admit of a ready solution; but from time to time there will arise cases demanding the nicest delicacy, the most adroit management.

(vii.) It may often be well to submit the passage which is the lessonsubject to the formal processes of logic, which is the grammar of thought, as what is ordinarily called grammar is the grammar of words. The terms subject and predicate may be used in their logical sense; the thought of the poem carefully examined; the passage reduced to a series of propositions, and the proofs of these, where it is possible, thrown into a syllogistic form. Of course a purely narrative piece such as Rosabelle—a ballad—is not so well adapted for this treatment as one that is argumentative or quasi-argumentative, as, for instances, many passages of Wordsworth, of Shelley, of Pope, of Milton: yet even here there are parts where this method might be usefully followed. Why are "ladies gay" especially to listen to this lay? What is the major premiss of the 1st stanza? What is that of the 4th stanza? What is the conclusion of the 5th and 6th stanzas? This conclusion, it may be noticed, is, in accordance with the bold abrupt character of the poem, left to the imagination of the reader. It is, in fact, expressed by the impatient hurrying gesture which, so vivid is the picture, one sees Rosabelle making. If our thoughts are in danger of being obscure and confused until they are embodied in words-if our reason may grow morbid or deformed unless we give it plenty of air and exercise, then surely it is well to insist often on the transcription of those thoughts; it is well to bring reason out into the light of the day, that any threatened malady or distortion may be averted. Surely it must be a good thing to make a student observe what his writer takes for granted and what use he makes of what he so takes, and so, by an obvious application, to bethink himself of what are the general propositions on which his own opinions and actions proceed.

Of course all terms new to the pupil must be closely investigated before he is allowed to employ them. Let him, as has been suggested above, be made sensible of this need before they are put into his mouth. Let him see that the word is created for the thing, not the thing for the word. This advice is not perhaps so superfluous as it might seem. Has no one, for instance, when the wonderful nomenclature in which the ancient scholiasts and grammarians delighted has been prematurely imposed on his memory, been left half in doubt whether the figure was made for the term, or the term for the figure?—

whether Aposiopesis, Anacolouthon, Hyperbaton, Metonymy produced the poet, or the poet them? Has no one ever thought of these figures as at least influencing the writer, surrounding him with their various enticements, and winning a place in his heart? Has one always regarded them as natural and spontaneous forms of speech that at a later period were to be classified and labelled by the Priscians and Quintilians? For the words logic, syllogism, premiss, &c. some such processes might be applied to them as has been suggested above for subject and predicate.

(viii.) The words of Rosabelle might now be considered with reference to their derivation and origin. With the assistance of a fair dictionary (Chambers's Etymological English Dictionary will serve well enough), the pupil might classify these words, or a certain portion of them, according to their etymology. He would soon find that our language consists of many various elements,—that in a most catholic spirit it has enriched its vocabulary from all accessible sources; but he would also find that there is amongst these elements one that far surpasses all the others in its influence on our vocabulary-so far that it might well be inferred to be the basis of this composite language— to be, in fact, the original language itself. Its numerical superiority would suggest and illustrate this great fundamental fact; other considerations, as the character, not only the number, of the words forming a great part of our language, and the study of English Grammar, would support and establish what that numerical superiority suggests. The pupil would see that, in whatever respects it may have changed, the language he reads and talks is really that which King Alfred read and talked, really that which some four centuries before Alfred's time was brought over from Northern Germany into this island, then called Britannia, to become its one permanent language, and from it to be spread to all the ends of the earth. This one great fact cannot be too much insisted upon, because it is so common to speak of English as a fusion of several languages. Nothing could be less true. A man does not cease to be master of his house because he entertains many guests. The Anglian invader did not drive the old Keltic tenant out of the house when he entered himself upon possession, but permitted him to live, in a lower capacity no doubt, where he had lived before; whether he would or not, he has received within his precincts many a stout foreigner who for a time perhaps had seemed to unseat and

suppress him; Danes and Norman-Frenchmen have rudely occupied the daïs of his hall, and he has been fain to eat at the lower table; but yet the house has remained his through all these turbulent visitations : the tyranny has soon overpast, and the rightful master been seen sitting as of old at the head of his board. All this strange eventful history may be well illustrated from Rosabelle. It may be seen what English is, and to what influences it has with greater or less effect been exposed.

What other words have we in English cognate with tell? What is the meaning of the termination of lovely? Compare the German lieblich. In what relation does English stand to German? What European language is yet nearer akin than German is? What is the meaning of to-day? Compare

"Time to think on it then; for thou'll be twenty to weeäk,"

in Tennyson's Northern Farmer, New Style. Compare also tomorrow. What is the meaning of fore in forebode? Mention other words in which fore has the same meaning. Has it the same in forego? in therefore? in before? What German prefix answers to it? What is the derivation of lonely? What of moonbeam? Compare Lucretius'"tela diei," &c.

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The Norman-French influence is, it may be noticed, strongly represented in this poem. The heroine's very name is Norman-French. "Haughty," "gay," "feat," "arms," "note," "deign," "sire," "chief," &c. are all highly significant Norman-French words. What is meant by gentle lady? What is the etymon of pinnet? of battlement? What had battlements to do with churches? What is the derivation of chapelle? How is it that the c in candle is not softened in like manner? Ladies gay.—It is worth noticing that “ladies” is a native English word; dame," though it yet lives in the second "m " of "ma'am," did not finally supersede it. "Gay" was given us by the NormanFrench. How much of deep interest do these two words suggest ! They might be treated in a history of the English language as a happily representative phrase.

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Feat is etymologically the same word with fact. It might be useful to collect instances of similar pairs, as royal, regal, &c.—the one preserving almost intact the original Latin form, the other presenting that form all modified and corrupted.

Then there are ecclesiastical Latin words of interest: dirge (as we still speak of the Te Deum, the Magnificat, &c.); sacristy (observe the change in the first part, as it appears in sexton); altar.

Inch takes us back to the pre-English period. It is a Keltic word for island, or iland, as we ought to write (isle is quite a distinct word). The Atlas will show it attached to certain islands in the estuary of the Forth. Off the western coast of Ireland it appears in the dialectic form, Inis.

Firth, again, gives us a trace of the Northmen who broke in such fierce storms upon our sea-borders in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. It is radically the same word as ford in Deptford and other names found on our coasts and up our rivers; a different word from the ford in such inland names as Oxford, Bedford, &c. It is, in fact, fiord, perhaps a congener of the Latin fretum, &c.

And let us not forget that proper names, too, have, or have had, their meaning. To us they often seem mere symbols; their voices are altogether meaningless; but it was not always so. Every proper noun was once a common noun. Thus Ravensheugh denoted the raven's crag or steep. Compare haughs in Wordsworth's Yarrow Unvisited:

"There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,

Both lying right before us;"

and the old ballad Willy drowned in Yarrow:

"O Leader haughs are wide and braid,

And Yarrow haughs are bonny."

The composition of Rosabelle is obvious. Roslin is Keltic in both its parts: Ros is the Gaelic ros, a headland; it occurs in the names Ross in Herefordshire, in Montrose, Roscommon, Rossneath, and in Rossberg, Monte Rosa, Rosenlaui, in Switzerland. Lin is perhaps the Keltic linn; compare King's Lynn, Lincoln, Dublin, Linlithgow. (See Taylor's Words and Places.) The den in Dryden and in Hawthornden is the same as that in Tenterden, and perhaps in Ardennes and as the dean in Hazeldean. It is the oldest English (what is commonly called Anglo-Saxon) dena or den, a valley ;" we still use the word in a special sense-for a wild beast's lair. Saint Clair is the older form of the surname Sinclair; so Saint Mawr of Seymour: compare the pronunciation of St. John. How could a family claim saintship for itself.

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at least in its name? Perhaps in much the same way as in still older ages men called themselves after Woden, and Thor, and other primitive godheads.

The words must be looked at not only with reference to their origin, but more particularly in respect of their meanings and of the meaning each one bears in the passage immediately studied. Of course, in deciding what the meaning is, the etymology will often be of paramount—it will generally be of some importance; but a word sometimes wanders far away from the sense to which it was born, and forms for itself quite new connections. The bare derivation of such words as villain, pagan, tawdry, assassin, bayonet, &c. would not be enough to explain the words to us. To connect a word's present sense or senses with its origin will frequently require no little ingenuity; sometimes no little knowledge also. There are, perhaps, no conspicuous specimens of this class of difficulties in Rosabelle; but it must not be forgotten. Certainly, whether it is advisable to search after derivations or not, definitions must be perpetually asked for. The furnishing them will often tax the pupil's powers of intelligent expression to the utmost. There can be no better exercise for him than to put into a lucid and complete shape the idea which is hovering about his mind indistinct and formless. Rosabelle is easy in this respect; but let the pupil say—and let him express himself in fullformed sentences, not by mere chips and fragments, by stammering out some nounless verb or verbless noun-what is the exact force of feat, of panoply, of sable, of sable shroud (a phrase borrowed from Milton's Lycidas, l. 22), of buttress, of pale, of gifted, &c. A pupil's knowledge is probably not of much value if he cannot reproduce it It may be truly said of him in one sense,

"Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."

What is meant by a metaphor, by a simile, by a personification? These are very important terms, because they represent ways of speaking that are common in all languages, and not only common, but universal. Nearly all words are, or were originally, metaphorical; though in a vast number the metaphorical colour has entirely faded away. We talk poetry as unconsciously as Molière's immortal parvenu talked prose. The word metaphor, which is Greek, corresponds as nearly as possible to the Latin word translation, meta = trans,