Practical English Composition Part 18

1. Origin of surname.

2. European home.

3. Occupations.

4. My grandfather.

5. His sons.

Your father, mother, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, and grandmothers will furnish you with the material for your composition; and their aid may be supplemented by the books of genealogy that you will find in the public library. Remember that the items listed above were suggested to Franklin by his material; if you have interesting facts or traditions that cannot be included under the heads which he uses, put them in none the less.

Matter should determine form.

VI. Model II

MY UNCLES

Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my uncles were) by an Esquire, then the princ.i.p.al gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him, and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style, just four years to a day before I was born. The account we received of his life and character from some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary. "Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have supposed a transmigration."

John was bred a dyer, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprentices.h.i.+p at London. He was an ingenious man. I remember him well, for when he was a boy he came over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house with us for some years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations. He had formed a shorthand of his own, which he taught me; but, never practicing it, I have now forgot it. I was named after this uncle, there being a particular affection between him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his shorthand. He was also much of a politician.

VII. Topics for Oral Composition

1. What is an Esquire? A gentleman? A parish? A scrivener?

2. Explain the term "old style."

3. What is meant by transmigration?

4. What is an apprentices.h.i.+p? An occasional piece?

5. Explain the terms "quarto," "folio," and "octavo."

VIII. Written Composition

Write an account of your uncles. Make it as rich as possible in concrete facts, for facts are the life and soul of composition. Let the length be about the same as that of the model. Note that Franklin discusses his uncles in an order determined by the principle that first and last places are the most conspicuous. He put the uncle about whom he knows most in last place, so as to have a strong ending, which grows, so to speak, to a climax; he puts the uncle who is ent.i.tled to second place first in order of discussion; and the uncle who is least important is mentioned in the middle.

IX. Model III

MY PARENTS

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England about 1682. The conventicles having been forbidden by law and frequently disturbed induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen, of whom I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women and married. I was the youngest son and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England.

My mother, the second, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather, in his church history of that country, as "a G.o.dly, pious, learned Englishman." I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution. The whole appeared to me to be written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.

The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was that his censures proceeded from good will and therefore he would be known to be the author:

"Because to be a libeller I hate it with my heart.

From Sherburne town, where now I dwell, My name I do put here; Without offence your real friend, It is Peter Folgier!"

X. Questions and Topics for Oral Composition

1. What is the subject of "disturbed," line 3?

2. Discuss the subject of "conventicles."

3. To what religious sect did Josiah Franklin belong?

4. Why did he come to America?

5. Who was Cotton Mather?

6. Define "sundry" and "occasional."

7. What is "homespun verse"? Explain the figure.

8. Define "sectaries" and "stanza."

XI. Exercises

1. Rewrite Model III in modern English.

2. Write an account of your own parents of about the same length as Model III.

3. Before deciding finally on the style of this account of your parents, seek in the corresponding sections of several biographies for hints. Good ones may be discovered in Boswell's _Johnson_, Lockhart's _Scott_, Southey's _Nelson_, Trevelyan's _Macaulay_, and Hallam Tennyson's _Tennyson_.

XII. Suggested Reading

O. W. Holmes's _Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill_ and _Dorothy Q_.

XIII. Memorize

PROCRASTINATION

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

EDWARD YOUNG.

CHAPTER XIV

THE EXPOSITION OF MECHANICS

"'Tis not in mortals to command success.

But we'll do more, Semp.r.o.nius; we'll deserve it."

JOSEPH ADDISON.

I. a.s.signments

1. Explain the plan of your own house.