bobolink appears to hold its own, and its music does not diminish in our Northern meadows.

D. The following essay, Of Studies, by Lord Bacon (1561–1626) is, like all of his other essays, greatly condensed. It reads like a collection of notes. Many of its words and phrases are used in a different meaning from that which we attach to them to-day. Suppose you wish to make this essay perfectly intelligible to a pupil of the upper grammar grades, who, as you are reading it to him, stops you at each of the places marked by the little numbers and asks for an explanation. What will you say? Write out the explanation of one of the phrases, using just such language as you would employ in talking with the pupil.

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Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.1 Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition 3 of business. For expert * men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn' studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; 10 nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that

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is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously; 12 and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy,13 and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments,1 and the meaner sort of books: else distilled 15 books are like common distilled waters, flashy 16 things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; 18 and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric,1o able to contend. "Abeunt studia in mores." 20 Nay, there is no stond 2 or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought 22 out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises; bowling is good for the stone and reins; 24 shooting 25 for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away 28 never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen;" for they are cymini sectores: 28 if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

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E. Make notes for an essay on one of the following subjects (suggested by the paragraphs quoted on preceding pages of this book) or on some other subject that you would like to write about. (1) A quiet street. (2) Dangers of hunting. (3) My best friend. (4) Habits of squirrels. (5) Work to do in a garden. (6) An ideal spot for a home. (7) Uses of studying literature. Now pick

out some particular person for whom you will write; consider his age, his habits of thought, his way of looking at things. Think of the best means of interesting him in the subject that you have chosen. Reject such of your notes as will not be suitable for the particular person you have in mind. Revise the other notes in order the better to adapt them to this person.

CHAPTER II.

HOW COMPOSITIONS GROW.

Introductory.

6. In the preceding chapter we have considered the most important feature of a composition. We have seen that every good composition is a unit made up of smaller units which are closely related. We are now to consider the process by which compositions are produced.

Compositions do not come into the mind full-grown, as Minerva was fabled to have burst from the brain of Jupiter. They usually have very humble origins. At the start a composition is merely a vague idea of something we wish to write about. Whether or not this vague idea will develop into anything better depends on the way in which we treat it. The beginner treats it as if it were the completed composition. "I have it!" says he, as soon as the thought enters his mind, and at once he sits down to write it out. We all know what happens. After a few minutes of furious pen-work the writer suddenly comes to a dead stop. Where has the idea gone to? A moment ago, large and bright and beautiful, it filled his whole mind like a luminous fog-bank. Now it is nowhere. It has dissipated in the process of writing.

The experienced writer pursues a different course. He knows that this first vague conception is worthless

unless it can be made to grow into some definite form. He also knows that the way to make it grow is to reflect upon it long and patiently. Instead of beginning to write, he therefore begins to ponder, turning the idea over and over in his mind and looking at it from all sides and from various angles. As he does so the idea grows clearer. It separates into parts, and these parts again separate, until there are numerous divisions. As he continues to reflect, these divisions link themselves one to another to form natural groups, and these groups arrange themselves in an orderly way. In the end, if he thinks long enough and patiently enough, he finds that the first vague idea has taken on a clear and definite form.

How to Plan a Composition.

7. Thinking a vague idea out into its natural and logical divisions and arranging these divisions in an orderly way is called planning. Benjamin Franklin, who made himself an effective writer of plain prose, has described for us in his Autobiography his method of planning a composition.

Preparatory to writing a composition of his own, Franklin would first set down brief notes and hints of his observations and thoughts upon the subject, in the order in which they occurred to him. Later he would rearrange his notes according to some plan, discarding those that were not to his present purpose, and combining the remainder into groups. He would put into one group those notes that were most closely related to each other because they had to do with one part of his subject, and into another group those that had to do with another