has been her own physician with some success, imagines, she could be yours with the same: would to God you was within her reach! She would, I believe, prescribe a great deal of the medicina animi, without having recourse to the books of Tresmegistus.

Pope is now in my library with me and writes to the world, to the present, and to future ages, whilst I begin this letter, which he is to finish to you; what good he will do to mankind I know not: this comfort he may be sure of, he cannot do less than you have done before him.-Bolingbroke.

She never told her love;

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek.-Shakspeare.

The grande monde worship a sort of idol, which daily creates men by a kind of manufactory operation :-this idol (a tailor) is placed in the highest parts of the house, on an altar erected about three feet; he is shewn in the posture of a Persian Emperor, sitting on a superficies, with his legs interwoven under him :-this god had a goose for his ensign; whence it is that some learned men pretend to deduce his original from Jupiter Capitolinus. -Swift.

I remember

(For many years ago I pass'd this road)
There was a foot-way all along the fields

By the brookside ;-'tis gone :-and that dark cleft!
To me it does not seem to wear the face
Which then it did.-Wordsworth.

K

this character is chiefly used in the Old and New Testa

ments.

"A quotation "". Two inverted commas are generally placed at the beginning of a phrase or a passage, which is quoted or transcribed from the speaker or author in his own words, and two commas in their direct position, are placed at the conclusion; as,

"The proper study of mankind is man."

"An Index or Handpoints out a remarkable passage, or something that requires particular attention.

"A Brace is used in poetry at the end of a triplet or

}

three lines, which have the same rhyme. In prose, braces are also used to connect a number of words with one common term, and are introduced to prevent a repetition in writing or printing.

"An Asterisk or star* directs the reader to some note in the margin, or at the bottom of the page. Two or three asterisks generally denote the omission of some letters in a word, or of some bold or indelicate expression, or some defect in the manuscript.

"A dash is often used elliptically, when some letters in a word, or some words are omitted: as, 'The k-g,' for 'the king.' In the place of an obscene or blasphemous word, a dash is commonly substituted."

No. VIII.

List of Authors, any of whose works have, in the compilation of this Essay, been in any way made use of (ex

cepting for quotations used as examples) or referred to, and the Titles of many of the Works:

AINSWORTH, ROBERT, a learned English grammarian, born 1660. Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ; 4to edition, 1772; edited by Patrick.

ARISTOTLE. Aristotelis Rhetorica ex Recensione Immanuelis Bekkeri; Berlin, 1831.

ARISTOPHANES Of Byzantium, the founder of the Alexandrine school of criticism, was born B.C. about 240: only a small part of his works remain :-quoted on the authority of Vossius.

BLAIR, HUGH, D.D., F.R.S., Ed., one of the Ministers of the High Church, and Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the University of Edinburgh. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.

BRENAN, JUSTIN. Composition and Punctuation familiary explained for those who have neglected the Study of Grammar; third edition.

BURROW, SIR JAMES, Knight, F.R.S, and F.S.A., Master of the Crown Office, and among the legal profession a well-known Reporter. A Few Thoughts upon Pointing and some other Helps towards Perspicuity of Expression, added by way of Appendix to the first volume of his Reports of the Decisions of the Court of King's Bench upon Settlement Cases; London, 1768.

N.B.-Sir James afterwards enlarged The Thoughts upon Pointing, and published them as an Essay on Punctuation, entitled, "De Ratione et usu Interpungendi : ' this Essay I have not met with.

CAMPBELL, GEORGE, D.D., a minister of the Scotch Church, born 1719. Philosophy of Rhetoric. CHAMBERS' Cyclopedia.

VALPY, EDWARD REV., Master of the Grammar School, Norwich. Elegantiæ Latinæ, or Rules and Exercises illustrative of elegant Latin Style; third edition.

VERGARA. Mentioned on the authority of the Port Royal Latin Grammar.

VOSSIUS, GERHARDUS JOANNES, born 1577. Commenteriorum Rhetoricorum Sive Oratiorarum Institutionum, Libri Sex: quint. edit. 1681. Marburgi.

WARD, DR., one of the Gresham Professors: mentioned on the authority of Chambers' and Rees' Cyclopedias ; in Rees, his work is thus quoted, Vol. i. Lect. 22.

WHATELEY, RICHARD, D.D., sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, afterwards Principal of St. Alban's Hall, and now Archbishop of Dublin. Elements of Rhetoric; third edition, 1830. Elements of Logic; fourth edition, 1831.

Most, if not all, of our cyclopedias, and many of our grammars, say something of punctuation. Chambers speaks of Buffier, a French author, who wrote upon the subject.

One Hundred

Years ago.

No. IX.

In founts of letters, in which the number of the letter m is 3000, and the number of the letter e is 12000, the proportions of the common points have been as follows:

Comma-points......4000...

:

Semicolon-points..
....1000..

Colon-points.... ..1000.

NOTES.

(1) Alio autem fine tractabimus de periodis, colis, commatis, quàm solent Grammaticorum filii, Hi non aliâ de causâ ea considerant, quàm ut monstretur ratio bene interpungendi. At Rhetores, quia orationem ea reddunt suavem, ac perspicuam.—Vossius, cap. iii. de periodo,

s. 1.

(2) Lowth's Introduction to English Grammar: edition of 1775. This extract is copied to a letter and a point, as in the original.

(3) Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric; book iii. c. iii. part ii.

(4) Port Royal Latin Grammar, c. xv: Of Punctuation.

(5) These divisions were called Stichoi; and at the end of each manuscript it was usual to specify the numb

L