OF THE ART OF RHETORIC: ADAPTED FOR USE IN COLLEGES AND ACADEMIES, AND FOR PRIVATE STUDY. This is an art Which doth mend nature, change it rather; but The art itself is nature. BY HENRY N. DAY, PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE, OHIO. FOURTH EDITION. NEW YORK: A. S. BARNES & CO., 51 JOHN-STREET. CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY & CO. 1856. 1407 D21 1850 A.294105 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Henry N. Day, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Ohio. Old Hart PREFACE. The particulars, in which the Treatise on Rhetoric now offered to the public differs from other works on the same subject in the English language, are chiefly the following: First, Invention is treated as a distinct and primary department of the art of Rhetoric. From most English treatises this department has been entirely excluded; and rhetoric has been generally regarded as confined almost exclusively to style. If we leave out of view some older and nearly forgotten works that were modeled on the pattern of the Grecian and Roman rhetoricians, Dr. Whately's work furnishes, perhaps, the only exception to this general remark. The work of Dr. Whately, however, embraces but a small portion of what properly belongs to rhetorical invention. The attention of learners has thus been turned chiefly or solely upon style. The consequence has been, as might naturally be expected where manner is the chief object of regard, that exercises in composition have been exceedingly repulsive and profitless drudgeries. On the other hand, experience confirms most fully what was beforehand to be confidently counted on, that if the mind be turned mainly on the matter, the thought to be presented and the design of presenting it, the exercise of composition becomes a most interesting, attractive and profitable exercise. The mind, |