"He was a favorite; and favorites have always been odious in this country."

The following are evidently link-paragraphs: (3), (7), (16), (24), (36), (44), (54), (65), (75), (77), (79), (80). Each of them, by a brief retrospective or a brief prospective glance, facilitates the transition from one part of the general subject to the next. Paragraph (5), the Malebolge comparison, is quoted, 18; it is not distinctively short. Paragraph (80):

"We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration which has governed England since the Revolution was that of George Grenville. His public acts may be classified under two heads, outrages on the liberty of the people, and outrages on the dignity of the crown."

had it ended with Grenville, would have been a mere detached statement, like the quotation from Matthew Arnold, 2. But the second sentence, summing up in advance Grenville's blunders under two general heads, makes it a genuine link.

The student should be required to explain the linking in several of these short paragraphs.

It is also worth while to notice the alternation of long and short paragraphs. Further, the series of longs: (55), (56), (57), (58), and the three series of shorts: (16), (17), (18); (23), (24), (25); (65), (66),

155. Paragraph-Echo; Topic Sentence.

A few striking instances of Echo ( 17) are here noted:

(2), "We left Pitt."

(24), “Thus there was absolutely no opposition,” echoes “not one of the malcontents durst lift.”

(40), p. 42, "Such were the views of the Duke of Bedford."

(50), "The session drew towards the close."

(54), "Some of these objects."

(64), p. 53, "That succor."

(69), p. 55, "In this step."

(73), “This vaunting was premature.”

The opening of (68), p. 54, is interesting. The preceding paragraph, relating the system of wholesale bribery employed by Fox, ends with the sentence:

"The lowest bribe... was... for two hundred pounds."

(68) opens:

"Intimidation was joined with corruption."

Had Macaulay written:

With [this] corruption was joined intimidation.

he would have echoed more plainly. But his purpose, doubtless, was to make the intimidation as prominent as possible.

Topic Sentences are equally conspicuous. Only a few are here noted: (4), p. 10, “Each . . . the representative of a great principle." "Both were thrown into unnatural situations."

(5), p. 11, "Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist."

"Each [party] gradually took the shape and color of its foe."

(10), p. 15, "To frantic zeal succeeded sullen indifference." (26), p. 24, "Thus, during many years, the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion."

(27), p. 24, "He [George II.] was not our countryman."

(29), p. 26, "He [George III.] was emphatically a King, the anointed of heaven."

156.

De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars.

De Quincey's method is in marked contrast with that of Macaulay.

[The text here followed is that in Masson's Edinburgh edition, 1890, vii. pp. 368-421.]

1. Ratio of Paragraph to Page.—In the 54 pages there are only 46 paragraphs. The De Quincey page containing about twenty-five per cent. more matter than the Macaulay page, it is evident that Macaulay paragraphs twice as frequently.

2. Short Paragraphs.-There are only 5, namely, at pp. 379, 386, 390, 404, 408. Not one of them is very short; the shortest, at p. 404, contains 74 words.

3. Long Paragraphs.-Some are excessively long. The two longest are: pp. 406-408; pp. 414-416; each contains about 1000 words. The paragraph at pp. 376-378 is almost as long; several other paragraphs measure two pages, or very nearly.

4. Unity and Sequence.-These principles are observed in De Quincey's paragraphs, despite their length. The very long paragraph, pp. 406-408, is centred around Weseloff, his rescue of the khan, and his escape to Russia. Pp. 414-416 relate the terrible fighting around and in the lake of Tengis.

There is no serious digression anywhere.

5. Paragraph-Echo; Topic Sentence.

Echo is not frequent. We may note:

p. 369, "This triple character."

p. 379, "With this magnificent array."
p. 379, "These splendid achievements."
p. 386, "Among these last."

Topic Sentences, as might be expected, are not conspicuous in such long paragraphs. But at least one may be pointed out here. It is the conclusion of the narrative proper, the carnage at the lake of Tengis, p. 410:

"The spectacle became too atrocious; it was that of a host of lunatics pursued by a host of fiends."

6. Comparison of De Quincey and Macaulay.―The comparison is necessarily unfavorable to De Quincey; his paragraph-structure must be pronounced unwieldy. Each of his very long paragraphs might easily have been broken up into two or three, greatly to the reader's comfort. The student should be required to restate one or another of these long passages in a group of short paragraphs of his own. In doing this he is to bear in mind that the paragraph-unit is not a fixed, mathematical unit, but something elastic, something which may be condensed, or expanded, or modified, in his reasonable discretion.*

*See Scott and Denney, Paragraph- Writing, pp. 93–106.

An apt illustration is Macaulay's presentation of the several Whig connections and their respective shares in the Pitt-Newcastle administration. Macaulay might have put the entire subject into one long paragraph (which, after all, would not have been as long as many in De Quincey), of which the distribution of offices among the Whigs would have been the central thought. But he has followed the opposite and much more practical method of giving to each connection a paragraph of its own. Thus (17) treats of the Newcastle connection; (18) is a very short link; (19) treats of the Grenvilles; (20), the Bedfords; (21), Murray and Fox; (22), the remaining Whigs.

Few readers will hesitate to give the preference to Macaulay's method of building up a group of short co-ordinate paragraphs.

[A word of caution may not be out of place. De Quincey's narrative is not to be accepted as sober history; it is highly colored and even distorted. His distances, 2000 miles from the Wolga to the Torgai, 2000 more from the Torgai to Lake Tengis, are impossible; they should be reduced one-half. The river Jaik is now called the Ural. The final resting-place of the fugitives was on the upper Ily, near the Chinese military post of Kuldja. Tengis must be for Tengheez, another name of Lake Balkash. But it is not a fresh-water lake (p. 413); and the carnage there is enormously exaggerated. The dramatic appearance of the Chinese emperor on the scene must be pure fiction.

See Schuyler, Turkestan, ii. 172; also, "Across Asia on a Bicycle," Century Magazine, August, 1894.]

EXERCISES IN EXPOSITION AND ARGUMENT.

Exposition and Argument are usually so intimately associated, not to say intermingled, in actual discussion that no attempt is made in the present chapter to keep them separate.

Excellent opportunities of studying these forms are offered in Burke's speech on Conciliation with the Colonies and Webster's first oration on The Bunker Hill Monument.

Burke's speech is a model in its exposition of general facts and principles, in close reasoning, in practical sense, in the force and purity of its expression, and, above all, in its skill in "winding into the subject like a serpent." It should be studied with minute

care.

Three months would not be an excessive allowance of time. The following topics merely suggest the proper method of study. [The text here followed is that of E. J. Payne's Select Works of Burke, 2d ed. Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1892, i. 161-234.]

1. Subjects for Composition.

1. Burke's statement of the object of his speech, pp. 165, 166.

2. His exposition of the material resources of the colonies, in population, commerce, agriculture, fisheries, pp. 168-176.

3. Objections to the use of force, pp. 177, 178.

4. Exposition of the character and temper of the colonists, pp. 178184. The summing-up paragraph is quoted, 126.

5. Three, and only three, ways of dealing with the colonies. Objections to the first two. Pp. 187-195.

6. Plea for deciding the whole controversy in the spirit of practical expediency, rather than as a matter of strict legal right, pp. 195–197. 7. Fundamental propositions, by the adoption of which the present dispute will be disposed of, pp. 209–216.

Several of the above topics might be expanded into an essay of two or three paragraphs. The student might also be required to show wherein Burke's statements were confirmed by subsequent events. 2. Paragraph-Length. In the structure and grouping of his paragraphs Burke is fully equal to Macaulay, perhaps even superior.

This speech contains 141 paragraphs in 72 pages, each page containing about 340 words. There are only 14 paragraphs which can be called long, i. e., measuring a full page or upward, viz.: pp. 172–174; 175, 176; 178-180; 180, 181; 182, 183; 184-186; 196, 197; 201-203; 211, 212; 215, 216; 221–223; 226, 227; 229, 230; 231, 232. Not one is conspicuously long.

On the other hand, short paragraphs are numerous. Many are extremely short, summing up, linking, or otherwise marking some quick transition of thought. The nervous strength and directness of some of these short paragraphs may be compared with the sustained dignity of the longer ones.

Especially noteworthy is the single-sentence paragraph, p. 189:

'Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reasons I have just given, I think this new principle of hedging-in population to be neither prudent nor practicable."

It is almost epigrammatic in its condemnation of the "hedging-in" land-policy. It does not violate the principle laid down in ? 2, for it is a genuine link, marking the transition to the next subject, namely, the attempt to arrest colonial commerce.