C. PRACTICE IN COMPOSITION.

The oral or written reproduction of fables and anecdotes belongs to an early stage of instruction. But even advanced pupils find a similar exercise a good-perhaps a tolerably severe-test of their ability to compose a narrative or description, whether for recitation or for writing. Let them read the following once or twice, and then reproduce. Afterwards, the reproduction should be compared with the original.

I. A Scorpion-story.

[Job Legh, an entomologist: his granddaughter Margaret :
her friend Mary Barton.]

Margaret speaks. "Look, Mary, at this horrid scorpion. He gave me such a fright: I am all of a twitter yet when I think of it. Grandfather went to Liverpool one Whitsunweek to go strolling about the docks and pick up what he could from the sailors, who often bring some queer thing or another from the hot countries they go to; and so he sees a chap with a bottle in his hand, like a druggist's physic bottle; and says grandfather, 'What have ye gotten there?' So the sailor holds it up, and grandfather knew it was a rare kind of scorpion, not common even in the East Indies, where the man came from, and says he, 'How did you catch this fine fellow? for he wouldn't be taken for nothing, I'm thinking.' And the man said as how when they were unloading the ship, he'd found him lying behind a bag of rice, and he thought the cold had killed him, for he was not squashed nor injured a bit. He did not like to part with any of the spirit out of his grog to put the scorpion in, but slipped him into the bottle, knowing there were folks who would give him something for him. So grandfather gives him a shilling.”

was.

"Two shillings," interrupted Job Legh; "and a good bargain it

"Well! grandfather came home as proud as Punch, and pulled the bottle out of his pocket. But you see the scorpion was doubled up, and grandfather thought I couldn't fairly see how big he was. So he shakes him out right before the fire; and a good warm one it was, for I was ironing, I remember. I left off ironing, and stooped down over him, to look at him better, and grandfather got a book, and began to read how this very kind were the most poisonous and vicious species, how their bite was often fatal, and then went on to read how people who were bitten got swelled, and screamed with pain. I was listening hard, but as it fell out, I never took my eye off the creature, though I could not have told I was watching it. Suddenly it seemed to give a

jerk, and in a minute it was as wild as could be, running at me just like a mad dog."

"What did you do?" asked Mary.

"Me! why, I jumped first on a chair, and then on all the things I'd been ironing on the dresser, and I screamed for grandfather to come up by me, but he did not hearken to me."

'Why, if I'd come up by thee, who'd have caught the creature I should like to know."

"Well, I begged grandfather to crush it, and I had the iron right over it once, ready to drop, but grandfather begged me not to hurt it in that way. So I couldn't think what h'd have, for he hopped round the room as if he were sore afraid, for all he begged me not to injure it. At last he goes to the kettle, and lifts up the lid, and peeps in. What on earth is he doing that for, thinks I : he'll never drink his tea with a scorpion running free and easy about the room. Then he takes the tongs, and he settles his spectacles on his nose, and in a minute he had lifted the creature up by the leg, and dropped him into the boiling water."

"And did that kill him?" said Mary.

"Ay, sure enough; he boiled for longer time than grandfather liked, though. But I was so afeard of his coming round again. I ran to the public-house for some gin, and grandfather filled the bottle, and he was there above a twelvemonth."

"What brought him to life at first?" asked Mary.

"Why, you see, he was never really dead, only torpid--that is, dead asleep with the cold, and our good fire brought him round." MRS GASKELL, Mary Barton, ch. v.

2. A Malay visits De Quincey.

[De Quincey tells the story in his own person.]

...One day a Malay knocked at my door. What business a Malay could have to transact amongst the recesses of English mountains, it is not my business to conjecture; but possibly he was on his road to a seaport-viz., Whitehaven, Workington, etc.—about forty miles distant.

The servant who opened the door to him was a young girl, born and bred amongst the mountains, who had never seen an Asiatic dress of any sort his turban, therefore, confounded her not a little; and as it turned out that his knowledge of English was exactly commensurate with hers of Malay, there seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between all communication of ideas, if either party had happened to possess any. In this dilemma, the girl, recollecting the reputed learning of her master (and, doubtless, giving me credit for a knowledge of all the languages of the earth, besides, perhaps, a few of the lunar ones) came and gave me to understand that there was a sort of demon below, whom she clearly imagined that my art could

exorcise from the house. The group which presented itself, arranged as it was by accident, though not very elaborate, took hold of my fancy and my eye more powerfully than any of the statuesque attitudes or groups exhibited in the ballets at the opera-house, though so ostentatiously complex. In a cottage kitchen, but not looking so much like that as a rustic hall of entrance, being panelled on the wall with dark wood, that from age and rubbing resembled oak, stood the Malay, his turban and loose trousers of dingy white relieved upon the dark panelling; he had placed himself nearer to the girl than she seemed to relish, though her native spirit of mountain intrepidity contended with the feeling of simple awe which her countenance expressed, as she gazed upon the tiger-cat before her. A more striking picture there could not be imagined than the beautiful English face of the girl, and its exquisite bloom, together with her erect and independent attitude, contrasted with the sallow and bilious skin of the Malay, veneered with mahogany tints by climate and marine air, his small, fierce, restless eyes, thin lips, slavish gestures and adorations. Halfhidden by the ferocious-looking Malay, was a little child from a neighbouring cottage, who had crept in after him, and was now in the act of reverting its head and gazing upwards at the turban and the fiery eyes beneath it, whilst with one hand he caught at the dress of the lovely girl for protection.

My knowledge of the oriental tongues is not remarkably extensive, being, indeed, confined to two words-the Arabic word for barley and the Turkish for opium (madjoon) which I have learned from "Anastasius." And, as I had neither a Malay dictionary, nor even Adelung's "Mithridates," which might have helped me to a few words, I addressed him in some lines from the "Iliad"; considering that, of such languages as I possessed, the Greek, in point of longitude, came geographically nearest to an oriental one. He worshipped me in a devout manner, and replied in what I suppose to have been Malay. In this way I saved my reputation as a linguist with my neighbours ; for the Malay had no means of betraying the secret. He lay down upon the floor for about an hour, and then pursued his journey. On his departure, I presented him, inter alia, with a piece of opium. To him, as a native of the East, I could have no doubt that opium was not less familiar than his daily bread; and the expression of his face convinced me that it was. Nevertheless, I was struck with some little consternation when I saw him suddenly raise his hand to his mouth, and bolt the whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouthful. The quantity was enough to kill some half-dozen dragoons, together with their horses, supposing neither bipeds nor quadrupeds to be regularly trained opium-eaters. I felt some alarm for the poor creature; but what could be done? I had given him the opium in pure compassion for his solitary life, since, if he had travelled on foot from London, it must be nearly three weeks since he could have exchanged a thought with any human being. Ought I to have violated the laws of hospitality by having him seized and drenched with an emetic, thus

frightening him into a notion that we were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. No: there was clearly no help for it. The mischief, if any, was done. He took his leave, and for some days I felt anxious; but, as I never heard of any Malay, or of any man in a turban, being found dead on any part of the very slenderly peopled road between Grasmere and Whitehaven, I became satisfied that he was familiar with opium, and that I must doubtless have done him the service I designed, by giving him one night of respite from the pains of wandering. DE QUINCEY, Confessions.

Other suitable passages will easily be found in books of history, biography, travel, fiction, and poetry. Such essays as Addison's Vision of Mirza, passages like "Moses at the Fair" (Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. XII.), the numerous stories in Scott's Tales of a Grandfather (e.g. ch. XXI.) may be mentioned; and reference may be made to Boswell's Johnson, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Borrow's Bible in Spain, and Lavengro, Kingsley's Westward Ho! and Hereward, Stevenson's Treasure Island and Kidnapped, and Scott's novels. In poetry it is sufficient to name Cowper's John Gilpin, Southey's Bishop Hatto, Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesperus, Sir Patrick Spens and other traditional ballads, Macaulay's Lays, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Scott's romantic poems (e.g. Sir David Lyndsay's Tale, Marmion, canto iv., Lochinvar, ib. canto v.).

Some poems containing a story depart from the usual narrative arrangements, or leave gaps for the reader to fill up. It makes a valuable exercise to re-tell the story in prose with suitable additions or changes. Examples are Kingsley's Three Fishers and The Sands of Dee, Longfellow's Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Scott's Rosabelle (The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto vi.).

Take, for illustration, Wolfe's Burial of Sir John Moore.

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;

E

But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head
And we far away on the billow.

F

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

G

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

H

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

I

The lettered brackets indicate the grouping of the lines according to topics. In prose these might be re-arranged thus: (1) ADEC FGH BI;

When a passage has been summarised, it is a useful exercise, after a reasonable interval, to write a full narrative or description on the basis of the summary.

Elaborate the following passages. Help will be found-for the first in Robert Browning, of course; for the second in Scott's Marmion, canto iv., or in Pitscottie's Historie, "James IV.," ch.

XVI.

I. The said town of Hamelen was annoyed with rats and mice: and it chanced that a pied-coated Piper came thither, who covenanted with the chief burghers for such a reward, if he could free them quite