HELPS ΤΟ COMPOSITION. LETTER I. To a School Boy. MY DEAR SON, I HAVE observed, without surprise, the difficulty you experience in your first attempts at English composition, and that you cannot satisfy even your own imperfect notions of what is required in a Theme. But you ought not to be discouraged, though you should find that, in spite of all your diligence, you fail in this exercise; while others, of apparently much greater difficulty, have given you but little trouble: the reason is obvious. Were 1 to desire you to make a shoe; your natural answer would be: "Shew me the way, and I will make a shoe; but, you must first provide the mate rials, and supply me with tools, and then, teach me how to use them." But if I should give you an English Essay, and desire you to translate it into Latin, you would probably reply: "That I will do immediately, since you give me materials; my grammar and dictionary furnish tools to work with, and practice has taught me to apply them." But in making a Theme, or, as it would be more properly called, an Essay upon a given Theme or Subject, you are required to furnish the materials from your own little stock of information; the tools you must work with, are-an intimate knowledge of grammatical construction, modes of speech, and figures of rhetoric, which you have had no means of attaining; and if you had, dexterity in using them can only be acquired by practice. Perhaps the inference you draw from this preamble may be, that I am as unreasonable in asking you for an English Theme, as I should be in requesting you to make a shoe without tools, materials, or instructions; and, if it were impossible to afford you assistance, such an opinion would not be ill-founded. But, aware as I am of the obstacles in your way, and that very little can be done towards their removal, yet that little, I hope, may render your first steps easier, by merely |