3550 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. THE gratifying success of my book has led me, in preparing this new edition, to add a complete Analysis of the entire work. (See pp. ix. to xxviii.) This Analysis, it will be observed, is not only by paragraphs, but also by the larger sections of the book. First, the main divisions are set forth; then, under each of these main divisions in turn, the several chapters of that main division, the sub-divisions of these chapters, and even the sections of these sub-divisions. Finally, the subject of each paragraph is given, and thus the last analysis of the work is reached. Complete tabular views of all classifications, and occasionally of the contents of more difficult paragraphs, are included in the Analysis, in the hope that, serving as "maps" of important parts of the subject, they may help materially to fix in the student's memory the sometimes perplexing minutiæ of the subject. If properly used, the Analysis can hardly fail to promote topical recitations. No student of seventeen or eighteen ought to need severe, or even close, questioning to enable him to state concisely the contents of a paragraph; but he will very often need such help as is here offered, if only to show him how to analyze a paragraph for himself. The Analysis will, therefore, promote a second useful purpose; it will indicate clearly a method of studying, not only this, but all kindred subjects. The best results in the use of the Analysis will be obtained, I think, if the student will first read over a paragraph, then, with the help of the Analysis, learn what 909 122480 that paragraph contains, and last, in re-reading the paragraph, verify and store away in his memory every detail. After each paragraph has been acquired thus, he can memorize the topics treated in his whole lesson, and then go into recitation fully armed and equipped. Even a final examination will lose its terrors to one who has prepared the subject thus. A few slips in the book, not observed in the previous editions, are now corrected. J. G. R. McE. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PREFACE. The teacher of Rhetoric has a double office. First, and chiefly, he must make writers; secondly, he must so exhibit the laws of his art as to promote mental discipline. In other words, he must be practical, without being a mere empiricist; he must be rational, without for an instant losing sight of skill in composition. With these views in mind, I have tried to fill what seemed to me an empty place among books on Rhetoric. None of them, I thought, aimed at practical results, without sacrificing too far the principles of the art; none of them taught these principles in their fullness, without sacrificing in part or in whole the practical side of the work. I have aimed to strike the happy medium,-to make a book that shall teach composition while it forces the student to think, and shall exhibit the principles of the art at the same time that it keeps uppermost the problem How to Write. I have adopted Dr. Shedd's words quoted on my title-page, accepting fully the doctrine that Thought is more than Style, and modifying this doctrine by only one other truth-a truth to which Dr. Shedd would doubtless equally assent-that worthy thought deserves, as it promotes, an excellent form. In other words, while, with Herbert Spencer, I extol practice, I also accept, with him, the doctrine that "some practical result may be expected from a familiarity with the principles of style. If in no other way, yet, as facilitating revision, a knowledge of the thing to be achieved-a clear idea of what constitutes a beauty, and what a blemish-can not fail to be of service." I have also tried to exhibit the laws of Rhetoric in their entirety, -not the laws of Style alone, but also those of Invention. However we may quibble about that word Invention in its rhetorical sense, Rhetoric does teach other laws than those of Form; and these laws must be exhibited, if the art is to be taught fully. I admit freely that, in a book whose chief aim is skill in composition, Invention will occupy a considerably less number of pages than Style; and, hence, even after saying what I have said of the superior importance of Invention [? 32], I have given by far the greater portion of my whole space to Style. The questions discussed under the head of Invention are largely theoretical; and their full exposition belongs either to a distinctively theoretical treatise on Rhetoric or to the several sciences that furnish the theory of the art. Were Rhetoric now, as it once was, a purely disciplinary study of Senior year, my book would have taken an entirely different form; but, in view of the wholesome change in our college work which assumes, not that the men know their mother-tongue because they speak it, but that, sadly ignorant of this mother-tongue, they need lessons in English, even more than they need the discipline of foreign languages, ancient or modern,—in view of this change, I have tried to make a book that shall start our younger college students and the older students in high schools and academies on the only road, difficult as it is, to a mastery of English composition. The limitation of the book to Prose has been adopted, because I believe that every one who will apply himself can acquire appreciable skill in this kind of writing; while Poetry and Romance are products of exceptionally endowed minds. But I have not scrupled to quote examples from either poets or novelists. In many cases, such examples are of superior interest; while, not infrequently, they illustrate the laws of composition even better than examples in prose. The work is the product of my own teaching. Circumstances led me about eight years ago to write a course of lectures for my class, with which to replace the text-book then in use. Later I printed an abstract of these lectures; and now this abstract has grown into an entire work. I do not wish to boast, much less to anticipate criticism; but the course has never yet failed to yield in large measure the fruit expected of it. From the many works on Rhetoric, acknowledged and obscure, ancient and modern, I have sought both light and help. I am indebted, therefore, to all these writers: indeed, although I have in the main sought new examples and illustrations for the rules, yet I must adopt Dr. Austin Phelps's words;-"I have not scrupled to use any material which has seemed to me adapted to my purpose. I have appropriated principles of which no one knows the origin; I have employed illustrations, some of which belong to the common stock of rhetorical discussion." With him, too, I can excuse myself for not always noting the sources whence I drew my material, on the ground that even "to name them would be in part commonplace, and in part pedantic." To one writer, however, I must make especial acknowledgments. Early in my professorship, The Art of Discourse, by Prof. Henry N. Day, taught me the outline of a systematic Rhetoric, and so gave my studies a direction they have never since lost. Prof. Day will doubtless smile, should he ever honor me by turning my pages, to think that he could have stimulated the production of |