Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

pushed off, and set fire to the ship, which became, in a few minutes, one burning mass from stem to stern. Nothing could exceed the desperate ferocity of the Malays; but the most humane attention was paid by our men to the wounded.

LESSON 19.- Synonymous Words, continued.

51. In this lesson, the pupil must explain the difference of signification, and the appropriate application, of the following synonymous terms; thus, observance and observation: the former means obedience to or compliance with a law or rule; the latter signifies the faculty of noticing or remarking. By a man's observance of the rules of equity he secures confidence; by his habit of careful observation he is daily making improvement.

Reference may be had to the Author's English Grammar, or to Crabbe's Synonymes.

EXERCISES.

1. Abate, diminish, decrease, lessen, relax, impair.

2. Ability, capacity.

3. Acquiesce, resigned, agree in, consent.

4. Acknowledge, confess, avow.

5. Active, diligent, industrious, assiduous, laborious.

6. Addict, devote, apply.

7. Ambiguous, equivocal.

8. Authentic, genuine.

9. Amend, correct, reform, rectify, emend, improve. 10. Ceremonious, ceremonial.

11. Conquer, subdue, surmount.

12. Conscience, consciousness.

13. Custom, habit.

14 Discover, invent.

15. Doctrines, precepts, principles.

16. Enlarge, increase.

17. Intelligible, intellectual.

18. Persevere, persist.

19. Sophism, sophistry.

20. Together, successively.

LESSON 20. Classical Words.

[ocr errors]

52. RULE 8:- The expression may be varied by employing words of a classical origin instead of those that are of an English or Saxon derivation. Thus, "He distributed the contribution among the indigent," conveys the same sense as, "He dealt out or shared among the poor the money which had been raised."

EXERCISES. For the classical words printed in italics in the following sentences, substitute others of an English or Saxon origin;

There is a profusion of all kinds of fruit this season. The malady is very prevalent, and the hospitals are filled with invalids. After the revolution, the adherents of the regal system were persecuted with acrimony. The public are agitated by conflicting rumours. Parallel lines can never converge. Equestrians and pedestrians were mingled together. The aborigines of the country were extirpated. The traitor was proscribed, and his goods were confiscated. Stimulated by national animosity, the armies ardently waited for the opening of the campaign. The incision was promptly made, and the abscess materially reduced. The air in the vicinity is very humid, owing to the exhalations from the contiguous fen.

The circulation of the blood through the bodies of men and quadrupeds, and the apparatus by which it is carried on, compose a system, and testify a contrivance, perhaps the best understood of any part of the animal frame. The lymphatic and the nervous systems may be more subtle and intricate; nay, it is possible that in their structure they may be even more artificial than the sanguiferous: but we do not know so much about them.

Whether the heart acts by irritation excited by the contact of the blood, by the influx of the nervous fluid, or whatever else be the cause of its motion, it is something which is capable of producing in a living muscular fibre reciprocal contraction and relaxation. There is provided, in the central part of the body, a hollow muscle, invested with spiral fibres, running in both directions, the layers intersecting one another; in some animals, however, appearing to be semicircular rather than spiral. By the contraction of these fibres, the sides of the muscular cavities are squeezed together, so as to force out from them any fluid which they may at that time contain.

LESSON 21.

Classical Words, continued.

53. In the following sentences, for the classical words in italics, substitute others of a Saxon origin, having the same meaning;

-

[ocr errors]

EXERCISES. -1. In the volumes of history we see the most deceitful and crafty men stripped of the disguise of artifice and dissimulation, their designs developed, and their stratagems exposed. By the fall of the great and powerful into a state of disgrace and indigence, as well as by the revolutions of empires, we are not so liable to be astonished at the events which pass before our eyes. The reverses of fortune so frequently recorded in the pages of former times, convince us of the mutability of worldly affairs, and the precariousness of human grandeur.

2. A very numerous and comprehensive tribe of terrestrial animals are entirely without feet, yet locomotive. How is the want of feet compensated? It is done by the disposition of the muscles and fibres of the trunk. In consequence of the just collocation, and by means of the joint action of longitudinal and annular fibres, the body and train of reptiles are capable of being reciprocally shortened and lengthened, drawn up and stretched out. The result of this action is a progressive, and, in some instances, a rapid, movement of the whole body.

3. Suppose we had never seen an animal move upon the ground without feet, and that the problem was,—— Muscular action, that is, reciprocal contraction and relaxation, being given, to describe how such an animal might be constructed, capable of voluntarily changing place. Something, perhaps, like the organisation of reptiles might have been hit upon by the ingenuity of an artist, or might have been exhibited in an automaton, by the combination of springs, spiral wires, and ringlets; but to the solution of the problem would not be denied the praise of invention and of successful thought.

4. By respiration, flame, or putrefaction, air is rendered unfit for the support of animal life. By the constant operation of these corrupting principles, the whole atmosphere, if there were no restoring causes, would at length be deprived of its necessary degree of purity. Some of these causes seem to have been discovered. Vegetation proves to be one of them. A plant may purify what an animal may have poisoned; in return, the contaminated air is more than ordinarily nutritious to the plant.

5. The insipidity of water forms one of those negative qualities which constitute its purity. Having no taste of its own, it becomes the sincere vehicle of every other. Had there been a taste in water, it would have infected every thing we ate or drank with an importunate repetition of the same flavour.

LESSON 22.

54. RULE 9.—A sentence will frequently admit of being recast in several forms, without undergoing any change of signification. The following

is an instance:

EXAMPLE." Idleness is the cause of misery."

1. Idleness is the bane of enjoyment.

2. Idleness is an enemy to happiness.

3. Indolence destroys all real pleasures.

4. Want of occupation prevents the enjoyment of life.

5. Laziness is a great barrier to the solid enjoyments of life.

6. Inactivity of mind or body stagnates the spirits, and prevents their easy and natural flow.

7. Indolent habits lay the foundation of future misery.

8. Without industry there can be no happiness.

EXERCISES.

ways as possible;

Let the pupil recast the following in as many

1. The advantages of this world, even when innocently gained, are uncertain blessings.

2. Charity consists, not in speculative ideas of general benevolence floating in the head, and leaving the heart, as speculations too often do, untouched and cold.

3. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

4. They who have nothing to give, can afford relief to others, by imparting what they feel.

5. He that honoureth his father shall have long life and he that is obedient unto the Lord shall be a comfort to his mother.

6. My son help thy father in his age; and grieve him not, as long as he liveth.

7. It is not by starts of application, or by a few year's preparation of study afterwards discontinued, that eminence can be attained.

SECT. II. -TRANSPOSITION OF CLAUSES AND

MEMBERS.

LESSON 23.

55. As facility in discovering and applying the clearest and most forcible arrangement of words in composition is of great importance, it has been deemed desirable to insert in this place, a few exercises on the transposition of the clauses and members of a sentence.

56. The General Rule for the arrangement of words is, Place those words which are intimately

« AnteriorContinuar »