II. Original Passage. 'O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eve, tongue, sword! The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers! quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and That sucked the honey of his music Now see that noble and most Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh; That unmatched form and feature Blasted with ecstasy! O woe is me!' Paraphrase. Behold the ruin of a lofty intellect! The keen perception of the scholar, the polished speech of the courtier, the brave spirit of the knight, the hope and flower of the nation he adorned, the model of manly beauty, the centre to which all eyes were turned-he is utterly brought low! For me whose ears drank in the sweet melody of his tender avowals-I am become the most depressed and miserable of women, seeing such noble and powerful faculties thrown into discordant confusion, like melodious bells rung inharmoniously; such matchless symmetry and personal beauty of ripe manhood blighted with madness. What bitter grief is mine! -From Practical Teacher." As to which is the more difficult of paraphrasing, poetry or prose, opinions differ. 'Much may be said on both sides.' The mechanical difficulty with poetry is not as great, for your prose vocabulary is sometimes left untouched, and it is easy and even natural to vary the construction. On the other hand, the result is more bathetic, as poetical figures and ideas are more difficult of conversion into those admissible in prose. Our Mother Tongue being a composite language, and possessing many doublets, lends itself more easily to Paraphrasing than almost any other language. A FEW HINTS ON ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 1. Continually read the best English authors, poets, novelists, historians, and scientists, as well to attain an extensive vocabulary as a good style. 2. Note any extraordinary or irregular constructions in our great writers, and avoid them. 3. Practise writing short essays upon widely varied subjects. 4. Draw up a plan of your essay before finally writing it. (Some of our Classics were re-written half a dozen times before publication.) 5. Write a few poems-and burn them. The practice of versification, if not carried too far, will certainly, in its struggle after rhyme, rhythm, and effect, conduce to a good literary style. 6. Frequently paraphrase and place in prose order passages from the poets. 7. To avoid sameness, commence your sentences with different parts of speech, except where, as in our Litany, the emphasis of repetition dictates otherwise. 8. Employ, at first, short sentences and Saxon words. But see 'Hint 9.' 9. When fairly proficient, suit your style to your theme. The construction should harmonize with the thought; if the subject be toilsome, 'The line should labour and the verse be slow'; if merry, 'The frolicsome measures in merriment move.' Just as there are onomatopoetic words, so there are ono- My great example, as it is my theme, Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, Southey's Cataract of Lodore' furnishes an excellent example of an opposite style, but equally effective and suited for its purpose. Nobody would advocate the use (or abuse) of Johnson's 'anfractuose' verbosity or Clarendonian sentences, in order unduly to inflate a simple story; but in subtle disquisitions and involved controversies, the long resounding word and the complex sentence are justifiable and necessary. 10. Beware of a mixed style. If thy heart fail thee do not climb at all. Compare 1. He put out the fire. 2. He extinguished the conflagration. No. 2 might be allowable to denote the suppres sion of a great fire, but in any case No. 3 is 'horribly mixed.' 11. Beware of using unnecessary Adjectives, Adverbs, or Conjunctions. 12. Don't finish a sentence with an unemphatic word. 13. Carefully keep to English idiom and avoid foreign constructions. 14. Punctuate carefully. -See our Rules under 'Prose Order.' PUNCTUATION, ETC. No treatise on English Grammar is complete without some mention of Punctuation. Punctuation (derived from the Latin punctum, a point) may be defined as the right method of putting in Points or Stops. The words of a spoken sentence are seldom uttered consecutively. Certain pauses are made to mark more clearly the way in which the words of a sentence are grouped together. In writing, these pauses are represented by marks called Stops or Points. As it is impossible to lay down perfectly exact rules for the introduction of pauses in speaking, so it will be found that in many cases even the best writers are not agreed as to the use of Stops in writing. The best that can be done is to lay down a few general principles. An excellent rule is the following:-'Stops should be used only when they make the writer's meaning clearer.' Never use a more important stop, when a less important one will be sufficient. A good general rule for a student is to avoid the insertion of Stops, especially Commas, where the sense is clear without them. The Stops used in English Punctuation, arranged in order of importance, are :— These are all the Stops, properly so called. But, besides the Stops, some other signs are employed in writing. These are: 1. The Note of Interrogation, 2. The Note of Exclamation, . 4. Inverted Commas, (?) Marks. (""){ Quotation Besides these, there are also the Bracket, the Dash, the Hyphen, the Apostrophe, the Caret, the Asterisk, and Abbreviation Marks. On the Names of the Stops. Properly speaking, the names Comma, Semicolon, etc., are not the names of the Stops, but of the portions of sentences which they mark off. Comma (Gk. komma, a part cut off) properly signifies a Clause; Colon (Gk. kolon, a limb or member) signifies a limb or member of a sentence; Semicolon means a half-Colon; and Period (Gk. peri-odos, a way round) signifies a Complete Sentence. However, it is now the four marks or Stops, and not the different portions of a sentence, or an undivided sentence, that are now denoted by the words Comma, Semicolon, Colon, and Period. PUNCTUATION AND PROSODY. Punctuation marks off words according to their sense and the grammatical construction of the sentence, Prosody according to the Rhythm or Metre. Use of the Comma. L. To indicate Omission (a) Of letters, e.g.— (1) (Aphæresis), 'Tis, it's it is, I'd=I would. (2) (Syncope), e.g. Possessive Case, bird's birdis or birdes. 's is called Apostrophe s, from Greek aro=away, and pop=turning. (b) of words 'As fire burns fire, so pity, ▲ pity.'-Cæsar. II. To denote Plurals A (a) Of letters, as, 'Dot your i's.' 'Mind your p's and q's.' III. To Separate Words 1. Noun in Apposition from the principal Noun, as, 'The last of the English, Hereward.' 2. Nominative of Address from the sentence, as, 'John, come here.' 3. A series of Adjectives, as, 'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.' 4. A series of Adverbs, as, ' Swifty, stealthily, and silently, the tiger crept onward.' 5. A series of Prepositions, as, 'Above, beneath, around us we discover evidences of design.' 6. Any catalogued series of words, as, pot, kettle, saucepan, poker, tongs. 7. To separate Responsive Adverbs from remainder of Answer, as, 'No, I cannot.' Yes, I can.' 8. To separate Connective Adverbs from their sentence, as, ‘Again, let us consider.' 9. To separate Absolute Adverbs from rest of sentence, as, 'Happily, we detected him.' 10. To emphasize words, as, 'I say unto you, watch.' IV. To separate Phrases 1. Noun, as, 'To read much and know little, is a disgrace.' V. To separate Clauses (or subordinate sentences)— I. Noun, That you have wronged me, doth appear in this.' 3. Adverbial, When quiet in my house I sit, thy Book be my |