[N.B.

XV. PAPER FOR 1865.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Examiner: G. W. DASENT, Esq. D.C.L.

You are not permitted to answer more than six of the following questions. The maximum number of marks may be obtained by answering thoroughly well any six.*

1. Describe the state of the English language about A.D. 1000, paying special attention to these several points: (a) the chief elements of the language; (b) the declension of substantives and adjectives; (c) the conjugation of the verb; (d) the government of prepositions; (e) the formation of adverbs; and (f) the infusion of foreign words, whether by war, trade, or literature. Mention also the writers who flourished at this period, and give some account of their works.

2. Describe (after the manner indicated in the first question) the state of the English language and literature about A.D. 1200.

In this paper a change by no means for the better has been introduced. English language and literature are compressed into one examination instead of two as previously; and the questions are in consequence neither so searching nor so fair to the students. As the number of answers is limited to six, greater minuteness may be allowed than in the papers previously answered.

3. Describe (as above) the state of the English language and literature about A.D. 1400.

4. Describe (as above) the state of the language and literature about A.D. 1550.

5. Describe (as above) the state of the language and literature about A.D. 1650.

6. Describe (as above) the state of the language and literature about A.D. 1750.

7. Describe the plot and action of any one of Shakspere's plays, and quote any striking passages out of it that you may remember.

8. Compare Dryden as a satirist with any other satirist, ancient or modern, whose works you may have read.

9. Give a list of English humorists, and compare the genius of Swift with that of Sterne.

10. Compare Pope's translation of the Iliad with any other English translation of that epic.

11. Write down some of the most striking English proverbs that you can recollect, and explain and illustrate them.

12. Give an analysis of any one of Scott's novels.

13. What is meant by the Lake School of English poets? Describe the characteristics of that School.

14. Explain fully the meaning and construction of the following sentences, and give the derivation of the words printed in italics :

(a) 'Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation vex him even as a thing that is raw.'

(b) 'And she lay a-dying.'

(c) For Jesus Christ his sake."

(d) 'The Morians' land shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.'

(e) 'Though ye have lien among the pots.'

(f) 'Fair Hero is won; I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained.'

(g)

(h)

'I pray you have him presently discharged,

For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.' 'Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced flowers that lies;

And winking mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes,

With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise.'

(i) Cry Havock, and let slip the dogs of war.'

(j) 'I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue.'

(k) 'Where London's column, pointing to the skies,

Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies.'

ENGLISH COMPOSITION.

FOR excellence in English Composition the Commissioners allow five hundred marks, a number not too large for the importance of the subject. In no department so certainly as in this can the examiners ascertain the general knowledge of the candidates, their good sense, taste, and judgment, their command of the English language, their ability to grasp a large subject, to seize what in it is of prime importance, and to arrange arguments forcibly. The limited amount of time allowed, seldom more than an hour to each composition, makes the test all the more severe and more accurate. The Commissioners are assuredly not wrong in liberally rewarding with marks the student who can in an hour write a sensible essay on a comprehensive subject (such as those in the subsequent list), without being vague and general on the one hand, or confused with excessive detail on the other; neither lingering too long with a showy rhetorical preface, nor prematurely coming to a conclusion before the subject is exhausted; displaying respectable reading and powers of thought and arrangement, and all this expressed in good idiomatic English, free from any affected peculiarities of style. Such a person is exactly the man likely to make a good Civil servant. A capital mathematician may fail; a first-rate classic may turn out a poor administrator of affairs; but the virtues of clearness of mind

and order which so eminently conduce to success in English Composition are precisely those most indispensable for an efficient member of the Indian Civil Service.

More than any other part of his preparation, the student's skill in English Composition must result from education rather than from instruction; from the unfolding of his own powers under skilful guidance, rather than from the reception of any body of rules and principles. An efficient teacher is required rather than a good text-book; yet I believe that in no other department is the student so apt to flatter himself that he can do without a teacher.* What are called text-books on English Composition are not likely to be of any service to the student: they lag fearfully behind the requirements of the age. What the student wants is not a list of the terms by which rhetoricians 'name their tools,' but some sound advice as to the practical treatment of his subject, as to the use of his words and the structure of his sentences. This he will best receive from practice under a good teacher, either orally or by correspondence. Among the very few books which can be recommended for study on this point are Whately's 'Rhetoric,' especially Part III., 'On Style' (pp. 167-220 of the small edition), with the older work of Campbell ('Philosophy of Rhetoric'), to which Whately has been so very largely indebted; Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric,' though somewhat antiquated in their taste, are well worth reading, and a good modernised

* Some of the institutions established expressly to train students for the civil service do not seem to have any master at all for English composition; and yet, besides its own intrinsic value, skill in composition will more or less affect the whole of a candidate's papers, except those in mathematics.