various critical junctures in the history of the Government, and the events leading to each are traced separately.

"The arrangement is so easy and natural, that one almost wonders to see it alleged as a merit. But when we compare it with Hume's arrangement of the events of the same period, we see that even a historian of eminence may pursue a less luminous method. Hume relates, first, all that in his time was known of James's re lations with France; then the various particulars of his administration in England, down to the insurrection of Monmouth; then the state of affairs in Scotland, including Argyle's invasion and the conduct of the Parliament. He goes upon the plan of taking up events in local departments, violating both the order of time and the order of dependence. Macaulay makes the government of James the connecting rod or trunk, taking up, one after another, the difficulties that successively besiege it, and, when necessary, stepping back to trace the particular difficulty on hand to its original, without regard to locality. By grappling thus boldly with the complicacy of events, he renders his narrative more continuous, and avoids the error of making a wide separation between events that were closely connected or interdependent. He does not, like Hume, give the descent of Monmouth in one section, and the descent of Argyle upon Scotland, an event prior in point of time, in another and subsequent section. James, after his accession, put off the meeting of the English Parliament till the more obsequious Parliament of Scotland should set a good example. Macaulay tells us at once James's motive for delaying the meeting of the English Parliament, and details what happened in Scotland during the fortnight of delay. In Hume's History, we do not hear of the proceedings instituted by the Scottish Parliament till after the execution of Argyle, by which time we are interested in another chain of events, and do not catch the influence of the proceedings in Scotland upon the proceedings in England." 1

In fiction, the requirements of method in movement should always be observed. A story should begin to move as soon as possible; it should

Method in fiction.

at the outset introduce the principal characters and

1 William Minto: A Manual of English Prose Literature, part i. chap. ii.

make them say something or do something to excite interest. Once started, it should keep in motion, never stagnating, never eddying, but flowing on like a river which takes to itself all tributary streams and thus grows broader and deeper.

A good example of method in story-telling is Richard30n's “Clarissa Harlowe," notwithstanding its length and the fact that it is composed entirely of letters. In the first letter, Miss Howe asks Clarissa to give a full account of her acquaintance with Lovelace from the beginning. From this point the story, though it moves slowly, moves as directly as the epistolary plan and the abundance of detail admit, and it ends with the death of Lovelace. There is, to be sure, a "conclusion," in which the subsequent history of the minor characters is related; but this is in form, as in fact, a postscript.

Miss Austen's method is generally good. Her "Emma," for example, introduces the heroine in the very first paragraph, concerns itself altogether with her fortunes and her match-makings, and ends with her marriage.

George Eliot's "Silas Marner" arouses interest at the beginning, first in the class to which Silas belongs, and secondly in Silas himself. Throughout the book Silas and his adopted daughter Eppie form the centre of interest, and Eppie's marriage ends the story.

The method of Hawthorne's romances is excellent throughout. "The Scarlet Letter," for example, begins by introducing the tragedy of Hester, and it keeps the tragedy before the reader from first to last.

Of living authors,1 no one excels Mr. Stevenson in the art of narration. His "Kidnapped" and "David Balfour" are especially worthy of study.

1 This was in type a month before Stevenson's death.

Scott's method is good in the main, after he is fairly started; but often he is provokingly long in getting under way, as in "Ivanhoe," for example, which begins with four pages of history followed by two pages of description. For his slowness in beginning, Scott had, however, what he deemed a good reason: he was so much disgusted by the practice of novelists who began with the most interesting incident and made the whole story an anti-climax, that he intentionally went to the other extreme.

Thackeray's method is uneven. "The Virginians" begins better than it ends; "Henry Esmond" ends better than it begins. In "The Newcomes," the culminating point of interest is the death of Colonel Newcome. The paragraph which describes that death-the paragraph which brought tears to Thackeray's eyes when he wrote it should have ended the book.

Dickens's method is weak in two particulars: most of his stories go backward and forward, and most end badly. The real end of "Pickwick " is the breakfast party; of "David Copperfield," Mr. Peggotty's visit to Ham's grave; of "Nicholas Nickleby," the breaking up of Dotheboys Hall; of "A Tale of Two Cities," the death of Sidney Carton: but each of these stories has a postscript after the real end.

Without method no narrative can be perfect; but perfect method alone does not make perfect, or even good, narrative. The mechanism of an optical instrument may be more accurate than that of the human eye, but the life behind the eye is the thing of value: an author's method may be perfect, and yet his story may fail for want of life-giving power. Method may be, if not learned, at least improved by practice; but the higher power, vision, is the gift of nature.

CHAPTER III.

Exposition defined.

EXPOSITION.

EXPOSITION may be briefly defined as explanation. It does not address the imagination, the feelings, or the will. It addresses the understanding exclusively, and it may deal with any subject-matter with which the understanding has to do. In the fact that exposition does not appeal to the emotions lies the essential difference between exposition and description or narration. The writer of a description or of a narrative may, without injury to his readers, look at his subject. through the medium of his own personality and color it with his individual feelings: the writer of an exposition should, as far as possible, keep his individuality out of his work and present his subject to his readers exactly as it is.

Theoretically, exposition treats the matter in hand with absolute impartiality, setting forth the pure truth, — the truth unalloyed by prejudice, pride of opinion, exaggeration of rhetoric, or glamour of sentiment. Except in works of a technical character, exposition in this strict sense is comparatively rare; but it is now and then found even in political writings.

"He [Mr. Robert Giffen] belongs to a limited class from whom the community receive an inestimable benefit, namely, white light upon every subject upon which they require information. He will use months in ascertaining for them the truth, say, as to an

1

Irish Land question, and in a report will never betray the political opinion to which his researches have led him. We have watched Mr. Giffen's work for thirty years, have never known it less than complete, and do not know now, with any approach to accuracy, what his political opinions are. That is the true attitude of a devoted servant of the whole nation." 1

Exposition is sometimes made to include personal essays, like many of those of Montaigne or of Lamb; but such essays, though they may be expository here and there, as they may now and then fall into description or narration, address, in the main, not the understanding, but the sympathies and the imagination. For the most part, they convey information so far only as they reveal the personality of the author; and this they do, not through the medium of formal composition, but after the manner of an intimate friend who takes us into his inner life. To class such essays with expository writings is to miss what constitutes their real charm, the personal quality, the quality that makes Montaigne, or Lamb, or Emerson sui generis, a class by himself.

The function of exposition is to simplify the complex or the abstruse, to make the obscure clear, the confused distinct, to help the reader, in short, The function thoroughly to understand the subject before of exposition. him. The man of science is expounding when he sets forth the results of observation, or of reflection on observed facts; the teacher, when he unravels knotty questions or clears up doubtful points; the preacher, when he unfolds the meaning of his text; the lawyer, when he elucidates the principles on which his argument is to rest; the physician, when he makes clear the pecularities of a case in his practice; the journalist, when he gives the bearings

1 The [London] Spectator, Nov. 24, 1894, p. 715.