Direct Proof and Refutation.

Direct Proof and Refutation. The next step which we may take in the development of an argumentative theme is to gather all our opponent has to say into one paragraph, and all we have to say in disproof of his position into another para¬graph. The following is an example of this method : The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose to take issue on the great points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the scriptural names of the preachers. Major- generals fleecing their districts ; soldiers reveling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry ; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry ; boys smashing the beautiful windows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through the market-place ; fifth-monarchy¬men shouting for King Jesus ; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag ; all these, they tell us, were the offspring of the Great Rebellion. Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. ‘These charges, were they infinitely more im¬portant, would not alter our opinion of an event which alone has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath despotic scepters. Many evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisition been worth the sac¬rifice? It is the nature of t4e Devil of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued possession less horrible than the struggles of the tremendous exorcism ? -THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, Essay on Milton. SUGGESTIONS.- Prove that the first paragraph deals with direct proof ; the second with refutation. Is the refutation made by denial or, explanation ? Can you find an example of the use of, analogy in the refutation ?