Page images
PDF
EPUB

MACAULAY'S them, bite

Mara Par 1st

ESSAY ON

WARREN HASTINGS

EDITED BY

JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY

PROFESSOR IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Boston
ALLYN AND BACON

1907

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY

JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY.

[blocks in formation]

182694

[ocr errors]

PREFACE.

MACAULAY is studied in schools chiefly for his structure. His writing illustrates (sometimes to the point of exaggeration) certain essentials of clear composition which young students of English always appreciate keenly and which they unconsciously turn to account in their own writing. "Obey the law of structure" is the all-important rule in the art of composition. The student who re-discovers in one of Macaulay's essays the principles with which he has. become familiar in his text-book of rhetoric makes a considerable gain in composition power; for he appreciates as never before the purely relative importance of these principles. The essay on Warren Hastings is selected for study chiefly because it affords conspicuously excellent illustrations of all four forms of discourse, narration, description, exposition, and argumentation, and shows how these four forms fall into place in obedience to the demands of Macaulay's theme.

The aim of this edition is to direct the attention of the student to the skill with which a great mass of material has been reduced to brevity, order, and unity. The paragraphs are numbered, instead of the lines, in order to emphasize this fact.

Considerable space is given in the notes to a criticism of Macaulay's facts. Although the essay is not studied as history, parts of it are studied as specimens of argumentation. It is therefore unfair to allow the student to remain in ignorance of the material and methods by which later

« PreviousContinue »