ERRORS IN THE USE OF ENGLISH. BY THE LATE WILLIAM B. HODGSON, LL.D., FELLOW OF THE COLLEGE OF PRECEPTORS INTRODUCTORY. ACTING on the principle that example is better than precept, the Spartans impressed upon their children the wisdom of sobriety by showing them the folly of intemperance in the person of the drunken Helot. Similarly this work is meant to set forth the merits of correctness in English composition by furnishing examples of the demerits of incorrectness-to bring home the abstract rule that 'a sentence must be lucid in order and logical in sequence,' by citing such concrete specimens of obscure dis-order as 'The beaux of that day painted their faces as well as the women.' Rule and correct example of that rule might go in at one ear to come out at the other; but the notion of gallants painting their lady-loves a brilliant pink is not so easily forgotten, and, so long as it is kept in mind, this blunder of Isaac D'Israeli's attests the need, as the task of correcting it shows a mode, of arranging one's words in lucid order. So with our other examples. Let the teacher select a dozen at random, and give them to his learners, to be by them, if necessary, corrected with the aid of dictionary and grammar. 'Of dictionary and grammar,'-because this little work can no more supersede the use of formal helps to English composition than a picture-gallery or a museum does away with the need for handbooks on art and science. 'If necessary,'—because in these pages many instances occur of correct usage, and many more of blunders' about which doctors differ whether the |