BY REV. JAMES ROBERT BOYD, AUTHOR OF "ECLECTIC MORAL PHILOSOPHY." EIGHTH FDITION. NEW YORK; HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1858. THE NEW YORK ASTOR, LENOK TILD N FOUNDATIONS, R 1914. L Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844 by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. In preparing this edition for the press, the compiler has sought to render his work more complete by adding PART VIII., supplementary to what appeared in the former editions, and particularly adapted to the wants of the more advanced students.in common schools or academies. It will be found to embrace some of the more important and practical instructions found in works on Logic, and which properly belong to a complete treatise on the Art of Composition. The whole work has been carefully revised, but it was found necessary to make only a very few alterations, and those so slight, chiefly corrections of typographical errors, that ro inconvenience will be experienced in using this edition with any of the former. The compiler would take the liberty to add, that after a trial of one year in the institution under his care, during which several classes in the different departments, have been carried through the work, it has been found peculiarIv well adapted to the important objects for |