1 APRIL 1882, Page 23

English Composition. By A. Arthur Heade. (Houghton's Educa- tional Series.

Marshall and Co.)—This is a well-meant little book, that may be useful where English composition is not part of a classical education. The writer is "Teacher of English Composition at the Young Men's Christian Association, Manchester," and this may perhaps account for an occasionally painful smartness in his way of treating his subject. Hi a derivation of précis "from the Latin praecisio, a cutting off," and his remark that "thoughts are fleeting ; unless they are at once recorded" (in the common-place book, which every student should possess) "they leave us, seldom to return," are fair specimens of his general performance.