We hope the work will be found tolerably complete by those who require help for examinations where English Composition (in various forms) is a test, and where the English papers are of a type similar to those now set at the London Matric. We also trust that it may serve as a class-book where no particular examination is in View. We have tried to make it something more than a cram book, and where it was necessary to give facts and information, have endeavoured to reduce these to the minimum. Rules and facts concerning what might be termed the mechanical details of composition necessarily predominate in Chapters like II. — V but, as far as possible, we have tried to make them suggestive rather than dogmatic. In Chapters such as VI VII., bearing primarily upon the acquisition Of matter, whilst seeking to lead to that fulness Of mind necessary in all who would write, we have sought to develop the reasoning faculty and to cultivate the imagination. With this end in view, constant stress is laid upon the importance of reading good literature — for inspiration no less than information. As mentioned in the Preface to the First Edition, one Of us (a. J. L. J.) is primarily responsible for the section on Précis Writing, the other (j. B.) for the general plan and for the remainder of the book.