KEY

TO

DALGLEISH'S ENGLISH COMPOSITION

IN PROSE AND VERSE.

WITH

AN INTRODUCTION ON THE TEACHING OF SYNTHESIS.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED.

EDINBURGH:

OLIVER AND BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT,

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.

1868.

Price Two Shillings and Sixpence.

Works by Mr Dalgleish:

OUTLINES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS,

For ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, with EXERCISES. 8d.

KEY, 18.

Preface::-"Aims at providing a CoммON-SCHOOL GRAMMAR which shall be fully abreast of the latest developments of the science, and at the same time thoroughly practical and simple in its mode of treating the subject."

PROGRESSIVE ENGLISH GRAMMAR,

With EXERCISES.

2s. KEY, 2s. 6d.

From Dr Joseph Bosworth, Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Oxford; author of the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, &c., &c.

"Quite a practical work, and contains a vast quantity of important information, well arranged, and brought up to the present improved state of philology. I have never seen so much matter brought together in so short a space."

GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS,

WITH PROGRESSIVE EXERCISES.- 3d Edition, 9d.-KEY, 2s.

From Dr Schmitz, Head Master of the International College, London.

"I scarcely know any work which, in so small a compass, contains so clear and lucid an exposition of the subject it treats of."

INTRODUCTION.

ON THE TEACHING OF SYNTHESIS.

THE process of grammatical Synthesis, on which the exercises in "English Composition" are chiefly based, is novel in many of its features. The author, however, is so thoroughly convinced of its utility, both as a mental discipline, and as a means of cultivating accuracy and flexibility of style, that he begs to offer the following illustrations of the mode of dealing with it, to those teachers who may not be familiar with its peculiarities. It should be premised, that the exercises pre-suppose some acquaintance, on the part of the pupils, with the general principles of Analysis.

We begin, as is natural, with Simple sentences. Certain elements are given as data, out of which a simple sentence has to be formed a sentence with one predicate. These elements represent the numerous ideas which crowd upon the mind when engaged in composition, and which the unpractised find it so difficult to adjust and assort.

In synthesis, as in analysis, the first step is to fix upon the predicate, which, with its inseparable attendant, the subject,