COMPOSITION, LITERARY AND RHETORICAL, SIMPLIFIED. BY THE REV. D. WILLIAMS, M. A., Author of "The Preceptor's Assistant LONDON: W. & T. PIPER, (LATE SHERWOOD, GILBERT, AND PIPER,) 23, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1850. P. 78, for Isaiah, ch. xxiv. ver. 24, read Nahum, ch. i. ver. 3, and Psalms, ch. xviii. ver. 10. P. 93, line 14, for New read Now. COMPOSITION SIMPLIFIED. In the language of the most eloquent of human tongues-of one who was himself a model of correct and elegant diction"It is a disgrace not to be properly acquainted with our mother "tongue." (Cicero de Oratore.) Nor is the greatest of ancient or of modern orators singular in that opinion. One of the profoundest philosophers of modern times, the author of the Essay on the Conduct of the Human Understanding, says, "As our business in this world is to be done with our tongues " and our pens, we should endeavour to speak and write "properly and correctly, whereby we let our thoughts into the "minds of others the more easily and with greater impression; "and since [rather as] it is English that an Englishman will "have constant use of, he should critically study that language, "and carefully polish and perfect his style of composition." But who that is aware of the anomalies, the solecisms, the perversions of the import and application of words, and the violations of the genius and structure of the English tongue, which disfigure not only the colloquial but also the written language of the age, and even the productions of many of our best and most admired writers, could suppose that Englishmen B |