that it is the only possible word to be set in that exact place, to convey that precise signification.

A little example is worth a deal of precept. Take the following Example (51), as a model of an unique beauty and excellence. It is an appreciation by a poet of our own day of the work of a poet of long ago; that is, the expression of the particular value which the writings of one man have for another; and we may note how the very terms in which that value is expressed, do, in their turn, add inexpressibly to the beauty and significance of the work itself. And take also (if you like) Example 50, the paragraph beginning 'They used to call' and ending 'in Green Arbour Court.'

EXAMPLE 51

AN APPRECIATION.

William Ernest Henley.

Views and Reviews: Herrick.

HIS MUSE IN Herrick the air is fragrant with new-mown hay; there is a morning light upon all things; long shadows streak the grass, and on the eglantine swinging in the hedge the dew lies white and brilliant. Out of the happy distance comes a shrill and silvery sound of whetting scythes; and from the near brookside rings the laughter of merry maids in circle to make cowslipballs and babble of their bachelors. As you walk you are conscious of 'the grace that morning meadows wear,' and mayhap you may meet Amaryllis going home to the farm with an apronful of flowers. . . . For her singer has an eye in his head, and exquisite as are his fancies, he dwells in no land of shadows. The more clearly he sees a thing, the better he sings it

that it is the only possible word to be set in that exact place, to convey that precise signification.

A little example is worth a deal of precept. Take the following Example (51), as a model of an unique beauty and excellence. It is an appreciation by a poet of our own day of the work of a poet of long ago; that is, the expression of the particular value which the writings of one man have for another; and we may note how the very terms in which that value is expressed, do, in their turn, add inexpressibly to the beauty and significance of the work itself. And take also (if you like) Example 50, the paragraph beginning 'They used to call' and ending 'in Green Arbour Court.'

EXAMPLE 51

AN APPRECIATION.

William Ernest Henley.

Views and Reviews: Herrick.

HIS MUSE IN Herrick the air is fragrant with new-mown hay; there is a morning light upon all things; long shadows streak the grass, and on the eglantine swinging in the hedge the dew lies white and brilliant. Out of the happy distance comes a shrill and silvery sound of whetting scythes; and from the near brookside rings the laughter of merry maids in circle to make cowslipballs and babble of their bachelors. As you walk you are conscious of 'the grace that morning meadows wear,' and mayhap you may meet Amaryllis going home to the farm with an apronful of flowers. . . . For her singer has an eye in his head, and exquisite as are his fancies, he dwells in no land of shadows. The more clearly he sees a thing, the better he sings it;

and provided that he do see it, nothing is beneath the caress of his muse. The bays and rosemary that wreath the hall at Yule, the log itself, the Candlemas box, the hock-cart and the maypole. . . . And not only does he listen to the 'clecking' of his hen, and know what it means he knows, too, that the egg she has laid is long and white; so that ere he enclose it in his verse you can see him take it in his hand, and look at it with a sort of boyish wonder and delight. This freshness of spirit, this charming and innocent curiosity, he carries into all he does. He can turn a sugared compliment with the best. So that though Julia and Dianeme and Anthea have passed away, though Corinna herself is merely ‘a fable, a song, a fleeting shade,' he has saved enough of them from the ravin of Time for us to love and be grateful for eternally. Their gracious ghosts abide in a peculiar nook of the Elysium of Poesy. There 'in their habit as they lived' they dance in round, they fill their laps with flowers, they frolic and junket sweetly, they go for ever maying. Soft winds blow round them, and in their clear young voices they sing the verse of the rare artist who called them from the multitude, and set them for ever where they are.

And Amaryllis herself will not, mayhap, be found so HIS MORAL fair as those younglings of the year she bears with her in 'wicker ark' or 'lawny continent.' Herrick is pre-eminently the poet of flowers. He alone were capable of bringing back

'Le bouquet d'Ophélie

De la rive inconnue où les flots l'ont laissé.'

He knows and loves the dear blossoms all. He considers them with tender and shining eyes, he culls them his sweetest fancies and his fondest metaphors. Their idea is inseparable from that of his girls themselves, and it is by the means of the one set of mistresses that he is able so well to understand the other. The flowers are maids

to him, and the maids are flowers. In an ecstasy of tender contemplation he turns from those to these, exampling Julia from the rose and pitying the hapless violets as though they were indeed not blooms insensitive but actually 'poor girls neglected.' His pages breathe their clean and innocent perfumes, and are beautiful with the chaste beauty of their colour, just as they carry with them something of the sweetness and simplicity of maidenhood itself. And from both he extracts the same pathetic little moral both are lovely, and both must die. And so, between his virgins, that are for love indeed, and those that sit silent and delicious in the 'flowery nunnery,' the old singer finds life so good a thing that he dreads to lose it, and not all his piety can remove the passionate regret with which he sees things hastening to their end. . . .

VIII.

NOTES ON TRANSITION AND DICTION.

A chief difficulty to be overcome by the beginner, is Transition; the passing easily from point to point of his composition, the linking together of its component parts. Every sentence, and every part of a sentence, as conveying a new piece of the whole; every paragraph, as conveying a parcel of such pieces, all of the same kind; must be linked to the preceding and succeeding paragraph, both logically and verbally; and the Introduction, Exposition, and Conclusion must be joined together in like manner. The difficulty is thus twofold; in the first place, the various parts of the meaning must be naturally connected; in the second, the particular words with which to form the links must be discovered. The