All 4 Uses of
specimen
in
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
- , of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a specimen.†
- While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method.†
- He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an epic poem which he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and corrections.†
*
- This style of writing seems a little gone out of vogue, and yet it is a very useful one; and your specimen of it may be particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of comparison with the lives of various public cutthroats and intriguers, and with absurd monastic self-tormentors or vain literary triflers.†
Definition:
-
(specimen) an example thought to represent its type; or a bit of tissue, blood, or urine that is taken for diagnostic purposes