rejects all arguments of consolation; but at length, if applied with tem derness, calmly and willingly acquiesces in them.* Henry Dix, Esq. Very truly yours, GEORGE C. S. PARKER Exercises in Epistolary Writing. A Letter to a friend announcing any event, real or imaginary. 66 any character in history. any one in a foreign country. containing a journal of occurrences. 66 66 66 criticisms on works that have been read. opinions on subjects discussed at any seminary requesting the acceptance of some present describing a sunrise at sea. ON A SUBJECT, AND THE METHOD OF TREATING IT. In writing on a regular subject, the following directions are given by Mr. Walker, as suggestions for the different divis ions, as well as for the systematic train of reflections. *This letter is an original of Pliny the Younger to Marcellinus, trans lated by Melmoth. The address, &c. has been altered to accommodate it to the purposes of this volume. The definition; the cause; the antiquity, or novelty; the universality ur locality; the effects; namely, the goodness or badness, or the advan tages or disadvantages. 1st. If your subject require explanation, define it or explain it at large. 2nd. Show what is the cause of your subject; that is, what is the occasion of it, or what it is derived from. 3d. Show whether your subject be ancient or modern; that is, what was in ancient times, and what it is at present. 4th. Show whether your subject relates to the whole world, or only to a particular part of it. 5th. Examine whether your subject be good or bad; show wherein its goodness or badness consists, and what are the advantages or disad vantages that arise from it. * Example. ON GOVERNMENT. Definition. Government is the direction and restraint exercised ver the actions of men in communities, societies, or states. It controls the administration of public affairs, according to the principles of an established constitution, a code of written laws, or by well-known usages; or it may be administered, as in some countries, by the arbitrary edicts of the sovereign. Government is the soul of society: it is that order among rational creatures which produces almost all the benefits they enjoy. A nation may be considered as a large family;—all the inhabitants are, as it were, relations; and the supreme power, wherever it is lodged, is the common parent of every individual. In Cause. The necessity of government lies in the nature of man. terest and selfishness, unrestrained by salutary laws and restrictions, would be the controlling principle of every man's actions, uninfluenced by a proper regard for the rights of others. It is necessary, therefore, to have some restraint laid upon every man some power which shall control him, and impel him to what is right, and deter him from what is wrong, and this power is government. To this restraint every one must submit; and if in such submission any one finds it necessary to give up These directions are thus versified by Mr. Walker: Define your subject first, and then proceed; a portion of the rights with which he fancies that God and nature en dowed him, he will be consoled by the reflection that all have to make the sacrifice, and that the concession is made for the protection of his property and his life, for without government neither would be safe. Antiquity. Accordingly, we find, so deeply seated is the necessity for government, that in the earliest ages of the world a kind of government was existing among all tribes and nations; and so remarkable is this fact, that almost all that history records of the earliest people is the history of these kings. Universality. In every part of the world, also, at the present day, where human creatures are to be seen, there also some kind of government is found among them. Even the rudest among the savage nations have their kings and chiefs, whose word is law, and whose power is seldom disputed. Locality. But government, in its most perfect form, is generally found among the most civilized and enlightened people. Almost all the different kinds of government now existing, or that ever did exist, may be reduced to three, namely, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy. Under one of these forms every nation now known to exist is regulated and controlled. The painted Indian, whose life and death are at the mercy of his sachem, the naked African, who looks in terror at his king, and the wild Arab, whose chief is the sovereign arbiter in the division of the plunder obtained by the horde, all are in fact the subjects of a monarch. Rome, under the decemvirs, and Venice and Genoa under their nobles, presented the spectacle of an Aristocracy; while Athens, luxurious Athens, invested the chief power in an assembly of the people, and presented to the world a splendid example of a Democracy. Each of these different forms is attended by its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages which the unity of our subject does not permit us now to discuss. But the advantages of some form of government remains yet to be presented. Advantages. Order is said to be the first law of heaven. But among men it is essentially necessary for their very existence. Man, uncon trolled and unrestrained, would ever be invading his brother's rights Nothing would be safe. Might would be right, and the strongest might revel in the possession of that which the weaker had no power to keep from him. Laws emanate from government. Without government there could be no laws. It is the laws which protect every man in the enjoyment of his life, his liberty, and his possessions. Without laws, property would not be respected; the weak would be the slave of the strong, and the strong could enjoy their ill-gotton possessions only so long as they could maintain their ascendancy. It is government, therefore, that secures to every one the enjoyment of what he possesses, and restrains the strong from encroaching on the rights of the weak. Disadvantages. Every form of government is liable to abuse. They who are in power are engaged in a constant struggle to maintain that power, while the ambitious and the aspiring are eagerly watching their opportunity to supplant them. This gives rise to parties and cabals, to plots and intrigues, to treachery, to treason and rebellion, to civil wars nd family feuds, in which the innocent often share the punishment prepared for the guilty. But these evils are light in comparison with those which spring from anarchy, or want of government. It becomes every one, therefore, to lend his aid in support of the government under which it has pleased providence to place him, until that government shows by its actions that the good of the people for whom it was instituted is not its aim, and thereby renders rebellion a palliated evil, if not a virtue. Themes are subjects, or topics, on which a person writes or speaks. A theme, as defined by Mr. Walker, is the proving of some truth. Themes are divided into two classes, the simple and the complex. Simple themes comprehend such as may be expressed by one term or more, without conveying either an affirmation or a negation. Such as Logic, Education, Habit, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Institution of Chivalry. * *Such, also, are the subjects of the last Exercises under the head of Regular Subjects. Complex themes comprehend such propositions as admi, v proof or illustration; expressing a judgment which of course may be denied without invoking any positive contradiction in the meaning of the terms. The following are examples. Logic is a useful study." "Youth is the season of improvement." "Wisdom is better than riches." "A public is preferable to a private education." 66 In the last set of exercises the course was laid down for the manage ment of " a regular subject," which is prescribed by Mr. Walker in his "Teacher's Assistant." What he calls "regular subjects" are designed for simple themes. The course prescribed by Mr. Jardine, in his Outlines of a Philosophical Education, is less mechanical, and is to be preferred, because the mind of the student is less fettered by leading strings," and left more to its own resources. The following are his preliminary remarks: "To give an illustration of a simple theme I shall suppose the subject to be Logic, and shall shortly apply the scholastic rules to the structure of the essay which should be composed upon it." "The first rule directs the student to begin by fixing exactly the meaning of the term, which is the subject of the theme, removing every thing that is doubtful or equivocal in its signification; and, when difficulties of that kind occur, the true import of the word must be determined by the canons of etymology, or by the practice of the best writers." "By the second rule, which is the principle one, he is required to explain the essential and accidental qualities of the subject, here supposed to be logic; and to enumerate them, according to their order and importance, and with a reference to the end which is contemplated by the logician. That end is the establishment of truth or the refutation of error, and it is accomplished by the application of those rules of right reasoning, in which the art of logic may be said to consist. In these rules are included definition, division, classification, as well as those general directions relative to propositions which are derived from the ancient dialectics. But it is unnecessary here to enlarge; for the most important of the rules, for both kinds of themes, are the same, in so far, at least, as the object of both is the attainment of clear notions, lucid ar rangement, and perspicuous expression." "The special rules which relate to the management of complex themes, may be shortly enumerated. That no propositions, advanced as the ground of inference and deduction should be admitted, but upon the best and most solid evidence, arising from sense, from consciousness, or experience, or from undeniable truths, such as axioms and intuitive propositions; or lastly, upon testimony, analogy, facts already proved, the undeviating laws of nature, &c. that the meaning of the subject, and predicates of the radical proposition be accurately fixed- that the extent of the affirma tion or negation be exactly ascertained, so that the proposition may be stated in the most intelligible manner, and the logical rules of division be applied that the attention be next directed to the kind of evidence by which the proposition is established-and the arguments to be intro duced in such order, that those which precede shall throw light on those that follow, and form a connected chain of comparisons, by which ulti |