minated by a comma. Prepositional phrases, when thus transposed, are sometimes similarly pointed. Examp. Whether the Trojan war was an actual occurrence, we have no positive means of determining. Under all the calamities of life, religion is a perpetual source of consolation. 8. The ellipsis of a verb is sometimes marked by a comma. Examp. To err is human; to forgive, divine. Reading makes a full man; conversation, a ready man; and writing, an exact man. CHAP. III. SPECIAL USES OF THE SEMICOLON, AND OTHER POINTS. 1. WHEN, of two clauses, constituting a sentence, each has a nominative of its own, and the latter contains an inference, opposition, parallel, or explanation, they are generally better distinguished by a semicolon than by a comma. Examp. Straws swim upon the surface; but pearls lie at the bottom. I long wooed your daughter; my suit you denied.* He may be accounted an imitator; yet he is never a servile copyist. 2. When a sentence consists of leading members, anywhere subdivided by the comma, the members are divided by a semicolon. * Compare "Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide." Examp. Some of the monasteries were levelled to the ground; others, stripped of their timber and lead, were left in ruin. Suffering is no duty, but where it is necessary to avoid guilt, or to do good; nor pleasure a crime, but where it strengthens the influence of bad inclinations, or lessens the generous activity of virtue. 3. Words introducing the division of a subject into several heads may be followed by a colon, or a colon and dash. The same punctuation may be applied to words that introduce a quotation, unless they are in such close connection with it as to require no point, or merely a comma. Examp. The principal means employed, for the preservation of religious knowledge in the chosen branch of Shem's family, were three: the call of Abraham; the Divine intercourse held with him and with his two next descendants; and the institution of the Mosaic economy. The words which he quoted were these: "The quality of mercy is not strained: It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven, 4. The mark called a period, when it is used to denote contraction, does not interfere with the annexation of any point except a second period. Examp. The school is well provided with books, slates, &c.; but the arrangement of its desks might be improved. It was erected at the sole expense of William Wilson, M. D., who still lives to watch over its interests. 5. The mark of interrogation should not be employed unless a direct question is asked. There are certain oblique kinds of interrogation which properly require the exclamation sign; as in the following Examp. How eagerly do we enter into such designs! How keen are we for their success! How grieved at their disappointment! 6. Language within parenthetic curves may be terminated by any of the other signs of punctuation; but the closing curve can rarely with propriety admit punctuation on the right of it. When the word preceding and that following a parenthesis, would not be intersected by any point, if the parenthetic language were excluded, no point can be allowed to precede or terminate the parenthesis, excepting the signs of exclamation and interrogation. Examp. When they were both turned of forty, (an age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is no dallying with life,) they determined to retire. The wildness of imagination (which in a dream is always loose and irregular) discovers itself in several parts of the narration. Revelation endeavours (did you say?) to eradicate that useful sentiment? CHAP. IV. EXERCISES IN PUNCTUATION. **The utility contemplated in the following Exercises, requires the student to determine the places at which stops should be supplied; and to assign reasons for the particular stops proposed. A diamond you know must be polished before it can appear to advantage Milton too frequently uses technical words or terms of art The blossoms of our spring the pride of our summer are also destined to fade away Make no friendship with any one on whose veracity you cannot depend Guard equally against arrogance and servility Interest and ambition honour and shame friendship and enmity gratitude and revenge are the prime movers in public transactions I cannot my dear friend accomplish all that you desire but I will do all that is in my power Every sentence does not require vivacity and animation but every sentence ought to be perspicuous The highest species of Didactic Poetry is a regular treatise on some philosophical grave or useful subject Imitations produce pain or pleasure not because they are mistaken for realities but because they bring realities to mind Bolingbroke defines a period in history to be "The commencement of a new situation new interests new maxims and new manners" I have carefully examined the MS. and it appears to me to contain decisive evidences of the antiquity you claim for it No such arrangement can be made the constitution of our society will not admit of it To others do the law is not severe What to thyself thou wishest to be done To us immortal life is clearly revealed more clearly than it was even to those ancient worthies Pope tells us himself that he could express moral observations more concisely and therefore more forcibly in rhyme than he could do in prose We soon tire of a continual series of instructions especially in a poetical work where we look for entertainment It is rather the follies and weaknesses of mankind than their enormous vices that Horace chooses for the object of his satire Whatever be the ultimate intention of the orator to inform to convince to please to move or to persuade still he must speak so as to be understood or he speaks to no purpose The remonstrances of his friends had no effect in repressing his sorrow all the relief that he found was from reading and writing in which he continually employed himself Men and brethren countrymen and fellow-christians it is not for me it is for your own feelings to commend to your support and protection the interests of this society What I have written would it were worthier of your acceptance will at least demonstrate the carefulness of my inquiry Rapin in another work of criticism the Parallels of Great Men of Antiquity has instituted comparisons betweon Demosthenes and Cicero Homer and Virgil Thucydides and Livy They are talked of they are pointed at fools are fond of them and wise men are afraid of them Your remarks on the nature of Poetry and your interesting illustrative examples have I am told been very well received Constant experience has found it to be the common course and custom of the world to except and inveigh against professions offices and things themselves only for the faults of persons In a cursory way to give you my opinion on the merits of our principal poets would be very imperfectly fulfilling what I take to be the purpose of your request Every place on the earth's surface receives in the course of a year a certain amount of heat from the sun and from a comparison of this amount during a series of years is deduced the mean temperature of the place Letter after letter protest after protest proclamation after proclamation bad Latin worse English and hideous low Dutch were exhausted in vain The frequency of the figure renders it insipid the sameness tiresome and the artifice insufferable The only original qualities of style which are excluded from no part of a performance nay which ought on the contrary to pervade the whole are purity and perspicuity The Duchess of Dorset who had no son was willing to resign her claim in favour of her eldest daughter Lady Jane Grey and Northumberland brought about a marriage between his son Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane The work of this poet which readers of all classes have most concurred in admiring is his Elegy in a Country Church-Yard no performance of the elegiac kind can compare with it either in splendour or in dignity not a line flows negligently not an epithet is applied at random In some of these efforts Pope has been very successful in others the reverse but I do not wish to prompt your judgment read and distinguish for yourself He was I will not say irreligious but after all was his religion effective in its bearings on his life and character it influenced his opinions did it influence his practice How far the various melodies of verse can be made to coincide |