not 
 content with the concrete but wanted the abstract as well. 
 Accordingly every sort of question, moral or intellectual, 
 that Athenians discussed themselves they desired their 
 poets also to approach. The same restless eagerness which 
 filled their hours of business had also to be propitiated by 
 those who provided for their amusement. Thus it came 
 to pass that the form of that amusement was called poetry 
 in action (drama), not a story (epic). A dialogue was to 
 Plato something living, and different from books, which 
 " preserved a solemn silence " ; and from the like feeling, 
 the drama best satisfied the manhood of Greece. Among 
 other things it was an advance on the epic in the matter 
 of character-drawing ; analysis of character being a specially 
 interesting study to all who liked to raise moral questions. 
 To the advantages of its realistic form the drama added, 
 through the chorus, other attractions, absorbing all the 
 new lyrical power in Greek literature. At the same time 
 it retained a framework of the old epic story, partly from 
 association, partly from an instinct that it was better in 
 some way to withdraw art from the injurious associations 
 of ephemeral interest. 
 
 33. " The splendid education of the Athenian stage."' 
 
 1. Only a people as intelligent and artistic as the 
 Athenians could have profited by such an education — that 
 is the first thing to remember. 
 
 2. But, with their instincts, the stage offered an educa- 
 tion in art and morals which no nation has enjoyed before 
 or since. It may be summed up as — teaching by the 
 highest minds in the state, on the highest subjects, through 
 
88 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 the medium of the highest poetical speech. And it must 
 never be forgotten that it was oral teaching. A nation 
 which was not taught by books but by listening with rapt 
 and critical attention to the wisdom of their wisest must 
 have had an intensity of interest in the things of the mind, 
 and been more convinced of their supreme importance 
 every day that they learnt a new lesson from the tragedies. 
 3. The poet taught them everything. He was politician, 
 preacher, philosopher. No nation can be absorbed in 
 material interests which has, and is glad to have, such 
 lofty occupations for its leisure. They could all criticise, 
 Pericles tells us, if they could not originate, and this was 
 not surprising in a nation which had in its nature so strong 
 an intellectual impulse, and had that impulse encouraged 
 and strengthened every time it went to the theatre. 
 
 [Reference. — ymazSy'^ Euripides (Classical Writers Series), 
 chap, i.] 
 
 34. " Oh the Greek stage the curtain was never dropped." 
 Explain the full significance of this. 
 
 1. The continuity of action was the point in a Greek 
 play. It was almost universal to have the events confined 
 to a single day. If the action of a play is thus continuous, 
 there can be no need of a division into acts to bridge 
 over intervals of time or to account for a complete change 
 of scene. 
 
 2. The appearance of the chorus, which separates the 
 dramatic dialogue, leads us astray here. The chorus, we 
 must always remember, is an actor : Horace is emphatic 
 on this point. They do not interrupt the piece; they only 
 comment on and explain the action. 
 
 3. Nor was continuity everything : simplicity in the 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 89 
 
 issue presented is characteristic of the Greek drama. To 
 this the dropping of the curtain, and all the variety of 
 assumptions implied in it, is' not conducive. Modern 
 drama wishes to present the complexity of modern life, 
 or at least to show that it is not forgotten : ancient drama 
 desires concentration before everything else. 
 
 35. ''^Euripides is the best poet for a public speaker." Why? 
 
 1. The audience of Euripides and the public orator 
 are largely the same. The modern tone of the Periclean 
 age offers many points of resemblance to our own day : 
 in the discussion of the good and evil of democracy, in 
 the sympathy with social enfranchisement, in the genesis of 
 new religious ideas; and generally in its love of discussion. 
 
 2. By the word "human," as applied to Euripides, we 
 mean that he applies the human standard everywhere : 
 iravTtov /jArpov avOpiawos, as his sophist teachers would 
 have said. He suits his audience everywhere and does 
 not go about to elevate them. Burke was often above 
 his audience and so failed to get a hearing. 
 
 3. He is human also in other ways. He appeals to 
 human passions, passions that all his audience can feel. 
 He is neither the expounder of a religious or world-theory 
 (Aeschylus) nor a preacher of ideal morality (Sophocles). 
 Patriotism, compassion, sympathy with oppressed classes 
 (e.g. soldiers as against their general, women against their 
 husbands) — these are his moral topics. Here he is at 
 one with the orator in his themes; and his numerous 
 pathetic situations suggest to the orator that he should 
 learn the secret of pathos from a master of the pathetic. 
 
go A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 36. "/if is in her prose rather than in her poetry that Rome 
 has really expressed herself." Support or discuss this opinion. 
 
 1. A practical people welcomes most naturally such of 
 the fine arts as lie nearest practice. Architecture was 
 therefore a signal success with the Romans. Similarly a 
 nation with a great political history soon learns the neces- 
 sity of oratory and is at pains to bring it to perfection. 
 The minor art of letter-writing, too, which may have such 
 valuable results in practice, was studied with so much care 
 at Rome that there first it reached the rank of an art. 
 Satire is not prose, but it is the form of poetry nearest to 
 prose, and the work of edification to which it ministered 
 was essentially a practical one ; hence the Romans, who 
 loved to preach even in poetry proper, could say with 
 some confidence, "Satira tota nostra est.'' "Poetry that 
 begins in ease " was to them a luxury, an exotic. Only 
 the favoured few who had caught the literary spirit of 
 Greece could travel so far from the things that " come 
 home to men's business and bosoms." 
 
 2. But the Romans were something besides practical. 
 They loved above all things to make much of the city's, 
 of the family's traditions : they loved the decorum of great 
 occasions. Their dignity, which was as characteristic of 
 them as anything else, was propitiated by the story of 
 their great race, worthily told. Hence their admiration 
 of, and their success in, history. In Livy, with a style 
 majestic as the Roman Empire (Seneca), their famous 
 annals were handled with becoming ceremony. 
 
 37. "/« the struggle against Greek influence the elder Cato 
 was on the losing side in literature : the men of ge?iius took 
 the other" (Mackail). Who are specially meant by the men 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 91 
 
 of genius 1 IVhere is their imitation of Greek models most 
 dearly contrasted with the native development of the Latin 
 speech 2 
 
 The men of genius may refer to the Scipionic circle 
 and to all the early founders of Roman poetry, who intro- 
 duced Greek metres and specially Greek mythology. It 
 would perhaps be better to extend it to such typical men 
 of letters as Virgil and Horace. The native development 
 of Latin speech was literary, as it were, by accident. 
 Oratory was a necessity to Rome's political life. But 
 Mimes and the Saturnian metre were not likely to satisfy 
 the literary aspirations of such men of genius as had 
 been brought face to face with a literature like that of 
 Greece. These men would no sooner begin to imitate 
 than they would feel the superiority of Greece at every 
 point ; and the mere pleasure of literary association would 
 bring them much closer to Greek ways and take them 
 further from their own idiom. This is seen most obviously 
 in the Greek mythology, so constantly preferred to their 
 own by Virgil and Horace, and in such things as are 
 called "Greek constructions." But most of all is it seen 
 in the perfecting of the Latin hexameter. For, though 
 so wholly different from the Homeric, it is susceptible 
 of such infinite variety as only an apprenticeship to Greek 
 literature could give. The Latin language without Greek 
 influence would have kept much closer to the spoken 
 language. Cato's opponents began, and Virgil and Horace 
 completed, a literary language which the native speech 
 could never have developed without Greek examples. 
 
 38. The periods in which Greek influence was injurious to 
 Roman literature and the extent of the injury. 
 
 I. In the very early period we cannot talk much of 
 
92 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 injurious influence, for, in spite of the protest of Naevius, 
 the Romans had everything to learn in the way of Hterary 
 form, and their speech had not as yet a character of its 
 own. (This may be seen in the case of compound words-, 
 which were at first attempted and afterwards abandoned 
 by the maturer genius of the Latin language.) It may be 
 true, however, that some valuable native elements were 
 crushed out by the overpowering nature of Greek influence. 
 On the other hand, the Romans had no genius for drama, 
 and we can only be grateful for the translations and 
 adaptations of Plautus and Terence, who at least showed 
 their originality in developing the powers of the Latin 
 language. 
 
 2. The Latin of Plautus, Terence, Cicero, Caesar, 
 Catullus and Lucretius, according to Professor Munro, 
 represents " the well of Latin undefiled," but " by the 
 time of the Augustan age, Greek and even debased Greek 
 had made painful inroads into the language." Even 
 Virgil and Horace, with the facility and the prejudices 
 of learned poets, will drop into a style and structure which 
 is Greek rather than Latin. Cicero had noticed and 
 commented on this growing tendency. 
 
 3. In the Silver age further mischief was done. Thought 
 as well as idiom had surrendered much of its independence; 
 Juvenal's Greek City regarded such independence almost 
 as a want of refinement. 
 
 39. " Virgil lived in the world which the great Greek and 
 Latin poets had created , but he looked forward out of it into 
 another" (Mackail). Explain both parts of this statement. 
 
 I. He lived in a world which we should call classical 
 — a world with a tradition of literature, which the Greeks 
 had formed and his Latin predecessors had observed. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 93 
 
 He accepted the sentiment of that world and echoed its 
 principles and its language, not from servility but from 
 piety and from conviction. At the same time he enlarged 
 and enriched that language. He was at pains to draw 
 from the great fount of literature, and no less from the 
 new wells dug by his countrymen. 
 
 2. But, living in this world, he was often not of it, and 
 had many ghmpses of another — of the romantic world. 
 Its sad love-story, its tender melancholy, its feeling for 
 external nature, its sympathy with lost causes, one and 
 all appealed to him. For him nothing " rich or strange " 
 ever missed its attraction. 
 
 3. And, besides this, he looked out on the confines of 
 the Christian world. He too compassionated the poor 
 and weak, dreamed of a golden age of peace and brother- 
 hood when "neither should there be war any more," and 
 formed new hopes for the race. " Virgilius the enchanter " 
 is a name expressing his power in the world of romance, 
 but it was a Christian world which gave it to him. 
 
 III. {b) Literature (Modern) 
 
 40. " The true critic will dwell on excellences rather than 
 on imperfections." Is this a paradox 1 How might it be de- 
 fended? 
 
 I. As the word " critic " is commonly understood, this 
 might be called a paradox. Of much published work the 
 excellences are not discoverable and its imperfections are 
 often of a more positive quality than the excellences, even 
 where the latter exist. Moreover, the true critic (the 
 "judge") must emphasise the decadence of popular taste. 
 
94 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 when an ephemeral reputation is ranked as a permanent 
 one, and undeserved popularity is achieved. Still even 
 here he may minimise censure, "measuring the bad by the 
 rule of the good," as Euripides says, and dwelling on the 
 rule rather than on its infringement. 
 
 2. But Addison is evidently thinking of literature proper, 
 which may be presumed to have merit of some kind. 
 Whatever is below this ought to need no death-stroke from 
 the true critic, and will rarely be his concern. 
 
 Good literature marred by faults or weaknesses may 
 acquire some real vogue with the help of the true critic, 
 yiho judges without passion or prejudice, when without him 
 it might be ignored or ignorantly censured. Common 
 faults common eyes can see; uncommon beauties are often 
 not recognised for such till the law of good taste is applied 
 to them by an experienced judge and they are seen to 
 conform to it. Such a critic or judge will put forth his 
 powers to help the world to get at this uncommon some- 
 thing, even to the ignoring of defects which he feels ; and 
 he will do this because the defects of an unknown or 
 unpopular author are less injurious, and his merits less 
 obvious. 
 
 3. The most important point in the question is that the 
 true critic's true function is to understand his author. On 
 such parts of his work therefore as he understands best, 
 the parts with which he has most sympathy, he will most 
 naturally dwell. And this will not merely be a matter of 
 choice. Being a true critic, he knows that sympathetic 
 criticism is also the most fruitful and the most enlightening. 
 
 41. " JPitiiiimus oratori poetay The connection betiveen 
 poetry and oratory. 
 
 I. In so far as both poet and orator use the embellish- 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 95 
 
 ments of language to work upon the emotions, and in so 
 far as they both may be concerned (the orator, of course, 
 far more rarely) with sentiment and not with reason, they 
 may be said to be " of kin." The rhythms and cadences 
 of oratory and the metrical effects of poetry influence 
 readers and hearers in a similar way ; the pleasurable 
 associations in both cases are evoked by similar means. 
 
 2. But when we speak of a poet as "too rhetorical" 
 we testify to the difference between the arts. By this 
 phrase we mean that the practical object inseparable from 
 oratory is too prominent in the poem. Poetry is more 
 of a fine art ; " it began in ease and is consecrated to 
 pleasure," as Goldsmith says, while "eloquence arose from 
 necessity, and aims at conviction." (This word "necessity" 
 will explain why oratory was cultivated so early and with 
 so much success in Rome.) It is not the business of a 
 poet to preach or to persuade. Anything like argument 
 for argument's sake (such as Euripides permits himself 
 from time to time) is against the genius of poetry ; for 
 harmony and proportion are thus neglected, and the power 
 of pleasing impaired. 
 
 3. An orator, again, is concerned with an audience and 
 must conciliate it by any means at his disposal. But the 
 poet may confine himself to soliloquy, and in no case is 
 at the mercy of things so accidental as voice or audience. 
 Nor does he recognise any coercing influence save the law 
 of beauty. 
 
 42. '■'■Milton was very wise in adopting the anthropo- 
 morphism of the Hebrew Scriptures " (Coleridge). Illustrate 
 Milton's '■'wisdom " by a comparison of "-Paradise Lost" with 
 the ancient epics. 
 
 The traditions of the epic require a mythology, and 
 
96 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 Milton, both as scholar and poet, could not safely ignore 
 these traditions. Heroics imply an age in part super- 
 natural, and a mythology is therefore necessary : but it is 
 no less necessary that the epic should interest, and this it 
 cannot do, unless the ordinary human conditions, under 
 which interest is satisfied, are in some sort conceded. 
 
 Milton's subject was supernatural to a degree beyond 
 any ancient epic, and Milton's reverence made it difficult 
 for him to take the supernatural as lightly as the poets of 
 antiquity. But the figurative language of the Bible made 
 it possible for him not only to have a mythology, but to 
 ascribe to his divine agents human thought and human 
 speech. 
 
 Had he altogether shrunk from this, his poems would 
 have lacked the concrete reality necessary to that telling 
 of a story which the epic presupposes. This is proved by 
 the fact that where he did so shrink, our interest is greatly 
 weakened, " and God the Father turns a school divine " 
 (Pope). 
 
 Milton is read for something besides the splendour of 
 his blank verse; and this something is due to the rich 
 human character with which his imagination clothed some 
 at least of his ethereal beings — in other words, to the 
 anthropomorphism of the Bible which he borrowed and 
 poetically developed. 
 
 43. How do Falstaff and Don Quixote differ from the 
 ordinary creations of comedy ? 
 
 I. The ordinary creations of comedy are types. So 
 much is this the case with Latin comedy that the masks 
 represented a certain hmited number of characters which 
 were regularly expected. (We may compare the clown 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 97 
 
 and pantaloon of a modern pantomime). But though 
 comedy proper now dispenses with masks and allows more 
 variety, it still exacts particular humours from particular 
 characters, and to some extent prescribes that something 
 more than an individual shall be portrayed. 
 
 2. But with Don Quixote and Falstaff, while we admit 
 that they are thoroughly human, we are constrained to add 
 that they are not characters formed on any recognised 
 lines ; they correspond to no familiar type. No one of so 
 unworthy a character as Falstafif was ever before so loved, 
 or proved such stimulating company to his friends. No 
 one so absurd as Don Quixote ever talked so worthily, 
 or had such noble ideals, or was ever able as he was to 
 conciliate the respect and the affection of his friends. 
 
 The character pronounced impossible beforehand, which 
 lives and moves and satisfies, is something wholly different 
 from the most original varieties of the types presented by 
 comedy. 
 
 44. " Shakespeare^ s kings are quite ordinary humanity 
 thrust upon greatness" (Pater). Do the historical plays seem 
 to you to bear out this judgment ^ 
 
 1. The case of Henry IV. may be disputable, though 
 even here we should do well to remember Bacon's — 
 "When he is in place, he is another man." But in Henry 
 V. we have something more like the case of Csesar — a 
 great nature steadily and gradually sobered from youth's 
 extravagances till the life of purpose was really begun. 
 Such sobering was, however, more compulsory to Henry V. 
 than to Caesar. 
 
 2. King John and Henry VI. are both specimens of 
 ordinary humanity, rather below, in the case of John, than 
 above it. 
 
 7 
 
98 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 3. Richard II. seems to me a typical example of Mr. 
 Pater's point — a graceful and weak sentimentalist, whose 
 royal dignity heightens his graces and claims more sympathy 
 for his sentiment. In ordinary life such a character would 
 produce a feeling of irritated contempt rather than one of 
 sympathy. 
 
 4. Richard III. is a much more difficult case. He can 
 hardly be described as ordinary humanity : yet it was the 
 being thrust upon greatness that made him so extra- 
 ordinary. His indomitable will would have had much less 
 action to foster its strength upon, and in consequence there 
 would have been less achievement, but for his nearness to 
 the throne. The malice, too, of the deformed would have 
 been less bitter where the deformity was less conspicuous. 
 It wants more than common temptations to walk over heaps 
 of dead to your desires. The splendour (for it is hardly 
 less) of his audacities came of a will and a temper that 
 only the chance of a throne could have made what they 
 were. 
 
 45. How far is style necessary to the historian ? 
 
 1. The first thing required of a historian, Thucydides 
 thinks, is the " painful search after truth." And if history 
 is a science, or a science and nothing more, we might ask 
 no more of the historian. As it is, we too must put this 
 qualification first. The question, however, is whether we 
 must not also put in some other things. 
 
 2. A picture of a remote age is occasionally necessary 
 to us, and this only style can draw. Statistics will not 
 always interpret themselves. Even statistics require three 
 leading virtues of style — order, precision, lucid statement., 
 
 3. Thucydides deals but little if at all in pictures of an 
 age, and no one ever put a severer strain on his emotions, 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 99 
 
 personal or public. Yet it was something more than 
 statistics, however accurate, which made Gray say of his 
 Syracusan Expedition, " Is it, or is it not the best thing you 
 have ever read ? " 
 
 4. A historian, if he is to live, must be a man of letters, 
 or he will be absorbed in his successor's work. And if he 
 has an individual point of view (and without one he will 
 be a mere compiler), he cannot help illustrating the truth 
 that " the style is the man." 
 
 5. Wherever public sentiment has been deeply and 
 widely stirred, the historian's language must at least rise 
 sufficiently to show that he is conscious of describing some- 
 thing critical and momentous. Otherwise his story of 
 events will hardly be the story of the time or the people. 
 
 6. Veracity is before verisimilitude. But without some 
 degree of verisimilitude — the work of the historic imagina- 
 tion, with style for its instrument — veracity may often be 
 all but useless to us. 
 
 7. No historian can do without style altogether ; yet 
 the more valuable history may easily have less of it than 
 the less valuable. But its author pays for his defect by a 
 narrowed fame if not by a shortened life. It is the extreme 
 case of " Probitas laudatur et alget." 
 
 46. "True wit is nature to advantage dressed" (Pope). 
 Explain this line, and illustrate this extended sense of the 
 word "wit." 
 
 Wit seems to be used here in Bacon's sense, when he 
 says that "historians make men wise, poets witty." In 
 other words, a familiarity with the minds and speech of 
 poets quickens the intelligence and stimulates the imagina- 
 tion. Johnson's objection to the second line of this couplet 
 ("What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed "), that 
 
loo A MANUAL OF ESSAY -WRITING 
 
 it improperly limits wit, seems to show that he too allowed 
 the word to have this more extended sense, even to a 
 degree beyond Pope's usage. The line would seem to 
 mean that nature, though open to the observation of all, is 
 never truly seen till it is viewed by the poet's imagination 
 and described by him with that articulateness which is 
 denied to common men. Pope's words do appear to limit 
 wit to a matter of style, but what he calls " dressing to 
 advantage " might surely be made to include seeing more 
 as well as telling more. 
 
 In this sense (i) we may describe wit as a general term 
 for intellectual quickness in seeing as well as vigour and 
 fulness in telling what has been seen. In fact, it is a lajge 
 word to describe a highly-developed intelligence, in which 
 the imaginative faculty and the faculty of quick apprehen- 
 sion and comprehensive expression are the most prominent 
 features. 
 
 2. In a second sense it seems to suggest powers of 
 expression only, but of a high order. 
 
 3. Gradually the word became narrowed to the sense it 
 bears to-day, where the element of surprise is necessary to 
 it. We now understand by it an intellectual alertness 
 which gives sudden turns to conversation or written dis- 
 cussion, exhibiting in a lively or grotesque fashion con- 
 gruities or incongruities before undetected. 
 
 47. " The end of art is pleasure, not edification. ''" The 
 applicatiori of this principle to literature. 
 
 The fine arts are admitted to have pleasure for their, 
 first object, though they may have many other indirect 
 effects. Literature as such is one of them, and cannot 
 therefore have a different end. 
 
 Information and instruction of the direct kind, moral 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS loi 
 
 or other, are not the qualities in virtue of which a book 
 belongs to literature. Before a book can make this claim, 
 it must be marked by that individuality and charm which 
 is of the essence of art. No new discovery or advance in 
 knowledge can impair this charm, and such a book can 
 never have its place taken by another book, in the way 
 that a new scientific manual can discredit an old one. 
 
 If the individuality of the author still pleases, if will 
 live ; if it ceases to live, it is because it has ceased to 
 please. 
 
 To the art of story-telling the desire openly to in- 
 struct is a great hindrance, and tends to make it unreal. 
 The obtruding of a purpose is sure to dwarf that human 
 interest, to rouse which is the story-teller's business ; 
 men and women are represented in forced and unnatural 
 positions to further the moral, and the want of plausibility 
 in the whole makes the reader resentful. There is teach- 
 ing in all good books, but that teaching is best secured by ' 
 the pleasure we feel when human beings are naturally 
 described. 
 
 48. Wkat is the most important requisite of a good novel ? 
 
 1. The novel has done so much to supersede other 
 forms of literature that we shrink from defining too pre- 
 cisely the functions of the novelist. It is not only the 
 dramatist who has given way to him, but the satirist also 
 and the writer of moral essays. We imply this when we 
 talk of the "novel with a purpose." 
 
 2. There is but one condition the novelist is bound to 
 subscribe in order to secure his title : he must tell a story, 
 and it must be an interesting one — also it must be a more 
 or less probable one (this epithet will serve to show that 
 
102 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 it must be something more than a mere transcript of 
 personal experience). 
 
 3. The better ordered his story is, the more pleasure it 
 will give. Hence the importance of the plot. 
 
 4. Still, the chief thing is the skill with which the 
 characters are drawn, and for this we can forgive an im- 
 perfect plot. These need not be common (though the 
 skill and observation which go to the presentation of 
 ordinary types with fidelity involve great artistic powers). 
 They may exhibit idiosyncrasies of a higher or lower 
 order, and somewhat rare combinations. It is only required 
 that they shall not contradict human experience and that 
 their surroundings shall be conformable. "Art presents 
 images of a lovelier order than the actual," but the 
 novelist's art must, in framing these, keep at least within 
 the possible. These rarer types we call " creations." 
 
 5. It remains to distinguish between the imagination and 
 ' observation which give us the external life of societies or 
 
 individuals, and those powers in artists when they are 
 directed to the history of a mind or minds, their interests, 
 emotions and the like. Both are legitimate fields for the 
 great novelist ; but the second is the greater, if we accept 
 the ruling of a novelist who has done much in that field : 
 " The great work of art is the extension of our sympathies" 
 (George Eliot). 
 
 49. " Incredulus odi." Why is probability important to a 
 story ? What story-tellers have leave to dispense with iti 
 
 I. We resent improbability partly as a reflection on our 
 judgment, partly because we cannot sympathise with, or 
 even follow, what is outside the conditions of ordinary 
 human experience, but only what can at least be brought 
 under those conditions. All fiction is in some way bound 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 103 
 
 by these conditions, since the writer of fiction lives by 
 sympathy, which is only possible while they are complied 
 with. His reach must not be "too high for mortal man 
 beneath the sky " ; nor must he sink humanity in some- 
 thing below its historical level — below the experience of 
 the race. The Greeks and Romans called such a writer 
 ''cold." He was not breathing or living; no influence 
 exhaled from him. He had left " the warm precincts of 
 the cheerful day " for some chill home of monsters. 
 
 2. But there is a writer who exacts from us no belief at 
 starting ; declares, indeed, at the outset that he is going to 
 defy experience. He takes us with a rush into an incon- 
 ceivable world, and, once he has got us there, forces us to 
 confess that, the initial absurdity conceded, all is natural, 
 that is to say, all is consistent, all is of a piece. Could we 
 imagine such a world as the writer's, this is how it would 
 fare with men and things. In details, moreover, he is true 
 to ordinary experience, so true that we seem to find it a 
 world that we know, and enjoy almost without surprise. 
 
 50. Burlesque : what is it 1 Illustrate from any famous 
 literary example. 
 
 I. Burlesque has been described as a class of composi- 
 tion "applying a peculiar kind of treatment to a subject 
 palpably and therefore ludicrously undeserving of it." It 
 differs from parody in two ways : (i) it is less individual 
 in its handling, (2) it is concerned with something besides 
 style. It attacks a whole class of poetry, a whole class of 
 compositions, and never merely imitates particular works of 
 particular writers. And, besides this, it is something more 
 considerable than parody. It has a subject, not a model. 
 The " Rejected Addresses " have many models, but no 
 subject. 
 
104 A MANUAL OF ESSAY -WRITING 
 
 2. The great literary examples confirm this distinction : 
 Hudibras, The Rape of the Lock, and the first part 
 of Don Quixote (though, as Don Quixote's really heroic 
 character is brought out, the element of Burlesque is less 
 conspicuous ; for sympathy is fatal to Burlesque proper). 
 Each of them has a great subject : the follies of superstitious 
 enthusiasts, female vanity, chivalry in the wrong place. 
 Or, to take an example from ancient literature, Lucian's 
 Parasite is a parody of Aristotle's manner, his True 
 History a burlesque on all travellers' tales. 
 
 3. Burlesque permits itself two modes of treatment. It 
 may practise " the art of sinking " with a great subject. 
 (Superstition in the hands of Lucretius is a subject of 
 appalling greatness.) Or it may apply the heroic style to 
 ordinary life and its weaknesses, as in The Rape of the 
 Lock. Pope means this when he calls it a " heroi-comical 
 poem.'' When an epic fragment is made out of a practical 
 joke, and a history of ephemeral etiquette, the conditions 
 of Burlesque are immediately satisfied ; and they are not less 
 satisfied when metre and vocabulary combine with abrupt 
 transitions of style and sentiment to pour "contempt and 
 humiliation on superstitious enthusiasts, on the " heroic " 
 work of Hudibras and his "heroic" self. 
 
 4. Burlesque is not satire proper, for it is less anxious 
 to preach directly ; neither is it comedy, for it lies under 
 no necessity to be dramatic, or to present manners only ; 
 nor, on the other hand, is it independent of style, as is the 
 case with farce. 
 
 5. Burlesque, then, is a series of contrasts between style 
 and subject, or subject and sentiment ; a composition 
 dealing both with matter and manner, but with neither 
 only ; employing every form of ludicrous degradation or 
 pompous mockery, but always large enough to be dis- 
 tinguished from mere imitations. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 105 
 
 IV. Moral and Social Questions 
 
 51. W?ien and why is narrowness of mind a source of 
 strength ? 
 
 1. When? It is so in a time of excitement, or period 
 of mental conflict, where delay is injurious. At such times 
 the broader view of an open mind is liable to be called 
 half-hearted or even pedantic. One distinguished writer 
 does not fear to assert that intellectual "grasp and mastery 
 are incompatible with the exigencies of a struggle." 
 
 2. Why 1 Narrowness of mind is an obvious source of 
 strength in the way it helps action. If there is but one 
 view to be considered, vigorous and prompt action becomes 
 a duty. Though issues are rarely simple, if they can be 
 made simple, the rhetoric that moves masses can also make 
 them a duty. 
 
 The persecution of opinion (religious or other) illustrates 
 the force which is at the command of narrow minds ; and 
 the speech of a clever lawyer, or a good party speech in 
 Parliament, further illustrates the strength of narrow-minded- 
 ness when it is more or less deliberate. But even this is not 
 enough to say. A great biographer's intimate sympathy 
 with the subject of his biography is a source of strength to 
 him, and illumination to his readers. Yet he is rarely an 
 impartial critic. This partiality we can ourselves correct ; 
 but the source of it is also the source of inspiration which 
 makes his book a great one. 
 
 3. Narrow-minded men are rarely strong save when 
 they have some real force of character. They must have 
 something real to proclaim or to defend, if it be only a 
 half-truth which they mistake for a whole one. Their 
 narrow-mitidedness must be capable of something like a 
 large result, it cannot be merely personal or negative, and 
 it must be to some extent sva^t.-hearted. ^m^e-minded 
 
io6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 it can rarely be, nor can it be philosophic or scientific. 
 Where humanity as a whole, knowledge as a whole, is con- 
 cerned, the " synoptic " man (as Plato calls him), the philo- 
 sopher, is the only strong man. 
 
 52. The gift of popularity. Is it concerned only with the 
 character or with the intellect as well 1 
 
 The qualities born with a man which make for popularity 
 constitute the " gift " ; and we must include in the word 
 " qualities " not merely disposition and powers of mind, 
 but things sometimes termed accidents, such as rank or 
 physical advantages. The word "gift" limits us to what 
 man is as distinguished from what he does. 
 
 Good looks and the instinct of good manners, social 
 position, bodily and mental powers, combine, with courage 
 and good temper, generosity and sympathy, to make a 
 man popular at first sight. Such a man's personality 
 impresses itself at once ; he is a grata persona before we 
 have any real knowledge of him. This is what we mean 
 by a "gift." We may admit at once that the larger part 
 of his success is achieved by character; the potential 
 sympathy of voice and manner, the readiness to under- 
 stand, the obvious preference for kindly and interested 
 over contentious or indifferent intercourse, never fail of 
 being acceptable to all men, as is proved by the collective 
 name for those virtues — humanity. Great intellectual gifts 
 are quite compatible with the absence of that humanity. 
 But it is none the less true that not only such intellectual 
 gifts as eloquence or wit are a great aid to popularity, but 
 also that the imagination, which is so great an ingredient 
 in the sympathetic character, is always in some degree an 
 intellectual gift. In other words, the mental agility which 
 divines men's various moods so immediately that they are 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 107 
 
 conscious of a harmonious presence without explanations is 
 the instrument by which sympathy works. The sympathy 
 is a moral, the agility an intellectual gift. 
 
 53. " It is not possible to have too much good sense, but it 
 is possible to have nothing else." 
 
 1. The qualities of prudence and tact, moderation and 
 sound judgment, are invaluable as a protection against 
 common failings, impulsiveness, extravagance, flightiness, 
 against which every one must desire to be protected so long 
 as he retains his self-respect. 
 
 2. We do not, however, choose our friends because they 
 possess this defensive armour, though we envy and admire 
 the possessors of it. We choose friends for more positive 
 qualities. A man, like a book, may be " dull without a 
 single absurdity." The more interesting and more elevated 
 virtues are compatible with weaknesses which good sense 
 would make impossible. Intellectual enthusiasm, generosity 
 of temperament, instinctive sympathy, fascinate us, and the 
 strength of their charm makes us forget any weakness of 
 judgment found with them. " Possunt quia posse vid- 
 entur" is a motto which mere good sense would never have 
 struck out for itself Sobriety is not everything. There 
 are " heights we never had reached had we been in fear of 
 falling." Good sense secures us immunity from many, if 
 not most, pains; but, unsupported, it can promise us few 
 pleasures, at least of the higher or deeper sort. 
 
 54. Has a ma7i the right to criticise what is beyond his own 
 performame ? 
 
 If we begin with the fine arts, it will be admitted that. 
 
io8 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 as they appeal to the public, they must in some sort be 
 judged by the public. The verdict of experts will be one, 
 but the artist aims at pleasing more than experts, and he 
 must expect to hear that other verdict. In finance, again, 
 we may not be the equal of a finance minister, but as the 
 results of his skill and experience affect us, we are entitled 
 to pronounce on them. The same may be said of politics, 
 if it be always remembered (as in diplomacy) that in some 
 cases we cannot, by the nature of the case, have all the 
 facts before us, and that may invalidate our judgment. 
 Of generalship in war, again, as far as common sense can 
 guide us, we may criticise, so long as we remember that 
 there is a limit to our experience, and to our knowledge of 
 the facts. 
 
 It seems to come to this — that when criticism informed 
 by special knowledge is the only fair criticism, we have, 
 without that knowledge, no right ; but as most things have 
 an exoteric as well as an esoteric aspect, we are absolutely 
 entitled to judge of that which is actually offered to our 
 criticism. 
 
 To such criticism results are offered and may be judged 
 by those who are unacquainted with methods or processes. 
 For example, though we could not produce any sort of 
 sea-piece, we may say that the general effect to us is not 
 that aspect of the sea which the artist intended to produce. 
 
 55. " The human comedy." Why is life so called t 
 
 Life is so called because of its often appearing ( i ) unreal 
 (we may compare the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction"), 
 and still oftener (2) disproportionate and full of incon- 
 gruities. However earnest and serious men's pursuit of 
 their aims, the element of incongruity (which is the cause 
 of the laughter that comedy produces) is almost always 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 109 
 
 observable by spectators. And it is the observation of our 
 great humorists (the great spectators who for the moment 
 stand outside themselves and their fellows) and some touch 
 of their feeling in ourselves in our observant moments that 
 has given rise to this comparison : "Hi motus animorum 
 atque hsec certamina tanta Pulveris exigui iactu compressa 
 quiescunt " (Virgil, Georg. iv. 86-7). The contrast between 
 promise and performance, the attempts (all unsuccessful in 
 the long run) to deceive ourselves and others, the number 
 and variety of our parts, are at the same time facts of life, 
 and materials for the ordinary comedy. 
 
 56. " We cannot afford to lose sight of great men and memor- 
 able lives. ^^ What is the cost of forgetting thetn 1 
 
 1. Such forgetfulness sinks us into an easy self-satis- 
 faction, which breathes an atmosphere of vulgar egotism 
 and provincial narrowness and is a definite hindrance to 
 our moral and intellectual progress. 
 
 2. Great men are original and independent; ordinary 
 men are dependent and imitative. The tyranny of the 
 majority is never so fatal to the development of the 
 individual as when there are only one-eyed kings among 
 the blind. 
 
 3. Ordinary men have little initiative outside the 
 routine of life. They find scant leisure for larger interests, 
 so engrossed are they by material cares. 
 
 4. The presence or the living memory of a single great 
 man with a life spacious enough for the greatest things, 
 with a lofty contempt for interests merely material, and 
 full of single-minded devotion to an idea, to a great work 
 or to a great theory, is enough to disturb the general self- 
 complacency, and to inspire mediocrity with a healthy self- 
 
no A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 contempt. In our own day Gordon did his countrymen 
 this service. 
 
 5. Great men make us think better of our kind, and 
 more hopeful for it. Possunt quia posse videntur. The 
 standard of the average man is never so high as when he 
 is living with or dwelling on the greatness of great men. 
 
 N.B. — " Memorable lives " is not an otiose addition to 
 " great men." Many men are doing or helping to do a 
 great work who can never be called great without an abuse 
 of language. But their share in human progress, their 
 support of great men, is beyond question memorable— ?.e. 
 "deserves remembrance." 
 
 • -^57. " Every man is a debtor to his profession " (Bacon). 
 
 He is indebted to it (i) for the intellectual benefit 
 which comes of a concentration of powers ; (2) for the 
 intellectual and moral stimulus furnished by the traditions 
 of an honourable profession ; (3) for opportunities of public 
 usefulness ; (4) for the means of gratifying ambition, social 
 or other; (5) for an enlarged experience; (6) for comrade- 
 ship of a specially valuable kind. 
 
 These debts will be paid if a rtjan sets before himself to 
 raise the level of his profession — (i) in its ideals; (2) in 
 its practical results; (3) in its standard of equipment 
 (making it liberal and not merely professional) ; (4) in its 
 social and moral standing; if, in short, he has a lively 
 sense of the onera and Aonores of his calling, and attracts 
 more attention to them on the part of bis profession and 
 of the public — if (as far as it lies with him) he adds to, or 
 at least does not detract from, the good name of his 
 calling. 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 
 
 58. How would you define ^^ good-breeding" 1 Discuss 
 the origin of the phrase, and the associations it has gathered 
 round it. 
 
 The physical facts of birth and descent are specially to 
 be insisted on, even if we do not coniine the phrase to 
 those of noble birth. A carefully selected physical type 
 (as in the case of Plato's guardians) is the original signifi- 
 cance of " well-bred " : and as the phrase enlarges itself, we 
 apply it to those refined habits and manners which are 
 usually found with a type physically refined. Apart from 
 the nobility, any class, any family, which has transmitted 
 refinement through several generations will almost certainly 
 be better bred than if such refinement had to be acquired 
 in one. It secures better, because easier (more natural) 
 manners. Such manners are an inherited instinct as 
 well as a careful product of education. 
 
 It is true we often use the word where we know nothing 
 of a man's antecedents, and that a very fine nature may 
 make itself largely independent of traditions, and owe 
 nearly everything to its own education or that of others ; 
 but we very rarely talk of " good-breeding " without imply- 
 ing that the possessor of it did not make himself well-bred, 
 and that the tradition of good manners goes farther back 
 than his parents. 
 
 59. Illustrate and account for the love of pomp and show 
 in practical peoples, ancient or modern. 
 
 I. A spectacle is the most immediate and obvious relief 
 from the monotony of practical life intently pursued — a 
 much greater relief than a theoretical people, able to 
 
112 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 satisfy itself with intellectual pleasures, can conceive. 
 This helps us to understand how the drama failed in 
 Rome and was replaced by the spectacle. 
 
 2. A spectacle is also a symbol of the greatness and 
 wealth of the empire — a symbol, too, which will impress 
 strangers as well as citizens, as we know was the case 
 with the Roman triumphs. The great games and the 
 gladiatorial shows gratified at the same time the more 
 vulgar love of display : it gave men something to show for 
 all the labour by which a great empire had acquired 
 wealth and power. 
 
 3. But pomp and ceremony have a nobler side. They 
 may be worthy symbols of real greatness — the "golden 
 clothing of something glorious within." A noble cathedral, 
 magnificent buildings to serve as temples of law and 
 statesmanship, are a worthy exhibition of pomp, and of 
 those best uses of it which a practical people never fails to 
 understand. Such examples of splendour are but the 
 outward expression of an idea which they know to be 
 great and on which they feel they cannot bestow too much 
 honour. 
 
 60. "Discourse ought to be as a field without coining home 
 to any man." 
 
 Bacon means apparently to deprecate the general 
 lowering of tone in conversation by its being confined to 
 personal matters. 
 
 A. Such talk is injurious (i) intellectually and (2) 
 morally. 
 
 (i) It argues a poverty of interests in the talkers, and 
 a lack of stimulus and elevation in their life: "and we 
 demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their 
 stupefying power." It is thus not only bad in itself and in 
 
NOTES FOR ESSAYS 113 
 
 the inferences we draw from it, but bad in its effects. To 
 indulge in it cramps us further. 
 
 (2) It makes clever people uncharitable to a degree 
 they do not intend, and offers to the dull a chance of 
 cheaply acquiring a reputation for wit. This is what is 
 meant by " saving your joke and losing your friend." 
 
 B. The egotistical man and the man who lectures his 
 company would be left at a distance by Bacon's rule. The 
 one and the other invariably " come home " to their own 
 perfections or the shortcomings of their audience. 
 
 C. An attempt to escape from an awkward position in a 
 general discussion by an "argumentum ad hominem " 
 would be such an illegitimate " coming home." 
 
 D. I do not think Bacon means that we should never 
 enter on controverted points, or that we should shrink 
 from speaking of things of which we have special know- 
 ledge : only that controversy should not become personal 
 and bitter, and that the specialist should not be also an 
 egotist. 
 
PART III 
 
 SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 
 
 I. History (a) Ancient. 
 
 (6) Mediaeval and Modern. 
 II. Political Philosophy. 
 
 III. Literature {a) Ancient. 
 
 {i) Modern. 
 
 IV. Moral and Social Questions. 
 
 V. Imitative Themes : Narratives, Speeches, Dialogues. 
 VI. Miscellaneous. 
 
 Of the subjects for essays which follow many are original, many 
 have been furnished by Mr. S. T. Irwin, and many others have been 
 taken from Oxford and Cambridge scholarship and other examination 
 papers. 
 
 The references given have been selected with a view to encourage 
 reading and thought. References to particular pages and paragraphs 
 have, therefore, as a rule been avoided. 
 
 A selection of easier subjects for Fifth-form use has been added in 
 a separate section (VI.) ; and the easier subjects in the other sections 
 have been marked with an asterisk. 
 
 References to the Notes in Part II. are given thus : Essay-Notes, 5. 
 
 I. (a) History (Ancient) 
 
 1. Can the state of society described in Homer be 
 regarded as historical ? 
 
 2. Show the importance of Byzantium in ancient and 
 modern history. 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xvii. 
 
ii6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 3. Compare the ethical standard of Homer with that 
 of the Greeks at the time of the Peloponnesian War. 
 
 4. Contrast the aims of Solon and Lycurgus as legislators. 
 Which of them achieved the greater success ? 
 
 5. Contrast the parts played by the Areopagus and the 
 Senate in the development of Athens and of Rome. 
 
 6. With what justice has C. Gracchus been compared to 
 Pericles ? 
 
 7. How far is it just to call the Romans an un- 
 intellectual nation ? 
 
 Essay-Notes, 4. 
 
 8. Compare the influence of great men in the history 
 of Greece and Rome. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 7. 
 
 9. Trace the history of the title Emperor in ancient 
 and modern times. 
 
 10. Were Greece and Greek civilisation ever in real 
 danger from the Persian Empire ? 
 
 11. What is the relation of archseology to written 
 history ? 
 
 12. How far is it true that the Athenian character 
 degenerated during the fifth century B.C. ? 
 
 Mahaffy, Euripides, chap. i. 
 
 13. Sketch the type of character which the Homeric 
 Greek would have considered the most perfect, and com- 
 pare it with the ideal of Periclean Athens. 
 
 Thucydides, ii. 37-46. 
 
 1 4. A comparison of Pericles and the younger Pitt. 
 
 1 5. The use of heavy and light-armed troops respectively 
 in ancient warfare. 
 
 16. How far were the opponents of democracy at 
 Athens unpatriotic ? 
 
 1 7. Can we trace a succession of naval supremacies in 
 the Mediterranean in ancient times ? 
 
 Cunningham, Ancient Western Civilisation. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 117 
 
 18.* Contrast ancient and modern navigation. 
 19.* Estimate in the light of subsequent events the 
 services of {a) Pericles, (b) Epameinondas to their country. 
 
 20. "Demosthenes represented the past of Greece" 
 (Cousin). What is meant by this ? Is his failure a reason 
 for condemning his statesmanship ? 
 
 The case against Demosthenes will be found in Holm's 
 History of Greece, vol. iii. On the other side, read Prof. 
 Butcher's Demosthenes in Macmillan's Series of Classical 
 Writers. 
 
 21. Distinguish the different attempts at federation 
 made by -the Greeks, and discuss the causes of their 
 failure and success. 
 
 E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government. 
 
 22. What rival powers have at various periods struggled 
 for the possession of Sicily, and for what reasons ? 
 
 23. To what periods would you assign the commercial 
 greatness of Corinth, Carthage, Alexandria, Venice, the 
 Netherland cities ; and on what did that greatness mainly 
 depend in each case ? 
 
 24.* Describe the education of a Greek boy in the 
 time of Socrates. 
 
 Mahaffy, Old Greek Education. Becker, Charicles. 
 
 25. "Instability was the curse of Greek politics." 
 
 Consider instances of "instability" in (i) individual Greek 
 statesmen : Pausanias, Themistocles, Alcibiades ; (2) Greek 
 states. Is it explained by anything in the Greek character .? 
 or in the circumstances of their city-life, or the stage of political 
 development which they had reached ? Warde Fowler, City- 
 State of the Greeks and Romans. Bagehot, Physics and 
 Politics. Essay-Notes, 3. 
 
 26. "This mob restrained itself just where a modern 
 Parliament gives itself full freedom, and it gave itself full 
 freedom just where a modern Parliament restrains itself." 
 
Ii8 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 Explain this contrast between the Athenian democracy 
 and a modern Parliament. 
 
 Freeman's Historical Essays, 2nd series. Grote. 
 
 2 7. " Had Alexander lived to carry out his great 
 schemes for the Greek race, the whole stream of their 
 infinite capacity might have been turned into a new 
 channel." What would this new channel have been, and 
 how might it have affected Greek character and Greek 
 history ? 
 
 Contrast the views of Grote, chap, xciv., and Holm, vol. iii., 
 and read Freeman's Essay in Historical Essays, 2nd series. 
 Warde Fowler, City-State of the Greeks and Roinans. 
 
 28. " Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves 
 in this world which is not Greek in its origin." 
 
 Sir H. Maine's Rede Lecture, 1875. Symonds, Studies of 
 the Greek Poets, 2nd series, last chapter. Butcher, " What 
 we owe to Greece," in Some Aspects of the Greek Genius. 
 Cunningham's Western Civilisation, pp. 136-139, 207-209. 
 
 29. The part taken by Thebes in the Persian and 
 Peloponnesian Wars. 
 
 30.* How did the Athenians justify their Enlpire? Is 
 their justification to be accepted ? 
 
 Thucydides, i. 75, vi. 82, 83. 
 
 31. Illustrate from ancient history the workings of 
 commercial rivalry. 
 
 E.g. Chalcis and Eretria, Athens and Aegina, Corinth and 
 Corcyra ; Rome's treatment of Carthage, Corinth, and Rhodes. 
 
 32. Compare the government of Carthage with that of 
 British India before the Mutiny. 
 
 Mommsen, vol. ii. for Carthage. 
 
 33. "An unprivileged class, still materially comfortable, 
 does not feel keenly its need of privilege." How does 
 this fact bear on the history of ancient reforms or 
 revolutions ? 
 
 Warde Fowler, City-State. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 119 
 
 34. "There is a much wider difference between the 
 theory and practice of modern Christians and the theory 
 and practice of the ancient Greeks and Romans." 
 Illustrate this fact briefly, and examine in detail the 
 probable explanation of it. 
 
 Jowett, Epistle to the Romans, vol. ii. 
 
 35. The position and poHcy of the Equestrian Order 
 at Rome. 
 
 Distinguish periods. 
 
 36. The effects of foreign conquest on (i) the Roman 
 character, (2) the Roman government. 
 
 Sallust, Catiline, chaps, x., xi. ; Mommsen; Pelham; Warde 
 Fowler's Caesar. 
 
 37.* Compare the aims and methods of Roman and 
 English colonisation. 
 
 Seeley's Expansion of England. 
 
 38.* What parts of Sulla's work proved transitory, and 
 what parts survived in Roman history ? 
 
 Essay on "Sulla" in Freeman's Historical Essays, 2nd series. 
 
 39.'* Sketch the political condition at the beginning of 
 the second century B.C. of the countries which had com- 
 posed Alexander's empire. 
 
 40. "That 500 years' interregnum" (between Tarquin 
 and Caesar) " of extraordinary deeds and ordinary men, 
 which we call the Roman Republic.'' 
 
 Arnold's History of Rome, chap. xlii. ad init. Essay- 
 Notes, 7. 
 
 41. How far does Shakespeare give a true exhibition of 
 Roman life and character in his dramas ? 
 
 Consider his sense of the greatness of Rome (compare Livy 
 for this) ; his Roman senators, soldiers, tribunes, plebs. How 
 far are the personal notices (e.g. of Pompey, Caesar, Octavius, 
 Cassius, Antony) true to history ? Remember the source of 
 his knowledge (North's Plutarch), and compare his Romans 
 with Ben Jonson's. 
 
120 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 42. What light do Horace and Virgil throw on the 
 policy and aims of Augustus ? 
 
 43. Contrast the political ideals of Sulla, Cicero, and 
 Caesar. 
 
 For Sulla, see Freeman's Historical Essays, 2nd series. 
 For Caesar, see Seeley's Lectures and Essays, ist Lecture on 
 " Roman Imperialism." Warde Fowler's Caesar and Strachan- 
 Davidson's Cicero in Heroes of the Nations Series give two 
 opposite views. 
 
 44. " Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit." Trace the 
 gradual invasion of Rome by Greek culture, from the time 
 of Cato the Elder to that of Juvenal. 
 
 ; Pelham's Roman History. Mackail's Latin Literature. 
 
 45. With what success did Roman writers identify their 
 own mythology with that of the Greeks ? 
 
 46. What were the various objections to the novus homo 
 at Rome, and how far were they patrician objections ? 
 How were they, occasionally, surmounted ? 
 
 47. Contrast the modes in which Rome dealt with 
 conquered races in the East and West. 
 
 Mommsen ; Pelham ; Mahaffy's Greek World under Roman 
 Sway. 
 
 48.* How far is the fidelity of Rome's allies in the 
 Second Punic War matter for surprise? What induce- 
 ments had they to remain loyal ? 
 
 Arnold's History of Rome, chap, xlviii. W. W. How, 
 Hannibal. 
 
 49. "The true key to the declension of the Roman 
 Empire may be stated in two words — the imperial character 
 overlaying and finally destroying the national (Coleridge). 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. ii. Seeley, Lectures and 
 Essays, Essay on " Roman Imperialism." Capes, Age of the 
 Antonines, chap. ix. Dill, Rojnan Society in Fifth Century. 
 
 50. How far does the history of Rome justify the 
 assertion that " a people cannot govern an empire " ? 
 
 Warde Fowler, Caesar. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 121 
 
 51. "The empire of Rome was organised, the empire 
 of England is organic; the former was made, the latter 
 has grown." 
 
 Seeley, Expansion of England. 
 
 52. In what respects has Roman rule most permanently 
 affected Europe outside of Italy ? 
 
 53.* Did the provincials gain or lose by the change 
 from the Republic to the Empire ? 
 See references to No. 42. 
 
 54. Illustrate from ancient history the chief causes of 
 national decadence. 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. ii. ad finem. Dill, Roman 
 Society in Fifth Century. 
 
 55. Contrast Elijah and Elisha in their influence on 
 the Jews of their own day, and in the permanent effects of 
 their hves on Jewish thought and belief. 
 
 Stanley, Jewish Church. 
 
 56. What are the chief features of the political and 
 social law of the Jews ? 
 
 57. In what respects does the religious teaching of 
 Isaiah show an advance upon that of previous prophets ? 
 
 Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Prophets. 
 
 58.* Describe the nature of prophecy in Israel. In 
 what does the greatness of the prophets consist ? 
 
 59. "The disciples were called Christians first at 
 Antioch." Explain the full meaning of this sentence. 
 
 60. "Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat." How far 
 is this a correct description of the Roman Empire ? 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. ii. 
 
 61. "At no period were the Romans really interested 
 in the gods themselves, but only in their relation to human 
 beings." Explain and illustrate this statement. 
 
 See Mommsen and Gibbon for the practical character of 
 Roman religion. Compare the use made of religion by the 
 Senate in the Punic Wars and by Augustus. Consider the 
 
[22 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 literary treatment of the gods by Horace, Ovid and Virgil. 
 Contrast Homer's gods with Virgil's. 
 
 62. " Greece never conquered the religion of her Roman 
 masters." In what sense is this true ? What facts seem 
 to contradict the statement ? 
 
 What is the evidence of Horace's Odes ? 
 
 63. "The type of economic institution, from which 
 the administrative machinery of the Roman Empire was 
 developed, was not that of a city but of a household." 
 Illustrate this, and account for it. 
 
 Cunningham, Western Civilisation in Ancient Times (Pitt 
 Press), pp. 1 71-174. C3.-^^s, Age of the Antonines {E.-^o<A& oi 
 Ancient History), chap. ix. 
 
 64. The effects of the absence of a legal profession at 
 Athens. 
 
 65. The development of Athenian commerce, and its 
 influence on Greek civilisation. 
 
 Cunningham, Ancient Western Civilisation. 
 
 66.* The importance of the position of " Strategus " at 
 Athens. 
 
 67.* The character of Pompey, and his contribution to 
 the civilising work of Rome. 
 
 68. Account for the importance of legal studies under 
 the Roman Empire. 
 
 69. The influence of Stoicism on public and private 
 life under the Roman Empire. 
 
 Lecky, History of European Morals. 
 
 70. Compare the contributions of Palestine, Greece and 
 Rome to human progress. 
 
 71. "In ancient history all that is most memorable and 
 instructive gathers round cities." Trace some of the conse- 
 quences of this state of things. 
 
 Warde Fowler, City-State of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 123 
 
 I. {b) History (Mediaeval and Modern) 
 
 72. "The transfer of power in the West from the Latin 
 race to the German in the fifth and sixth century constitutes 
 the first act of modern history." 
 
 73. "I have not, nor will I swear fealty, which was 
 never sworn by any of my predecessors to yours.'' How 
 far were these words of the Conqueror to Hildebrand 
 followed by his successors ? 
 
 74.* "It is enough for a nation to have had two such 
 children as S. Louis and Joan the Maid." 
 
 75.* "All children ought to learn the history of Athens, 
 Rome, Venice, Florence and London.'' Why ? 
 
 76.* "Thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest 
 that ever ate in hall among ladies, and thou wert sternest 
 man to his mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest." 
 Draw the ideal knight from Chaucer and his times. 
 
 77.* "Between us and the old English there lies a 
 gulf of mystery, which the prose of the historian will never 
 adequately bridge.'' (Froude). 
 
 Froude, History of England, chap. i. Carlyle, Past and 
 Present. 
 
 78.* "Before we are able to grasp at all the literature, 
 art or life of the Middle Ages, we must form a clear con- 
 ception of three types of character, the mediaeval king, the 
 mediseval priest, and the mediasval craftsman." 
 
 79. ",The Church in England, more truly than in other 
 countries, was a national Church." 
 
 80. * " With the Norman Conquest begins the unification 
 of England. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 1 1 . 
 
 81. Account for the early development of trade in Italy 
 and Flanders. 
 
 82. Show the importance of the study of the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries. 
 
 Tout, The Empire and the Papacy. 
 
124 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 83. Why was the crown of France the most despotic in 
 Europe at the close of the fifteenth century ? 
 
 84.* What light is thrown on the genius of a people 
 by the character of its heroes mythical and historical ? 
 
 85. "The Council of Constance was the last act in the 
 drama of the Middle Ages." " The Council of Constance 
 was the first modern congress." Explain these two 
 sayings. 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. Ixx. 
 
 86. The importance of Alfred in the early history of 
 England. 
 
 87. Is the accession of Edward IV. to be regarded as 
 constituting a new era in English history ? 
 
 88. "The Norman Conquest saved England from 
 continental feudalism." Discuss this theory. 
 
 89. What is meant by the Holy Roman Empire? 
 How far is the term justifiable ? Explain the constitution 
 of that empire in the Middle Ages. 
 
 Bryce, Holy Roman Empire. Freeman, Historical Essays, 
 1st series. 
 
 90. What was the importance of the reign of Charles IV. 
 in the history of the Empire ? 
 
 91. "The Great Charter is the charter of a privileged 
 minority." Discuss this dictum. 
 
 92. Compare the mediaeval repubHcs of Italy with either 
 the ancient republics of Greece or modern repubhcs. 
 
 Guizot, Civilisation in Europe. Freeman's Historical 
 Essays, 2nd series. 
 
 93. Estimate the services which monasticism has 
 rendered to civilisation. 
 
 Leclcy, History of European Morals, chap. iv. Guizot, 
 Civilisation in Europe. Essay-Notes, 12, and references there 
 given. 
 
 94. " The wars of the sixteenth century are religious, 
 those of the seventeenth political." 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 125 
 
 95.* The main effects of the discovery of the New 
 World on European history. 
 
 96. The decline of Feudalism in England. 
 
 97. Estimate the influence of Puritanism on the history 
 of the English Parliament. 
 
 98.* Whom do you consider the greatest Englishman 
 of the sixteenth century ? Give reasons for your answer. 
 
 99.* Explain clearly the motives which led men to 
 take part in the Crusades. 
 
 Guizot, Civilisation in Europe. Tout, Empire and Papacy. 
 Archer and Kingsford, Crusades. 
 
 100.* What were the chief effects of the Crusades upon 
 Europe ? 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. Ixi. Guizot, Civilisation 
 in Europe. 
 
 1 01. The character and policy of Thomas Becket. 
 
 102. What was taught in a mediseval university? 
 Rashdall, Universities in Middle Ages. 
 
 103.* What have been the principal epochs of geo- 
 graphical discovery since the Christian era ? 
 
 104. What Oriental races have endeavoured to effect 
 conquests in Europe or the Mediterranean basin, and 
 how far have they succeeded ? 
 
 105. What were the results of the failure of England 
 to conquer Scotland in the fourteenth century ? 
 
 106. Contrast the life of a modern and a mediseval 
 borough. 
 
 Guizot, Civilisation in Europe. Mrs. J. R. Green, Town 
 Life in the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 107. With what difference of meaning is the Govern- 
 ment of England in 1500 and 1700 described as a limited 
 monarchy ? 
 
 108. In what respects did southern France differ from 
 northern France ? How was the union between the two 
 brought about ? 
 
126 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 109. "Venice was at least a century ahead of the other 
 Italian towns." Explain and illustrate this judgment. 
 
 no. Compare the Prankish Conquest of Gaul with the 
 Anglo-Saxon Conquest of Britain. 
 
 in. "The Northmen brought into mediaeval civilisa- 
 tion flame rather than fuel." Discuss this. 
 
 112. How was the character of Eastern Christianity 
 affected by the rise and progress of Mahometanism ? 
 
 113. The reasons for the English mihtary successes 
 against the mediaeval French monarchy. 
 
 114. " All the wars in Europe hang together." Illustrate 
 the truth of this saying of Gustavus Adolphus from the 
 events of the earlier years of his reign. 
 
 115.* When Latin was a universal language Europe was 
 far more united than at present." Discuss and illustrate. 
 
 116.* " But without them (the Norman and Plantagenet 
 kings) what had it (England) ever been ? A gluttonous 
 race of Jutes and Angles, capable of no grand combina- 
 tions ; lumbering about in pot-bellied equanimity : not 
 dreaming of heroic toil and silence and endurance." 
 (Carlyle). 
 
 Essay-Notes, 11. 
 
 117. Discuss and illustrate the merits and defects of 
 biography as material for history. 
 
 118. "A wide-lying game, the great Marlborough used 
 to play such and win ; making the elements, the time and 
 the spaces hit with exactitude." (Carlyle). 
 
 119.* "The English mad method of fighting like 
 Buresarks or Janisaries rather than strategic human 
 creatures." (Carlyle). 
 
 120.* "Cromwell had every claim to greatness except 
 virtue." 
 
 Carlyle, Hero-Worships Lecture VI., and CromweUs Letters 
 and Speeches. F. Harrison, Cromwell. 
 
 121.* "No man or woman ever trusted them (the 
 Stuarts) but it was to their ruin " (in Thackeray's Esmond). 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 127 
 
 122. The effects of the French Revolution on English 
 politics and society. 
 
 123.* The value to England of her colonies and de- 
 pendencies. 
 
 Seeley, Expansion of England. 
 
 124.* Is the Victorian age likely to prove more import- 
 ant in English history than the Elizabethan ? 
 F. Harrison, The Choice of Books, last chapter. 
 
 125. Trace the main stages in the growth of the British 
 Colonial Empire. 
 
 Seeley, Expansion of England. 
 
 126. What are the chief results of the insular position 
 of England on her history and policy ? 
 
 127. Compare the English Revolution of 1688 with the 
 French Revolution of 1789. 
 
 128.* How would you justify the British rule in India? 
 
 129. Compare the fate of monarchical institutions in 
 England, France, and Germany; and account for the 
 difference. 
 
 130.* The advantages and the practicability of Im- 
 perial Federation. 
 
 131. "The emancipation of the human intellect was 
 a result of the Reformation rather than an intention." 
 Discuss this. 
 
 Guizot, Civilisation in Europe. 
 
 132. The good and evil results of the Seven Years' 
 War. 
 
 133. The influence of Paris on the history of France. 
 134.* The effect on English history of the enterprises 
 
 of English seamen during Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 135. Trace the steps by which the Cabinet became an 
 important part of the English Constitution. 
 
 John Morley's Life of Walpole, in English Statesmen Series 
 (Macmillan), chap. vii. 
 
 136.* Describe and illustrate the influence of the 
 
128 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 personal character of individual Englishmen on the forma- 
 tion of our Indian Empire. 
 
 137. What were the main causes of the collapse of the 
 French in the war of 1870? 
 
 138. Sketch the political changes in England since the 
 Reform Bill of 1832 and describe their results. 
 
 139.* The social changes of Queen Victoria's reign. 
 140. The making of the German Empire. 
 
 II. Political Philosophy 
 
 141. "The majority of the human race is unprogressive." 
 In what sense is this true ? How would you account for 
 it? 
 
 Bagehot, Physics and Politics, the whole book, especially 
 chap. ii. 
 
 142. " Ancient Law deals with corporations rather than 
 individuals." Discuss this. 
 
 Maine, Ancient Law. Bagehot, Physics and Politics. 
 
 143. Illustrate and account for the influence of Roman 
 Law on the civihsation of western Europe. 
 
 Maine, Ancient Law. 
 
 1 44. What is meant by the Social Contract ? Give a 
 more probable account of the origin of political power. 
 
 Maine, Ancient Law. J. Morley, Rousseau. Raleigh, 
 Elementary Politics. 
 
 145. "The whole history of civilisation is strewn with 
 creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first and 
 deadly afterwards." 
 
 Bagehot, Physics and Politics, chap. ii. Lecky, History of 
 European Morals. 
 
 146. "Since the downfall of the Roman Empire the 
 policy of Europe has been more favourable to arts, manu- 
 factures, and commerce, the industry of towns, than to 
 agriculture, the industry of the country " (Adam Smith). 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 129 
 
 147. "The results of free industry and commerce are 
 very good, and at the same time very disappointing." 
 Explain both parts of this statement. 
 
 1 48. "The progress of Society is from Status to Contract." 
 
 Maine, Ancient Law. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, chap, 
 v., ad init. 
 
 149. In what different senses has the word "Liberty" 
 been used? 
 
 Seele/s Introduction to Political Science, Lectures V., VI. 
 Sir G. C. Lewis, Use and Abuse of Political Terms. 
 
 150. The relations between Liberty and Equality. 
 
 151. Is it true that political theories have always 
 followed political facts ? 
 
 152. "Oligarchy is the survival of aristocracy.'' Explain 
 and criticise. 
 
 Distinguish the two, and show from historical instances the 
 tendency of aristocracy to degenerate into oligarchy. Read 
 Seeley, Political Science, Lecture VI., and Plato, Republic, 
 Book VIII., with Jowett's Introduction. Is this the only way in 
 which oligarchies are formed ? 
 
 153. In what different ways may States be classified? 
 Suggest a principle of classification and show the use of it. 
 
 Criticise the old numerical classification — monarchy, 
 oligarchy, democracy. Find a principle of more importance 
 historically. Seeley, Political Science, Lectures VI., VIII. 
 Essay-Notes, 19. 
 
 154. "Until kings are philosophers, or philosophers 
 are kings, cities will never cease from ill; no, nor the 
 human race." Is government by philosophers practicable ? 
 
 Plato, Republic, V. p. 473. Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, ist 
 lecture. Consider historical examples- — M. Aurelius, Akbar. 
 
 155. The use of ideals in politics. 
 
 Jowett's Introduction to Republic, pp. 154 and 185-192. 
 
 156. How far are the limits to be assigned to the 
 
 9 
 
I30 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 sphere of government relative to the degree of civilisation 
 reached by a community ? 
 
 Bagehot, Physics and Politics. 
 
 157.* Estimate the social and political effects of a 
 standing army. 
 
 158. Explain the phrase, "a national conscience." Has 
 history ever shown us the thing as a reality ? 
 
 159. "The American Declaration of Independence 
 combined the French assumption that all men are born 
 equal with the more English assumption that all men are 
 born /ree." Show that these are assumptions. How do 
 they differ ? What do you know of their origin ? 
 
 De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 
 
 160. "Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised 
 by history " (Seeley). What do you understand by the 
 words " vulgar " and " liberalised " ? 
 
 161. What is meant by "the social organism"? Show 
 the importance of the doctrine implied in the phrase. 
 
 Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, § 31. 
 
 162. Distinguish between the different modes by which 
 changes in the law may be effected, and give historical 
 examples of the employment of each of them. 
 
 163. "Law is a political notion. If a man be too 
 much a lawyer, he is of all men least fitted to deal with it 
 generally." 
 
 164. Explain what is meant by the Principle of 
 Nationalities, and trace its influence in modern Europe. 
 
 165. The conception of the State in ancient, modern, 
 and mediaeval times. 
 
 Essay on " Aristotle's Conception of the State " in Abbott's 
 Hellenica. Essay-Notes, 21, 27. 
 
 166.* What are the advantages and disadvantages of an 
 Empire resting on naval power ? 
 
 Mahan, Sea Power. 
 
 167.* "Revolutions are not about little things, though 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 131 
 
 they arise out of little things." Illustrate by reference 
 to one of the following: (a) the Fall of the Roman 
 Republic, {b) the Great Rebellion in England, (<r) the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 168. Compare the position and powers of an English 
 Prime Minister with those of a President of the United 
 States. 
 
 Bryce, American Commonwealth. De Tocqueville, Demo- 
 cracy in America. 
 
 169. "For forms of Government let fools contest : 
 
 Whate'er is best administered is best." 
 See Nos. 123, 126, and the references there given. 
 
 170. "Parliamentary government is simply a mild and 
 disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength 
 by counting heads instead of breaking them" (Fitzjames 
 Stephen). 
 
 Maine, Popular Government. 
 
 171. " Measures, not men." Is this a sound maxim ? 
 
 For Burke's criticism of it, see Thoughts on the Present 
 Discontents, near the end. 
 
 172.* How far are the interests of Capital and Labour 
 identical ? 
 
 Marshall's Elements of Economics, vol. i., last chapter. 
 
 173. Estimate the force of the aristocratic element in 
 the English constitution. 
 
 Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution. 
 
 174. What is the law of "Diminishing Returns"? 
 Illustrate its importance in Political Economy. 
 
 J. S. Mill, Political Economy. 
 
 175.* Should the State interfere in disputes between 
 Capital and Labour ? 
 
 176. On what conditions does the stability of British 
 rule in India depend ? 
 
 177.* What is your view as to the right relations 
 
132 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 between a member of Parliament and his constituents ? 
 Show the bearing of this question on that of the duration 
 of Parliaments. 
 Essay-Notes, 22. 
 
 178.* How has the improvement in mechanical ap- 
 pliances affected the intelligence and happiness of the 
 workman ? 
 
 Ruskin, Stones of Venice, II. chap. vi. 
 
 179. Discuss the advisability of State interference (i) 
 to compel education, (2) to endow research, (3) to protect 
 native industry. 
 
 180. What arguments have been directed against 
 private ownership in land ? If they do not convince you, 
 explain why. 
 
 181. "Every state, however small, has two nations, 
 rich and poor, struggling within her" (Plato). Is this 
 antagonism inevitable ? 
 
 182.* The arguments for and against the paying of 
 members of Parliament. 
 
 183.* The advantages and disadvantages of Party 
 Government. 
 
 Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, near the end. 
 Maine, Poj>ular Government. 
 
 184. "The Capitalist is the motive force in modern 
 Industry." Discuss this view of the importance of Capital. 
 
 185. Compare the English with the American system 
 of elections. 
 
 Bryce, American Commonwealth. De Tocqueville, Demo- 
 cracy in America. 
 
 Ill (a) Literature (Ancient) 
 
 186. Does the plot of the Iliad j'^ovclV to. unity of 
 authorship ?VL©, 'Tig/m (wu, (X'Vwmiv\W) "f W*vi/4t«/te«.i;^;j^ Ct.icJ 
 
 187. Compare the use of dialects in Greek and English 
 poetry. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 133 
 
 188. What light does Greek Lyric Poetry throw on (i) 
 the religious, (2) the political development of Greece ? 
 
 189. What main principles should be observed in trans- 
 lating Homer ? 
 
 M. Arnold, Lectures on Translating Homer. Jebb, Intro- 
 duction to Homer, p. 1 2. 
 
 ■^ 190. The difficulties that beset the modern student 
 in the attempt to enter into the spirit of Greek literature. 
 
 191. What do we mean by "sublimity"? In what 
 sense has it been claimed for Jlebrajir and denied to 
 Greek poetry ? 34^W>."* T^wl«tMO , 
 
 192. How far may we suppose that the religious and 
 moral standards of the Athenians are fairly represented in 
 their drama? 
 
 The dramatists themselves, passim. An elaborate work on 
 the subject is Lewis Campbell's Religion in Greek Literature. 
 See also Plato, Republic, X., with Jowett's Introduction, and 
 Browning's Aristophanes' Apology. 
 
 193. Compare the delineation of female characters in 
 Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 
 
 194. What conceptions are found in Greek mythology 
 and poetry of the sun, the sea, rivers and earthquakes ? 
 In what ways are any of them personified or attributed to 
 a divine power ? 
 
 195. The characteristic merits of Greek and Roman 
 historians. 
 
 1 96. Illustrate from some one speech of Demosthenes or 
 Cicero the chief points of difference in style and method 
 between ancient and modern forensic oratory. 
 
 This cannot be done well without the careful study of a 
 speech in the original, but some help may be got from reading 
 Jebb's Attic Orators, Introduction, pp. 69-106. 
 
 197. Why have Pindar's Odes been described as "the 
 most Greek thing in Greek literature"? Which of their 
 characteristics best support the statement ? 
 
 198. Trace the development of the Greek drama in 
 regard to the study of character. 
 
134 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 199. "There neither is nor can be any essential 
 difference between the language of prose and metrical 
 composition." Is this dictum upheld by a consideration 
 of the Greek and Latin Classics ? 
 
 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap, xviii. 
 
 200. The influence of Court Patronage on ancient 
 classical literature. 
 
 E.g. Peisistratus ; the Sicilian and Macedonian tyrants ; 
 the Roman Emperors. 
 
 201. What was there in the form of the Platonic 
 dialogue specially attractive to Greek readers, whether 
 from their love of art or their interest in philosophy ? 
 
 202. Illustrate the part played in Greek tragedy by 
 fraternal affection. 
 
 203. "The Sophists were not a sect but a profession." 
 Is there reason to believe that Plato and the Satirists have 
 done the Sophists an injustice ? 
 
 Grote's History of Greece, chap. Ixvii. Grant's Ethics of 
 Aristotle, vol. i. Introduction. 
 
 204. Compare the comedy of Aristophanes and Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 Symonds, Greek Poets, ist series, chap. viii. Moulton on 
 "Old Attic Comedy" in Ancient Classical 'Dratna. Is Shake- 
 speare's comedy akin to the political comedy of Aristophanes, 
 or to the social comedy of Menander, or to neither ? Can any 
 comparison be drawn between Aristophanes as the romantic 
 poet of The Birds and Shakespeare as the poet of Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream f 
 
 205. "The Athenian hterature is a pearl, itself an 
 imperishable jewel, but the product of a fatal disease." 
 Adduce all the evidence you can on the question whether 
 the intellectual outburst of the Periclean epoch was, socially 
 and morally, a good or an evil. 
 
 206.* Is there any difference between ancient and 
 modern poets in the treatment of nature ? 
 
 Ruskin, Modern Painters, Pt. IV. chaps, xiii. and xvi. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 135 
 
 Palgrave, Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson. 
 Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, chapter on Horace. 
 
 207. "The Greek poets and historians were statesmen 
 and soldiers as well." What were the results to Greek 
 literature of this state of things ? X M^t^mru > 
 
 208. Explain the insertion of fictitious speeches by 
 Greek and Roman historians. In what way can it be 
 justified ? 
 
 Jebb on "The Speeches of Thucydides" in Abbott's 
 Hellenica. 
 
 209. How did Euripides break away from his pre- 
 decessors in the drama ? Where does he show himself at 
 his greatest? 
 
 Murray's Greek Literature, chap. xii. Jebb's Growth and 
 Influence of Greek Poetry, chap. vii. 
 
 210. The place of Alexandria (i) in Greek (2) in 
 universal literature. 
 
 211. Compare the theories of education in the Repiiblic 
 of Plato and the Clouds of Aristophanes. 
 
 This should be worked out by the student himself from the 
 two books ; but R. L. Nettleship's Essay in Hellenica may be 
 read. 
 
 212. On what grounds' did Aristotle place poetry above 
 history ? Discuss his view. 
 
 Arist. Poet. ix. 3 (Butcher's Commentary). 
 
 213. Analyse the various influences under which the 
 poetical vocabulary of Latin was formed. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 37, 38. 
 
 214. Distinguish between the development and the 
 corruption of a language. Illustrate from Latin literature. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 38. 
 
 215. Account for the deficiency of lyric inspiration 
 among Roman poets. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 36. 
 
136 A MANUAL OF ESSAY- WRITING 
 
 216. "Obliti sunt Romae loquier Latina lingua." 
 Did the influence of Greece make or mar Latin poetry ? 
 
 What evidence is there for Niebuhr's hypothesis of a native 
 Roman epos? Essay-Notes, 37, 38. 
 
 217. Which of the great periods of Greek literature 
 had the most direct or lasting influence upon the literature 
 of Rome? 
 
 Essay-Notes, 37. 
 
 218. The chief characteristics of the Silver Age of 
 Latin poetry. 
 
 219.* "If Homer made Virgil, it was the best thing 
 he did " (Voltaire). 
 
 Tyrrell's Latin Poetry, p. 128. Essay-Notes, 39. 
 
 220. Which metre is the most suitable for a translation 
 of Virgil into English verse ? 
 
 Tyrrell's Latin Poetry, Appendix. 
 
 221. Examine the influence exercised by Thucydides 
 upon Roman historians. 
 
 222.* "If you take from Virgil his diction and metre, 
 what do you leave him ? " (Coleridge). 
 Essay-Notes, 39. 
 
 223.* The personal character of Horace and Virgil as 
 revealed in their works. 
 
 Quote. 
 
 224.'* Show from internal evidence the objects Virgil 
 had in view in writing the Aeneid. 
 
 225.* How far can the leading features of Cicero's 
 oratory be explained {a) by his origin and education, {b) by 
 the character of his audiences ? 
 
 Mackail's Latin Literature. Strachan-Davidson's Life of 
 Cicero (Heroes of the Nations Series). 
 
 226. In what sense were any of the Roman poets 
 original, and in what sense did they claim to be so ? 
 
 Tyrrell's Latin Poetry. Mackail's Latin Literature. Above 
 all, read and quote Virgil and Horace and think for yourself. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 137 
 
 227. "The truth of Livy's history is the truth of 
 poetry rather than of history." Explain and justify this 
 statement. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 36. 
 
 228. What are the chief difficulties in the way of a 
 translation of Horace into English verse ? Are they in- 
 superable ? 
 
 Preface to Sir Stephen de Vere's Translation of the Odes. 
 
 229. Compare the Virgilian with the Homeric Simile. 
 
 Read Jebb's Introduction to Homer, pp. 26-32, and Sellar's 
 Virgil. 
 
 230. Contrast the elegy in the hands of Greek and 
 of Roman poets. 
 
 231. The character of Cicero as revealed in his letters. 
 
 The essay should be based on the student's own reading of 
 the letters, and the passages quoted should be his own choice. 
 Tyrrell's Selection in Macmillan's Classical Series is of letters 
 which throw light on Cicero's personal character. 
 
 232. Compare the use made of Greek mythology in 
 Latin and English poetry respectively. 
 
 233. "What made the Annals appear cold and poor 
 to me was the intense interest which Thucydides inspired. 
 . . . Tacitus was a great man, but he was not up to the 
 Sicilian Expedition " (Macaulay). Is the comparison a 
 fair one ? 
 
 Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, Appendix. 
 
 234. Who, in your opinion, are the nearest modern 
 representatives of Horace, Lucihus, and Juvenal ? 
 
 235. The beliefs- of Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, or Juvenal 
 on the great questions of philosophy and religion. Illus- 
 trate from your own reading. 
 
 236. Of what nationalities were the leading writers at 
 the close of the Republic, in the Augustan age, and 
 during the Claudian period? How far is this question 
 
138 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 connected with that of the tone of thought, canons of 
 taste, and Latinity at each of these epochs ? 
 
 237. Draw a picture of the daily Ufe of a great Roman 
 advocate, and criticise the type of character which such 
 a training produced. 
 
 238. Compare the portrait of Tiberius in Tacitus with 
 any other great creation of the historic imagination. How 
 far is it to be considered truthful ? 
 
 Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus, Introduction. 
 
 III. (b) Literature (Modern) 
 
 239. What new kinds of literature has the modern 
 world added to those current in antiquity ? 
 240.* The characteristics of Epic poetry. 
 
 241. At what periods in history has Oratory exercised 
 the greatest influence and been most cultivated, and for 
 what reasons ? 
 
 Jebh'sAMc Orators, vol. i., Introduction. Essay-Notes, 41. 
 
 242. How is the line to be drawn between poetry and 
 prose ? ^ 
 
 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap. i. and chaps, xiv.-xx. 
 
 243. Illustrate by reference to individual works and 
 authors the place of Satire in English literature at various 
 periods. 
 
 244. The chief functions of painting and sculpture as 
 fine arts. 
 
 Lessing, Laocoon. 
 
 245. Why does the estimation of the same poet vary 
 in different generations ? 
 
 Illustrate your answer from the cases of Virgil, Pope, 
 Byron, or others. ^ .^^lA^-Y^^K 
 
 246. Compare Scott's and George Ehot's delineation 
 of characters in humble life. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 139 
 
 247. Which of the two, prose or poetry, is the better 
 vehicle for Satire ? 
 
 Illustrate your answer by reference to ancient and modern 
 examples. 
 
 9^^248. "The sole principle of grammatical construction 
 is that you say what you mean." Examine this statement. 
 
 249.* The interest and importance of proverbs. 
 
 250.* The right method of treating historical characters 
 . in fiction. 
 
 What method is adopted in the historical novels that have 
 impressed you most ? e.g. Are the leading characters historical 
 or imaginary ? Are great historic personages given a promi- 
 nent place or kept in the background ? 
 
 251. In what ways is literary criticism valuable? 
 M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, ist series. 
 
 252.* Compare the qualities requisite for a great 
 dramatist and a great novelist. 
 
 T. H. Green's Oxford Prize Essay on " Influence and Value 
 of Fiction," Works, vol. iii. Essay-Notes, 48. 
 
 253. In what sense can poetry be said to be imitation ? 
 
 Aristotle, Poetics, and Butcher's Commentary. Jowett, 
 Introduction to Republic, Bk. X. 
 
 254. "Authors who depended on a patron flattered 
 one person ; we flatter the public " (Boswell). Discuss 
 these rival dangers to literature. 
 
 255. What is meant by "speech" being "superior to 
 writing " ? What qualities of writing must be ignored by 
 those who claim the superiority for speech ? 
 
 256. "The function of prose is to communicate ideas, 
 not to adorn them." With what limitations may we accept 
 this account of prose ? 
 
 257. " We're made so that we love 
 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see. 
 Art was given for that." 
 
 (R. Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi.) 
 
140 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 258. "Eloquence is heard, Poetry is overheard" 
 (J. S. Mill). 
 
 How far is it true that the poet needs no audience ? See 
 Raleigh, Style, pp. 72-74. Essay-Notes, 41. 
 
 259. In what sense ought a work of art to be 
 "simple"? 
 
 Contrast the simplicity of early art with the complexity of 
 civilised art. The complexity of the latter is a natural 
 development ; but a work of civilised art ought to be " simple " 
 in one sense — it ought to have unity of design. Illustrate 
 from some great poem, novel, picture. See R. L. Nettleship's 
 Philosophical Lectures, vol. ii. p. 1 1 o. 
 
 260. With what justice has Pope been called unpoetical? 
 What do you understand by the criticism " witty rather 
 than poetical " as applied to his verses ? 
 
 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, chap. i. Essay-Notes, 46. 
 
 261.* "Let me make the ballads and I care not who 
 makes the laws." Has the poet or the legislator the 
 larger share in forming the character of a nation ? 
 
 262. " Wer den Dichter will verstehen 
 
 Muss in Dichter's Lande gehen " (Goethe). 
 Show that the words have a wider meaning than the 
 merely Uteral one. 
 
 263. "A tragic hero should be a man who is not 
 eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought 
 about not by vice or depravity but by some error or 
 failure." How far do Shakespeare's heroes conform to 
 this canon of Aristotle ? 
 
 264.* "Mr. Cobden preferred a copy of the Times to 
 all the works of Thucydides." Do you agree with him? 
 Give your reasons. 
 
 Seeley's Lectures and Essays, Lecture on " The Teaching 
 of Politics." Arnold's Thucydides, Preface to vol. iii. 
 
 265. What makes an allegory successful? Illustrate 
 your answer by reference to some famous example. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 141 
 
 266. The influence of Science on Imaginative Litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Illustrate from modern poetry and fiction. 
 
 267. Exhibit the close relation of English literature to 
 politics in the reign of Anne. What were the causes of 
 this, and how did it affect literature ? 
 
 268. "Contemporary criticism in literiature too rarely 
 anticipates the verdict of posterity." Why is this ? 
 
 Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. i. ad init. 
 
 269. Why has Dante been called the typical poet of 
 the Middle Ages ? 
 
 Dean Church, Dante and other Essays (Macmillan). 
 
 270. What is the value of "poetical prose " ? 
 
 Illustrate by reference to De Quincey's Opium-eater or 
 English Mail-Coach, and to Ruskin. 
 
 271. "Poetry is a criticism of life." Explain and 
 examine. Would "interpretation " be a better word ? 
 
 M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 2nd series. 
 
 272. "Milton would not have excelled in dramatic 
 writing : he knew human nature only in the gross.'' Discuss 
 this opinion of Milton and the reason given for it. 
 
 Essay-Notes, 42. 
 
 273. How far is a poet justified in making use of 
 materials derived from his predecessors ? 
 
 274. "Our one first-rate master in the grand style." 
 Explain this eulogy of Milton and justify it. 
 
 M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, 2nd series. Seeley, 
 Lectures and Essays. 
 
 275. Discuss the propriety of using the dramatic form 
 in compositions not intended for the stage. 
 
 276. Compare the merits and defects of Pope with 
 those of Byron. 
 
 277.* Illustrate the treatment of the supernatural in 
 Shakespeare or Scott. 
 
142 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 278. What underlying ideas are common to Lovers 
 Labour's Lost and Tennyson's Princess 2 
 
 279. "The most natural and the least probable way of 
 telling a story is to tell it in consecutiva letters " (Mrs. 
 Barbauld). Explain and illustrate. l-60^<'f/t*vOi'< u-M/Xv ' 
 
 280.* The characters of Arthur and BJancelot in thai 
 Ldylls of the King. 
 
 281. Chivalry as depicted in Malory's Morte dH Arthur. 
 
 282.* The element of Allegory in Tennyson's Ldylls of 
 the King. 
 
 Much help for this in Tennyson's Lifej also in Stopford 
 Brooke's Tennyson. 
 
 283. "There is no more surprising characteristic of 
 the right poetic diction than its matchless sincerity.'' 
 What is meant by "sincerity" here? Illustrate your 
 answer from the great poets, romantic as well as classical. 
 
 284. "Keats had an instinct for fine words, which are 
 in themselves pictures and ideas." (J. R. Lowell.) 
 Illustrate this from his poems. 
 
 285.* The character of Shylock. Show that Shake- 
 speare had some sympathy with Shylock, and that this 
 sympathy adds to the greatness of the play. 
 
 286.* "Richard III.'s wickedness, unlike lago's, is not 
 a motiveless malignity." Explain this, and illustrate his 
 motives by quotation. What is there in him that deserves 
 to be called great ? 
 
 Essay-Notes, 44. 
 
 287. "Shakespeare is not distinguished among drama- 
 tists by his power of inventing incident." Illustrate this 
 point in the case of any three or four plays. Where did 
 his invention lie ? 
 
 288. Discuss and distinguish Shakespeare's "fools." 
 
 289. Illustrate Shakespeare's love of flowers; quote 
 oth^r examples of his "eye for colour." 
 
 290. Distinguish between the terrible and the horrible 
 as legitimate material for tragic drama ; and between such 
 different types of tragedy proper as are represented by 
 LLamlet and Othello. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 143 
 
 291. "Of all modern and perhaps all ancient poets he 
 had the largest and most comprehensive soul " (Dryden). 
 Illustrate the range of Shakespeare's intellectual sympathy 
 in the case of Falstaff, Cleopatra, and Caliban. 
 
 Guesses at Truth, by Augustus and Julius Hare, contains 
 some good remarks on this Shakespearean quality. 
 
 292.* What do you think there ought to be in a great 
 tragedy besides the story of great crimes or misfortunes ? 
 In what other w^ys must thejChief characters inter^t us?^ 
 
 ^TM^ke use .cifa tragedy you haye read inf ^nswenng tnis 
 question.iVi*4lL^0WAwk«C yWJSjt, T \4J^L^!a^ " 
 
 ^293.* How mucn did Macbeth and* Lady Macbeth 
 /know of each other's character? What worthy and un- 
 worthy reasons did he oppose to his wife's arguments ? 
 
 294. What qualities of heart and head make Lear stand 
 alone among tragic sufferers ? In what words and scenes 
 are they itiost prominent ? 
 
 295. "Shakespeare is generally inattentive to the wind- 
 ing up of his plots " (Dr. Johnson). Discuss this in con- 
 nection with any plays you have read. 
 
 296.* Is Julius Caesar the hero of Shakespeare's play of 
 that name ? If not, why did he choose the title ? 
 
 Brandes, Shakespeare : A Critical Study, 2 vols. (Heine- 
 mann). 
 
 297. When ought a historian to dwell on the details of 
 a campaign, and when to dismiss it summarily? Ctk-i'-i ^^j^^ 
 
 Read Arnold's Roman History, chap. xliv. ad init., and 
 Preface to Rice Holmes's History of the Indian Mutitiy. Give 
 illustrations. 
 
 298. "A poet expresses the truth of Nature chiefly by 
 eliciting its beauty." Illustrate this from Wordsworth's 
 poetry. 
 
 299.* Compare Wordsworth's Happy Warrior with the 
 ideals of Pagan Poetry. 
 
 300. "Suffer no man and no cause to escape the 
 undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on 
 
[44 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 wrong " (Lord Acton). Is this view of a historian's duty 
 consistent with an ideal impartiality ? 
 
 Lord Acton's Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History. 
 Contrast the view of Langlois and Seignobos, Introduction to 
 the Study of History. 
 
 IV. Moral and Social Questions 
 
 301. "A tedious person is one that touches neither 
 heaven nor earth in his discourse." 
 
 302. Expediency: when and where is it a virtue? 
 303.* "Genius does what it must, talent does what it 
 
 can." 
 
 304.* How far is Luxury a vice? 
 Essay in H. Sidgwick's Practical Ethics. 
 
 305. "Ideas, not force, rule the world." 
 
 306. "All government, indeed every human benefit and 
 enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded 
 on compromise and barter " (Burke). 
 
 307. What is meant by " the rights of property " ? On 
 what are they based ? Is it to the interest of the nation to 
 recognise them ? 
 
 Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution. Maine, 
 Ancient Law., chap, viii., for early history of property. 
 
 308.* "Property has its duties as well as its rights." 
 
 309. "Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." 
 
 310. "Politeness is fictitious benevolence" (Johnson). 
 Discuss this definition, and say whether you think the sub- 
 stitution of the -voxA factitious vioviSA be an improvement. 
 
 311. The influence of speculative opinions on practical 
 life in. the nineteenth century. 
 
 312.* Is it true that our age has "mistaken comfort for 
 civilisation " ? 
 
 Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, Lecture \. Read also a good 
 account of the age of Pericles. Essay-Notes, 23. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 145 
 
 3 1 3. How far is it true to say that the ordinary rules of 
 morality do not apply as strictly to international relations 
 as to relations between individuals ? 
 
 Essay on "Public Morality" in H. Sidgwick's Practical 
 Ethics. 
 
 314. Ought any restrictions to be placed on the freedom 
 of the press ? 
 
 Milton's Areopagitica. J. S. Mill, Essay on Liberty. 
 
 315.* Explain carefully what is meant by "cynicism." 
 Illustrate it from any of Shakespeare's characters. 
 
 316. " The tendency to look not to t he past but to the 
 fut ure for typ es .of, perfection was brought into, the world 
 E y"ChristianiS r \J I 
 
 Maine's Ancient Law, chap. iv. Virgil, Eclogue IV. for a 
 picture of the Golden Age. 
 
 317.* Ought the pursuits of men and women to be the 
 samePlAj^l "Bwv<*»*| i*^*^ MH /Arrmatv"^**^ if4^t<^ftAA kvt 
 
 Plato, Republic, Book V. Jowett's Introduction to Republic, \ 
 pp. 158 et seq. Tennyson's Princess. Stopford Brooke's 
 Tennyson, chap. vi. J. S. Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, 
 vol. ii. 
 
 318. "Self-education consists in a thousand things, 
 commonplace enough in themselves." What are the most 
 important of these ? 
 
 Jowett's Introduction to Republic, p. 184. 
 
 319. The right and duty of Society to punish evil-- 
 doers : on what grounds would you base it ? 
 
 320. " Corruptio optimi pessima. " Are the finest natures 
 the most liable to corruption ? 
 
 Read Jowett's Introduction to Republic, p. 79, and think of 
 great historical instances. 
 
 321. "Naturae non imperatur nisi parendo." Apply 
 this to morals. 
 
 322. How is the influence of natural scenery affected 
 by differences of climate, of pursuits, of education ? 
 
146 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 323. Why has the word "clever" been described as 
 an "overworked" word? Discuss its legitimate and 
 illegitimate uses. 
 
 324.* " The best judgment of a man is taken from his 
 acquaintance, for friends and enemies are both partial" 
 (Bishop Earle). How far does this seem to you to be 
 true? 
 
 325. " The world has always a right to be regarded " 
 (Dr. Johnson). What is that public opinion which we are 
 bound to accept ? 
 
 326. "The great thing in an orator is his will." In 
 what ways does character affect eloquence ? 
 
 327.* In cases of difficulty or disagreement, isj^gafef' 
 or writing the more diplomatic and safer method ? /i^ 
 
 328.* "I like conversation to consist not of argument 
 but of instances'' (R. L. Stevenson). Discuss this, and 
 give your own theory of the art of conversation. 
 
 Essay on "Conversation" by Cowper {Connoisseur, No. 
 138). Two Essays on "Talk and Talkers" in R. L. 
 Stevenson's Memories and Portraits. Essay-Notes, 60. 
 
 329. "Whatever was beyond common-sense Sir Robert 
 Walpole disregarded " (Horace Walpole). How far is 
 this a compliment to a statesman ? 
 
 Essay-Notes, 53. 
 
 330. "I have for many years found it expedient to 
 lay down a rule for my own practice, to confine my reading 
 mainly to those journals the general line of opinions in 
 which is adverse to my own " (Archdeacon Hare). Criticise 
 this rule. 
 
 What are the advantages and dangers of it ? Would it 
 be a good rule for everybody, or only for certain characters 
 and temperaments ? 
 
 331. "Consistency in regard ito opinions is the slow 
 poison of intellectual life " (Davy)n^How far is consistency 
 a virtue ? ^ 
 
 332. "Without premature generalisations the true 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 147 
 
 generalisation would never be arrived at " (H. Spencer). 
 The function o{ guesses in science. 
 
 Mill's Logic, Bk. III., chap, xiv., on "Hypotheses."' 
 
 333-* "The sum total of all intellectual excellence is 
 good sense and method " (Coleridge). Is this borne out 
 by what you know of the lives and achievements of men 
 of acknowledged intellectual greatness ? 
 
 Essay-Notes, 53. 
 
 334.* "The men of each age must be judged by the 
 ideal of their own age and country, and not by the ideal 
 of ours " (Lecky). " Think not . . . that vices in one 
 age are not vices in another " (Sir T. Browne). Compare 
 these two views. 
 
 Lord Acton's Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History 
 (Macmillan). 
 
 335. "I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 
 With coldness still returning. 
 Alas ! the gratitude of men . 
 
 .1 ,1 Hath oftener left me mourning.',' l. )ij>. I 1 
 
 336.* "To be alone one must be ewher a god or a 
 beast " (Aristotle). Explain and discuss this view of 
 Solitude. Tkft I4 ^ 1 ■Wi. K'l 
 
 337.* The effects of success upon character. 
 /fzifi* The advantages and disadvantages of self-taught 
 men. 
 
 339. The scope and limits of philanthropy. 
 
 Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh. 
 
 '340.* The use and abuse of ridicule. 
 341. Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, 
 
 Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt. 
 
 (Goethe, Tasso.) 
 '/342.* How far is popularity a test of merit? 
 Essay-Notes, 52. 
 
A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 V. Imitative Themes: Narratives, Speeches, 
 Dialogues 
 
 343. A dialogue on Athenian politics between Pericles 
 and the philosopher Anaxagoras. 
 
 344.* A dialogue on Greeks and Romans between 
 Hannibal and King Antiochus at his court in Ephesus. 
 
 W. W. How, Hannibal. 
 
 345.* A letter describing a journey from the province 
 of Asia to Rome about B.C. 70. 
 
 Warde Fowler's Caesar (Heroes of the Nations). 
 
 346. A speech by C. Gracchus on the senatorial 
 Judicia. 
 
 347. Illustrate the daily life of a literary man in the 
 time of Augustus, by a letter from Rome to a friend in 
 the country. 
 
 Describe some event of the day, e.g. the Ludi Saeculares 
 or the publication of the Georgics. 
 
 348.* A Socratic dialogue on total abstinence. 
 
 349.* A dialogue between the shade of Augustus and 
 a living English statesman on the question, Ought the 
 British Empire to be extended beyond its present limits ? 
 
 For Augustus's advice to his successors, see Tacitus, 
 Annals, I. xi. Pelham's Roman History, Bk. V. chap. iii. 
 
 350. "Poetry is a form of rhetoric." A dialogue 
 between Socrates and a tragic poet. 
 
 Plato, Gorgias, 502 C. Republic, Bk. X. Jowett's Intro-- 
 ductions to Gorgias and Republic. Essay-Notes, 41. 
 
 351.* A letter from a son in London to his parents in 
 the country, dated 1666, giving an account of the Great 
 Fire and other recent events. 
 
 352. A dialogue between a painter and a poet on the 
 merits of their respective arts. 
 
 M. Arnold's poem, Epilogue to Lessing's Laocoon. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 149 
 
 353.* An account of the battle of Waterloo in a letter 
 from an English soldier. 
 
 354.* A speech for, or against, the "forward policy" 
 on the Indian frontier. 
 
 355.* Your own town or village : a dream of it as it 
 will appear at the end of the twentieth century. 
 
 356.* A speech in favour of " Imperial Federation." 
 
 357. A dialogue of the dead between Tacitus and 
 Tiberius. 
 
 Furneaux, Annals of Tacitus, Introduction. 
 
 358. A dialogue of the dead between Cromwell and 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Carlyle, CromwelPs Letters and Speeches, and Hero- 
 Worship, Lecture VI. 
 
 359. A dialogue of the dead between Jaques and 
 Touchstone. 
 
 Shakespeare, As You Like It. 
 
 360. A dialogue of the dead between Sir W. Scott and 
 Dickens. 
 
 VI. Miscellaneous 
 
 361.* "The child is father of the man." The char- 
 acteristics of great men as shown in stories recorded of 
 their childhood. 
 
 362.* The delights of a garden. "God Almighty first 
 planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human 
 pleasures." 
 
 Bacon's Essays, xlvi. Marvell's "Thoughts in a Garden," 
 Golden Treasury, No. 136. Cowley's Essays. 
 
 363.* Compare the delights of a walking, a cycling, 
 and a driving tour. 
 
 364.* Compare the pleasures of travelling in Central 
 Asia, in the Alps, and amongst the historical towns of 
 Europe. 
 
ISO A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 365.* "Look not on pleasures as they come but go." 
 The pleasures of anticipation and retrospection compared. 
 366.* Different kinds of courage. 
 
 Plato, Republic, IV. 429. Wordsworth's Happy Warrior. 
 367.* The various beauty of trees. 
 Spenser, Faerie Queen, Canto I. 
 
 368.* "A froward retention of custom is as turbulent 
 a thing as innovation." Show the dangers of extremes in 
 politics. 
 
 Bagehot, Physics aud Politics. 
 
 369.* The qualities of an ideal sovereign. 
 
 Think of great historic sovereigns, Alexander, Augustus, 
 Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Elizabeth : ask yourself how 
 nearly and in what they approached the ideal, where they 
 fell short of it. Consider also whether a nation at all stages 
 of its growth needs the same qualities in its rulers. Dis- 
 tinguish between an absolute and a constitutional ruler. (See 
 references given under 154.) 
 
 370.* The educational value of Latin Prose and Latin 
 Verse Composition. 
 
 371.* "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready 
 man, and writing an exact man." 
 
 Bacon, Essay on " Studies." 
 
 372.* Collect six memorable sayings of great men on 
 great historical occasions : give reasons for your choice. 
 
 373.* Choose from literature six memorable sayings 
 that are worthy of being cherished as rules or maxims for 
 life : express their meaning as fully as you can, and give 
 reasons for your choice. 
 
 374.* What do you learn from Pope's Rape of the Lock 
 of fashionable society in the first quarter of the eighteenth 
 
 3 75.* The character of dogs.t|^|^ A(^.fcutf^, ^^ ^^ 
 R. L. Stevenson, Memories and Portrafis. ^ Or. John 
 Brown, Rab and his Friends. 
 
SUBJECTS FOR ESSAYS 151 
 
 376.* "The world remembers longer him who travels] 
 farthest in a single direction than him who travels far in" 
 many directions." Compare the men who have been : 
 great in one way with the men who have been great in 
 many ways. 8 'uv C*AA*fc>ft, 
 
 377.* "A scientific education must be better than a 
 literary education : for an education in things must be 
 better than an education in words" Is the reasoning 
 sound ? 
 
 378.* Town and country life: their effects on nations 
 and individuals. 13'U'"'*^'''" 7" *''*• ¥'**«'/ Tl*^^ •*- "^ ''^ ^1 
 
 379.* The use and abuse of advertisements. ^ 
 
 380.* "Were I condemned to live on a desert island, I 
 should wish to have some birds, as well as books, for my 
 companions." What birds and what books would you 
 choose ? 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 The practice of paraphrasing has deservedly fallen into 
 disrepute. To quote an example of Matthew Arnold's, it 
 is difficult to see what there is to be gained by substituting 
 for "Canst thou minister to a mind diseased?" some such 
 alternative version as "Will you not wait upon the lunatic?" 
 In strict accuracy, indeed, paraphrase is an impossibility. 
 The same thing cannot be said in two ways. We cannot 
 alter even a word, in such a simple sentence as " If the rain 
 . stops, I shall go out," without altering our thought or the 
 effect of what we say. We find it convenient to distinguish 
 between matter and form, thought and expression, the 
 thing said and the manner of saying it, and from some 
 points of view the distinction is a very important one. 
 Yet the two are really as inseparable as the concave and 
 convex sides of the arc. In any case, there can be only 
 one final and perfect way of saying a thing ; and if we 
 take great literature and " paraphrase " it, we are simply 
 substituting imperfect words for perfect. 
 
 On the other hand, the attempt to re-state an argument 
 in our own words is probably the very best method of 
 making sure that we understand it. We change the argu- 
 ment somewhat, no doubt, in the processes of assimila- 
 tion and reproduction ; but in no other way do we learn 
 
IS4 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 it so welL Every one who turns a piece of prose into 
 another language, performs this operation upon it, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, before he translates ; and some 
 of the chief benefits to be derived from the practice of 
 composition in Latin or Greek, or a modern foreign 
 language, are due to this fact. The half-dozen exercises 
 that follow are given as examples of passages that may be 
 profitably treated in this way. 
 
 I. Re-write in modern English the following passage frotn 
 Philemon Holland (1552- 1637), substituting '■'■loose" for 
 "periodic" structure of sentences. 
 
 Who is able to make a muster as it were of them that 
 have been excellent in wit : so difficult a matter it is to run 
 through so many kinds of sciences, and to take a survey of 
 curious handiworks in such variety, of most rare and 
 singular artisans ? Unless haply we agree upon this, and 
 say, that Homer the Greek poet excelled all other, con- 
 sidering either the subject-matter, or the happy fortune of 
 his work. And hereupon it was, that Alexander the Great 
 (for in this so proud a censure and comparison, I shall do 
 best to cite the judgment of the highest, and of those that 
 be not subject to envy) having found among the spoils of 
 Darius the king, his perfumier or casket of sweet ointments, 
 and the same richly embellished with gold and costly 
 pearls and precious stones, when his friends about him showed 
 him many uses whereto the said coffer or cabinet might be put 
 unto, considering that Alexander himself could not away 
 with those delicate perfumes, being a warrior, and slurried 
 with bearing arms, and following warfare : when, I say, 
 his gallants about him could not resolve well what service 
 to put it to : himself made no more ado but said thus, I 
 will have it to serve for a case of Homer's books : judging 
 hereby, that the most rare and precious work proceeding 
 from that so admirable a wit of man, should be bestowed 
 and kept in the richest box and casket of all others. The 
 
APPENDIX 15s 
 
 same prince, in the forcing and saccage of the city of 
 Thebes, caused by express commandment, that the dwelling- 
 house and whole family of Pindarus the poet should be 
 spared, He built again the native city- wherein Aristotle 
 the philosopher was born : and in so glorious a show of 
 his other worthy deeds, would needs intermingle this 
 testimony of his bounty, in regard of that rare clerk who 
 gave light to all things in the world. The murderers of 
 Archilochus the poet, the very Oracle of Apollo at Delphi 
 disclosed and revealed. 
 
 II. Re-write in modern English the following passage 
 from Bacon's Essay " Of Great Place." 
 
 In place there is licence to do good and evil, whereof 
 the latter is a curse ; for in evil, the best condition is not 
 to will, the second not to can. But power to do good is 
 the true and lawful end of aspiring. For good thoughts, 
 though God accept them, yet towards men are little better 
 than good dreams, except they be put in act ; and that 
 cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and 
 commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end 
 of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the 
 accomplishment of man's rest. For if a man can be a 
 partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of 
 God's rest. 
 
 In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best 
 examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts. And after 
 a time set before thee thine own example, and examine 
 thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect 
 not also the examples of those that have carried themselves 
 ill in the same place : not to set off thyself by taxing their 
 memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, 
 therefore, without bravery, or scandal of former times and 
 persons : but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create 
 good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to the 
 first institution, and observe wherein and how they have 
 degenerated : but yet ask counsel of both times ; of the 
 
IS6 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 ancient time, what is best ; and of the latter time, what is 
 fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may 
 know beforehand what they may expect; but be not too 
 positive and peremptory, and express thyself well when thou 
 digresses! from thy rule. Preserve the right of thy place, 
 but stir not questions of jurisdiction ; and rather assume 
 thy right in silence, and de facto, than voice it with claims 
 and challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of inferior 
 places, and think it more honour to direct in chief than to 
 be busy in all. 
 
 III. Restate the gist of Burke's argument fully and 
 accurately in the third person, as in a historian's account of 
 the speech. 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and 
 chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and 
 mechanical politicians, who have no place among us : a 
 sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is 
 gross and material: and who therefore, far from being 
 qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, 
 are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men 
 truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master 
 principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have 
 mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth every- 
 thing and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom 
 the truest wisdom : and a great empire and little minds go 
 ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow 
 with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and our- 
 selves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on 
 America with the old warning of the church, Sursum corda. 
 We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that 
 trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By 
 adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors 
 have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire : 
 and have made the most extensive and the only honourable 
 conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, 
 the number, and the happiness of the human race. Let us 
 
APPENDIX 157 
 
 get an American revenue as we have got an American 
 empire. English privileges have made it all that it is. 
 English privileges alone will make it all it can be. 
 
 IV. (i) Collect and classify the ornaments of style {Part 
 I. chap. VI.) used in the following passage. 
 
 (2) Re-write the piece, substituting for its oratorical tone 
 the tone of narration or description. 
 
 Character of the French. 
 
 When I consider this nation in itself, it strikes me as 
 more extraordinary than any event in its own annals. AV'as 
 there ever any nation on the face of the earth sq full of 
 contrasts, and so extreme in all its actions ; more swayed 
 by sensations, less by principles ; led therefore always to do 
 either worse or better than was expected of it ; sometimes 
 below the common level of humanity, sometimes greatly 
 above it ; — a people so unalterable in its leading instincts 
 that its likeness may still be recognised in descriptions 
 written 2000 or 3000 years ago, but at the same time so 
 mutable in its daily thoughts and in its tastes as to become 
 a spectacle and an amazement to itself, and to be as much 
 surprised as the rest of the world at the sight of what it has 
 done ; — a people beyond all others, the child of home and 
 the slave of habit, when left to itself, but when once torn 
 against its will from the native hearth and from its daily 
 pursuits, ready to go to the end of the world, and to dare all 
 things; indocile by temperament, yet accepting the arbi- 
 trary and even the violent rule of a sovereign more readily 
 than the free and regular government of the chief citizen ; 
 to-day the declared enemy of all obedience, to-morrow 
 serving with a sort of passion which the nations best adapted 
 for servitude cannot attain : guided by a thread as long as 
 no one resists, ungovernable when the example of resistance 
 has once been given : always deceiving its masters, who fear 
 it either too little or too much : never so free that it is 
 hopeless to enslave it, or so enslaved that it may not break 
 
158 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 the yoke again; apt for all things, but excelling only in 
 war; adoring chance, force, success, splendour, and noise, 
 more than true glory ; more capable of heroism than of 
 virtue, of genius than of good sense ; ready to conceive 
 immense designs rather than to consummate great undertak- 
 ings ; the most brilliant and the most dangerous of the 
 nations of Europe, and that best fitted to become by turns 
 an object of admiration, of hatred, of pity, of terror, but 
 never of indifference ? 
 
 V. Express De Quincey's meaning as nearly as yoii can 
 in simple language. Would tke simpler expression have 
 answered his purpose as well ? and if not, why not ? 
 
 The mail-coach it was that distributed over the face of 
 the land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart- 
 shaking news of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of 
 Waterloo. These were the harvests that, in the grandeur 
 of their reaping, redeemed the tears and blood in which 
 they had been sown. Neither was the meanest peasant so 
 much below the grandeur and the sorrow of the times as 
 to confound battles such as these, which were gradually 
 moulding the destinies of Christendom, with the vulgar 
 conflicts of ordinary warfare, so often no more than gladia- 
 torial trials of national prowess. The victories of England 
 in this stupendous contest rose of themselves as natural Te 
 Deums to heaven ; and it was felt by the thoughtful that 
 such victories, at such a crisis of general prostration, were 
 not more beneficial to ourselves than finally to France, our 
 enemy, and to the nations of all western or central Europe, 
 through whose pusillanimity it was that the French domina- 
 tion had prospered. 
 
 VI. Re-state in your own words the argument. 
 
 Nor assuredly is it well for men that every age should 
 mark either a revolution, or the slow inward agitation that 
 prepares the revolution, or that doubters and destroyers 
 
APPENDIX 159 
 
 should divide between them all admiration and gratitude 
 and sympathy. The violent activity of a century of great 
 change may end in a victory, but it is always a sacrifice. 
 The victory may more than recompense its cost. The 
 sacrifice may repay itself a thousandfold. It does not 
 always repay itself, as the too-neglected list of good causes 
 lost, and noble effort wasted, so abundantly shows. Nor 
 in any case is sacrifice ever an end. Faith and order and 
 steady movement are the conditions which everything wise 
 is directed to perfect and consolidate. But for this process 
 of perfection we need first the meditative, doubting, critical 
 type, and next the dogmatic destroyer. " In counsel it is 
 good to see dangers," Bacon said ; " and in execution not to 
 see them, except they be very great." — J. Morley. 
 
INDEX TO PART I (Introduction) 
 
 ( The numbers refer to the pages) 
 
 Affectation, ii 
 Alliteration, 23 
 Ambiguous subject, 33 
 Antithesis, 24 
 Arrangement, 39 
 Assimilation, 30 
 Association, literary, 30 
 
 Balance, 23 
 
 Beginning of Essay, 33, 42 
 
 Clearness, ■^, 13, 26 
 Climax, 24 
 Conclusion, 41, 42 
 
 Diffidence, 31 
 
 Egotism, 5 
 
 Emphasis, 14 
 
 Essay, writing of, 32-42 
 
 Essajasts, literary, 4-8, 34 
 
 Fine- writing, 11, 26 
 "Forcible-feeble" style, 27 
 
 Grace, 5 
 
 Hackneyed words, 10 
 Historic present, 27 
 
 Historical Essays, 43-46 
 Humour, 7, 11, 21 
 
 Incongruity, 12, 21 
 Insincerity, 26 
 Irrelevance, 32 
 
 Latinisms, lo 
 Laziness, 31 
 Lightness, 5 
 Literature, 49-52 
 Loose sentences, 13 
 
 Metaphor, 20 
 
 Middle of Essay, 35 
 
 Moral and Social Questions, 52-54 
 
 Obvious, the, 38 
 
 Order, logical and natural, 35, 39 
 Ornaments of Style, 20 
 Ostentation, 31 
 
 Paragiaphs, 17 
 Parentheses, 15 
 Periodic sentences, 13 
 Picturesque style, 22, 27 
 Platitudes, 46, 53 
 Poetic words, 10 
 Political Philosophy," 46-49 
 
1 62 
 
 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 Quotation, use of, 29 ; as subject, 
 33 
 
 Realism, 28 
 Rhythm, 18 
 
 Selection, 37 
 
 Sentences, structure of, 13 
 Sermonising, 7, 53 
 Simile, 22 
 Sincerity, is, 26 
 
 Slang, 10 
 Stops, IS 
 
 Tautology, 11 
 Transition, i8 
 
 Unity, 7 
 
 Variety, 13 
 Vices of Style, 26 
 
 Words, choice of, 9 
 
INDEX TO PART II (Essay-Notes) 
 
 ( Tke numbers refer to the sections) 
 
 Ancient and modern history, 6 
 Art, aim of, 47 
 Asceticism, 12 
 
 Athenian flexibility, 3 ; democracy, 
 21 ; stage, 33, 34 (see also Greeks) 
 
 Bible, 29, 42 
 Breeding, good, 58 
 Burlesque, 50 
 
 Ceremony, 59 
 Chivalry, 20, 25 
 Christianity, 25 
 Civilisation, 23, 25 
 Comedy, the human, S5 
 Constitutions, mixed, 19 ; free, 26 
 Conversation, 60 
 Criticism, 40, 54 
 
 Danes, ii 
 Democracy, 22 
 Discourse, 60 
 Don Quixote, 43 
 Drama, 32, 33, 34 
 
 Elizabethan Age, 14 
 Epic, 32 
 Euripides, 35 
 
 Falstaff, 43 
 
 Fanjily names, Roman, 10 
 
 Feudalism, 20 
 
 Great men, 56 
 
 Greeks, political success of, i ; 
 tyrannies, 5 ; amusements, 8 ; 
 liberty, 27 ; history and poetry, 
 31 ; influence on Roman litera- 
 ture, 37, 38 (see also Athenians) 
 
 Herodotus, 30 
 
 History, ancient and modern, 6 ; 
 
 style in, 45 
 Homer, 29 
 Humanity, 52 
 
 Liberty, 27 
 Life, 55 
 
 Manners, 24, 25 
 Memorable lives, 56 
 Milton, 42 
 Monasticism, 12 
 
 Narrow minds, 51 
 Norman Conquest, 11 
 Novels, 48, 49 
 
 Oratory, 41 
 
 ParUamentary ministers, 16 
 Parody, 50 
 Patriotism, 22 
 Pericles, 3, 16, 32, 33 
 Persian Empire, 2 
 
1 64 
 
 A MANUAL OF ESSAY-WRITING 
 
 Poetry, 41 
 Pomp, 59 
 Popularity, 52 
 Profession, debts to, 57 
 
 Romans, compared with Spartans, 
 4 ; as soldiers and generals, 7 ; 
 amusements, 8 ; slavery, g ; 
 family names, 10 ; Republic, 19, 
 21 ; Empire, 26 ; architecture, 
 36 ; prose and poetry, 36, 37, 
 38 ; love of pomp, 59 
 
 Romantic literature, 28, 39 
 
 Sanity of ancient literature, 28 
 Satire, 50 
 Sense, good, 53 
 
 Shakespeare, 43, 44 
 Slavery, Roman, 9 
 Spartans, 4 
 Style, 28, 45 
 
 Thucydides, 30, 45 
 Tudors, absolutism of, 5, 13 
 Tyranny in Greek States, 5 
 
 Virgil, 37-39 
 
 Walpole, 15, 26 
 
 War, eifect on nation of, 17; char- 
 acter of nation shown by, 18 
 Whigs, 15 
 Wit, 46 
 
 THE' END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Ediiiburg-h, 
 
BLKCK'S 
 SCHOOL TEXT BOOKS 
 
 In Small Crown 8vo, bound in Cloth. 
 
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 BLACK'S SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY 
 
 EUROPE. By L. W. Lyde, M.A., Headmaster of the English Side, Glasgow 
 
 Academy. 
 NORTH AMERICA. By L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 BRITISH ISLES. By L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 AFRICA. By L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 
 BLACK'S LITERARY EPOCH SERIES 
 
 Edited by L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 
 NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROSE. By J. H. Fowler, M.A., Clifton College. 
 
 NINETEENTH- CENTURY POETRY. By A. C. M'Donnell, M.A., Armagh 
 
 Royal School. 
 
 BLACK'S SCHOOL SHAKESPEARE 
 Edited by L. W. Lydb, M.A. 
 A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. By L. W. Lyde, M.A. 
 KING LEAR. By Miss Ph. Sheavyn, M.A., Lecturer on English Literature, 
 
 Somerville College, Oxford. 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. By J. Strong, B.A., Central Higher Grade 
 School, Leeds. 
 
 BLACK'S SIR WALTER SCOTT "CONTINUOUS" READERS 
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 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By H. Dk 
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 Edited by Professor Clovis BAvenot, 
 
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 BLACK'S HISTORICAL LATIN READERS 
 
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 THE CONQUEST OF ITALY AND THE STRUGGLE WITH CARTHAGE. 
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 For Colleges, Schools, and Private Students. 
 
 By J. H. Fowler, M.A. 
 
 Assistant-Master at Clifton College. Editor of " XlX.-Century Prose.'' 
 
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 BLACK'S CLASSICAL SERIES 
 ODYSSEY. Book IX. Edited, with Introductions and Notes, by A. Douglas 
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Blach's Scbool (BeograpbB 
 
 A GEOGEAPHY OF EUEOPE 
 
 By L. W. LYDE, M.A., Glasgow Academy. 
 
 Small Crown Svo, 128 pp. Price Is. net. Bound in Cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Lyde has reduced the subordinate geographical facts to a 
 minimum. He will earn thereby the gratitude of many weary and 
 intelligent pupils, whose souls revolt against the useless detail generally 
 thrust upon them." — Bookman. 
 
 " We have not space to describe its novel features, but must content 
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 "This excellent and useful handbook." — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 A GEOGEAPHY OF NOETH 
 AMEEICA 
 
 INCLUDING THE WEST INDIES 
 
 By L. W. LYDE, M.A., Glasgow Academy. 
 
 Small Crovm 8to, 116^^. Price Is. net. Bound in Oloth. 
 
 "Certainly the best short book on the subject which we have 
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Blacft'B Scbool ©eograpbp 
 
 A GEOGEAPHY OF THE 
 BRITISH ISLES 
 
 By L. W. LYDE, M.A., Glasgow Academy. 
 Sinall Crown 8vo, 136 pp. Price Is. net. Bound in Cloth. 
 
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 Magazine. 
 
 A GEOGRAPHY OF 
 AFRICA 
 
 By L. W. LYDE, M.A. 
 Small Crown 8to, 120 pp. Bound in Cloth. Price Is. 
 
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 "Geography, as Mr. Lyde understands and teaches it, does not con- 
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 islands. It is an intellectual exercise, and brings the reasoning 
 faculties rather than the memory into play. Not content with merely 
 stating facts, it accounts for them, and indicates their influence. 
 Nothing could bring this out more clearly than the "problems" 
 which are given at the end of this little volume. Intelligent answers 
 to such questions imply a rational and useful knowledge of the 
 geogi-aphy of Africa, and that is precisely what Mr. Lyde's manual is 
 admirably fitted to impart." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
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Blacft's Xiterars JEpocb Sertes 
 
 NINETEENTH-CENTUEY 
 POETRY 
 
 By A. C. M'DONNELL, M.A. 
 
 HEADMASTER OF ARMAGH ROYAL SOHOOL. 
 
 Small Crown Sto, 128 pp. Price Is. net. Bound in Cloth. 
 
 CONTENTS.— General Introdnotion.— 'Wokdswokth, Goody Blake 
 and Harry Gill ; Laodamia. — Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel 
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 (latter part of Canto iii.). — Shelley, Ode to Liberty. 
 
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 NINETEENTH-CENTUEY 
 PEOSE 
 
 By J. H. FOWLER, M.A. 
 
 ASSISTANT-MASTER AT CLIFTON COLLEGE. 
 
 Small Crown 8vo, 135 pp. Price Is. net. Bound in Cloth. 
 
 CONTENTS. — General Introduction. — Colbeidge, First Literary 
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 Abbot Samson. — Thackeray, The Last Years of George III. — 
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 — GuardioTi. 
 
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ffilacft's Scbool Sbaftespcare 
 
 A MIDSUMMEE-NIGHT'S DEEAM 
 
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 up. " — Secondary Education. 
 
 "The introduction to this play is devoted not so much to Shake- 
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 high standard of the rest of the book." — Glasgow Daily Mail.- 
 
 "A. very neat and substantial little volume. " — Liverpool Mercwry. 
 
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 teacher." — Sducational Seview. 
 
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 and an ' interpretation ' of the aim and scope of the play. The notes 
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 phrases. " — Preparatory Schools Seview. 
 
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Blacft's Scbool Sbaftespeare 
 
 KINO LEAE 
 
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 Oxford. 
 
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 Speaker. 
 
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 Shakespeare's plays should be. . . . Every word is relevant, every 
 sentence suggestive." — Glasgow Daily Mail. 
 
 " Admirably fitted for school use." — Scotsman, 
 
 " This book is excellently printed in large clear type. . . The plan 
 is simple and good ; nor is the execution less so." — Litecary World. 
 
 In Preparation, 
 
 THE MEECHANT OF YENICE 
 
 Edited by J. STRONG, B.A., Central Higher Grade School, 
 Leeds. 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
Blacft's Sir XKHalter Scott " Continuous " 
 1Rea5ers 
 
 THE TALISMAN 
 
 Edited by W. MELVEN, M.A. 
 
 Small Crown 8do, 240 ^. 25 Illustrations. £o^ind in Cloth. 
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 duction, an abridged text, useful notes, and last, hut not least, 
 numerous artistically printed illustrations." — Glasgow Daily Mail, 
 
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 introduction is excellent, informing, and pleasantly written. The 
 notes are really illustrative, and add to the value of the work by 
 explaining allusions and references." — Educational News. 
 
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 IN PEOSE AND VEESE 
 
 Edited by J. HIGHAM, M.A. 
 
 Small C/6hm Svo, 192 pp. 13 Illustrations. Bound in Cloth. 
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 "A well illustrated collection of martial stories from the works of 
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 story and useful notes at the end. The book will make a capital 
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SSlacft's Sir Maltec Scott "Continuous" 
 IReabers 
 
 QUENTIN DUEWAKD 
 
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 Small Crown 8to, 240 pp. With Map and 9 Blmtrations. Bound 
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 the ' Sir Walter Scott Series of " Continuous " Readers. ' Each one con- 
 cerned in its production — editor, printer, and publisher — has well done 
 his part in preparing it for its special purpose." — Schoolmaster. 
 
 "No tnxe friend of real education but must wish success to Messrs. 
 Black's attempt to familiarise our youth with fiction which is at the 
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 lYANHOE 
 
 Edited by J. HIGHAM, M.A., Carlisle Grammar School. 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
Blacft's IbiBtorical Xatin IReaSers 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF ITALY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 STEUGGLE WITH CAETHAGE 
 
 By E. G. WILKINSON, M.A., Manchester Grammar School. 
 
 Small Grown 8vo, 146 pp. Illustraied. Bound in Cloth. 
 Price 2s. 
 
 ' ' TMs is a really excellent little book. Surely, with such stories — 
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 — Latin construing will be interesting from the very first ; and the 
 illustrations, e.g. of Carthaginian coins, of a trireme, add the last charm 
 to a really delightful little book. " — Journal of Education. 
 
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 Teachers will find it very valuable as a class-book." — Secondary 
 Education. 
 
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 should impart charm and interest to the earlier stages of Latin reading, 
 and intelleotualise secondary education in elementary and higher 
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 — Preparatory Schools Review. 
 
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 they will not need to unlearn afterwards. . . . Teachers should get the 
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 excellences." — Sheffield Telegraph. 
 
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Nea/rly Ready. 
 
 Blacft's Classical Series 
 
 ODYSSEY. BOOK IX. 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 
 Edited by 
 A. DOUGLAS THOMSON, D.Litt. 
 
 LECTURER ON GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 Small Crown 8vo. Bound in Cloth. Price 2s. &d. 
 Nearly Ready, 
 
 A MANUAL OF 
 ESSAY WKITING 
 
 POR HIGHER FORMS OE SECONDARY 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 By J. H. FOWLER, M.A. 
 
 ASSISTANT-MASTER AT CLIFTON COLLEGE ; EDITOR OF 
 "NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROSE." 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
IRecits D'ibtstoire &e jfrance— i 
 
 LES GAULOIS ET 
 LES FEANCS 
 
 PAR 
 
 F. B. KIRKMAN, B.A. (Oxon.) 
 
 ET 
 
 J. M. A. PicONTAL. 
 
 Small Grown 8vo, 108 pp. Cloth. Illustrated. 
 Price Is. 3d net. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Les Gaulois et les Francs is composed of a series of stories 
 linked together so as to form a continnous narrative. These 
 stories have been drawn, for the most part, from contemporary 
 records, and information is given which will permit the reader 
 to distinguish between legend and fact. The stories are accom- 
 panied by a map and illustrated by eighteen pictures of histori- 
 cal scenes, monuments, and coins. As it has been thought better 
 to explain difficulties under their proper grammatical headings 
 than to translate them, a grammar scheme, based upon the text, 
 takes the place of notes. Oral exercises and a vocabulary are 
 added. 
 
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 late Mr. Kirkman upon the initiation of an interesting experiment, 
 and we augur well for its success." — The Guardian, 
 
 "The book serves the double piirpose of a French Reader and an 
 Introduction to French History, and promises much for the series 
 which it begins." — Scotsman. 
 
 LONDRES 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 
 
 1899 
 
SPECIMEN PAGE 
 
 LE SIEGE DE PARIS, 885-886 
 
 Enfin, il arriva un moment ou les Normands 15 
 eurent I'audace de remonter la Seine et de menacer 
 Paris, ville ^ d6j4 tr^s importante. Le moine Abbo, 
 qui 6tait lui - m^me dans la ville assidgde, a ra- 
 cont6 la defense hdroique des Parisiens. Le chef 
 des Normands somma d'abord les d^fenseurs de 20 
 rendre la place. Mais I'^v^que Gozlin lui^* fit cette belle 
 r^ponse : " Si, comme nous, tu avais ^t^ chargd de 
 ddfendre ces murs et si tu avais livrd la place, quel 
 traitement penserais - tu mdriter?" — "Je mdriterais 
 
 Vaisseau normand. {Colin et Cie.) 
 
 d'avoir la -"^ tdte tranch^e et d'etre d^vord par les 25 
 chiens," dit le Normand, et il ajouta : " Mais si vous 
 n'dcoutez pas ma demande, vous serez, d^s demain, 
 tous criblds de traits empoisonn^s ; vous serez en 
 proie i la famine et nous reviendrons chaque ann^e 
 attaquer votre ville," et, la-dessus, il sortit. 30 
 
 D^s le lendemain, les Normands commencent 
 I'attaque. Une nude de traits et de grosses pierres 
 tombent sur les Francs qui se ddfendent comme des " 
 hdros. Le comte de Paris, Eudes, verse de I'huile 
 bouillante sur les assidgeants ; plusieurs sont brtilds 35 
 
SSlacft's Sertes of Scbool Utxu:^ooli3—':oniinuea. 
 
 Volumes in preparation. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF LATIN PROSE 
 
 By W. H. D. Rouse, M.A., Assistant-Master at Rugby School. 
 
 MAN AND HIS HOME 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 
 
 By A. J. Herbertson, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S., 
 Lecturer in Geography, Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh. 
 
 A MANUAL OF PHYSICS 
 
 By A. T. Walden, B.A., New College, Oxford, and J. J. Manley, 
 Assistant-Master in Magdalen College School. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF FRENCH INSTRUCTION 
 
 With fall Notes of Lessons. 
 
 By F. B. KiRKMAN, B.A. (Oxon.), late Assistant-Master at the 
 Merchant Taylors' School. 
 
 * BLACK'S TALES FROM FRENCH HISTORY 
 FOR ELEMENTARY FORMS 
 
 II. LA FRANCE ET LES FRANCAIS (877-1453). Edited by 
 F. B. KijiKMAN, B.A. 
 
 Profusely illustrated with the best illustrations that can be procured 
 to depict the life and customs of the Period 
 
 ♦BLACK'S TALES FROM GERMAN HISTORY 
 
 By S. S. Fechheimer-Fletcher, Ph.D. Jena. 
 
 I. DIE ALTEN DEUTSCHEN 
 
 This .volume will deal principally with the Nibelungen Saga, the 
 , most interesting episodes of which will be told in the simplest 
 language. ■■ 
 
 * These Readers are to be written by French and German authors 
 specially for English school-boys and girls, so that subject matter adapted 
 to their age and interests may be expressed in language that is not too 
 difficult, and that the grammar in each volume may be carefully graded. 
 
 Each volutne is profusely illustrated. 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
AN INTRODUCTION TO 
 
 STRUCTURAL BOTANY 
 
 By D. H. SCOTT, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. 
 
 In Two VoU, Orovm 8i;o, Cloth. Uluatrated. Price 3s. Qd. each,. 
 
 Part I. —Flowering Plants (4th Edition). 
 Part II.-— Flowerlesa Planta (2nd Edition), 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS OF PART I.-Flowering Plants. 
 
 " In noticing elementary books in these pages, we have lamented nothing more 
 than the want of a book which should do for structural botany what Prof. Oliver's 
 lASSons has long done for the study of the principal natural orders. It seoms hard 
 to realise that this grievance is no more, and that we possess such a book in our 
 own language, and a book that no honest critic will fail to assess at a higher value 
 than any known book in any language that has the same scope and aim."— Jioumof 
 
 " An introduction to the study of structural botany has long been a desideratum 
 in this country, . . . Dr. Scott's little book supplies this need in a most admirable 
 manner, and he has thoroughly earned the gratitude both of teacher and student 
 alike for the freshness and clearness with which he has presented his subject." — 
 Natwe. 
 
 " It stands out from the ever-inoreasing crowd of guides, text-books, and manuals, 
 in virtue not only of originality of design, but also of the fhct that the subjects 
 treated have^been specially investigated for the purpose of the book, so that we 
 have not the mere compilation of a bookman, but an account based on the results 
 of the author's own observation." — Natv/ral Science. 
 
 PRESS OPINIONS OF PART II.-Flowerle88 Plants. 
 
 " We have nothing but praise for this rsat little volume. With its com;panion 
 (Part I. — Flow'ering Plarits) it forms as good an introduction as one can imagine, in 
 our present knowledge, to the study of the plant world of to-day. . . . We only 
 foar lest, amid such a wealth of illustratinn, the student may deem an examination 
 of the actual specimens to be unnecessary."— ffuordmn. 
 
 "Students ^of botany will welcome the second part of Dr. D. U. Scott's Intro- 
 ducticm to Structural Botany which has just appeared. . . . The language is clear 
 and not unneces,sarily technical, which is a great advantage to a beginner. W» 
 believe many are deterred from the fascinating study of botany by the extremely 
 numerous technical terms with which so many manuals abound. . . . We do not 
 remember reading a clearer descripUon of the growth of ferns than that in the 
 chapter on vascular cryptogams." — Westminster Review, . 
 
 "Some time ago we had occasion to Notice in favourable terms the first part of 
 this little treatise devoted to the flowering plants. We can speak no less favour- 
 ably of the present instalment. It 18% thoroughly original book, and one well 
 thought out. ... To those who desire to get a clear connected account of the 
 distinctive characteristics and life-history of the great groups of the vegetable 
 kingdom, we most heartily commend Dr. Scott's little volume. "—GcwdeTiers' 
 Ch/roTidcle. 
 
 " Students ^-nd amateiuis who have used Dr. Scott's little book on the structure 
 of flowering plants, which appeared two years ago, will naturally have recourse to 
 the second part if they wish to extend their studies to flowerless plants ; and we 
 venture to predict that they will not -be disappointed. It is written in the same 
 eimple, clear style." — British Medical Jmtmal. 
 
 A. & G. BLAOK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
LIGHT 
 
 By PROFESSOR P. G. TAIT 
 
 Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. Price 6s. 
 
 PROPERTIES OF MATTER 
 
 By PROFESSOR P. G. TAIT 
 Third Edition. Cr. 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 DYNAMICS 
 
 By PROFESSOR P. G. TAIT 
 
 Crown 8vo. Price 7 s. 6d. 
 
 CARLYLE'S SARTOR RESARTUS 
 
 Edited with Introduction and Notes 
 
 By J. A. S. BARRETT, M.A, 
 
 Crown 8vo. Price 5s. 
 
 PASSAGES OF THE BIBLE 
 
 Chosen for their Literary Beauty and Interest 
 
 By J. G. FRAZER, M.A. 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge 
 
 Crown 8vo. Price 6s. 
 
 BLACK'S 
 
 GENERAL ATLAS OF THE WORLD 
 
 1898 Edition. Containing 90 Maps 
 
 Folio. Half-Bound. Gilt Edges. 
 
 To be had of all Booksellers on specially advantageous terms. 
 
 A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
"f§^§?