it. You forget what you are about when you ridicule me : I know more than you do about the lessons.

239. Brutus, bay not me; I'll not endure it. You forget yourself, to hedge me in: I am a soldier, older in practice, abler than yourself to make conditions.

240. I never heard a word about it before, said George, yesterday: who told you about it, Charles?

240. I never heard one word of it before, said my uncle Toby, hastily: how came he there, Trim?

241. Thou shalt pronounce this parable upon the king of Babylon; and shalt say: How hath the oppressor ceased.

LESSON XVI.

THE PARENTHESIS, CROTCHETS, AND BRACKETS.

A Parenthesis is a sentence, or part of a sentence enclosed between two curved lines like these ( ).

The curved lines in which the parenthesis is enclosed are called Crotchets.

The parenthesis, with the crotchets which enclose it, is generally inserted between the words of another sentence, and may be omitted without injuring the sense.

The parenthesis should generally be read in a quicker and lower tone of voice than the other parts of the sentence in which it stands.

Sometimes a sentence is enclosed in marks like these [ ] which are called Brackets. *

Sentences which are included within Brackets, should generally be read like a parenthesis, in a quicker and lower tone of

voice.

EXAMPLES.

242. I asked my eldest son (a boy who never was guilty of a falsehood) to give me a correct account of the matter.

* Although the Crotchet and the Bracket are sometimes indiscriminately used, the following difference in their use may generally be noticed; Crotchets are used to enclose a sentence, or part of a sentence, which is inserted between the parts of another sentence: Brackets are generally used to separate two subjects, or to enclose an explanation, note, or observation, standing by itself. When a parenthesis occurs within another parenthesis, Brackets enclose the former, and rotchets enclose the latter. See No. 263.

243. The master told me that the lesson (which was a very difficult one) was recited correctly by every pupil in the class.

244. When they were both 'turned of forty (an age in which there is no dallying with life) they determined to retire, and pass the remainder of their days in the country.

245. Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs us, that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that nature (who, it seems, was even with the son for her prodigality to the father) rendered him incapable of improving, by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavours, and the most refined conversation in Athens.

246. Natural historians observe (for whilst I am in the country I must fetch my allusions from thence) that only the male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breeding-time, and end a little after.

247. Dr. Clark has observed, that Homer is more perspicuous than any other author; but if he is so (which yet may be questioned) the perspicuity arises from his subject, and not from the language itself in which he writes.

248. The many letters which come to me from persons of the best sense of both sexes (for I may pronounce their characters from their way of writing) do not a little encourage me in the prosecution of this my undertaking.

249. It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagination, or fancy (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects.

250. The stomach (cramm'd from every dish, a tomb of boiled and roast, and flesh and fish, where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar, and all the man is one intestine war) remembers oft the school-boy's simple fare, the temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air.

251. I would not enter on my list of friends (though graced with polished manners and fine sense, yet wanting sensibility), the man who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail, that crawls at evening in the public path; but he that has humanity, forewarned, will tread aside, and let the reptile live.

252. Again, would your worship a moment suppose, ('tis a case that has happened and may be again) that the

visage or countenance had not a nose, pray, who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?

253 Upon this the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm.

254. To speak of nothing else, the arrival of the English in her father's dominions must have appeared (as indeed it turned out to be) a most portentous phenomenon.

255. Surely, in this age of invention something may be struck out to obviate the necessity (if such necessity exists) of so tasking the human intellect.

256. I compassionate the unfortunates now (at this very moment, perhaps,) screwed up perpendicularly in the seat. of torture, having in the right hand a fresh nibbed patent pen, dipped ever and anon into the ink bottle, as if to hook up ideas, and under the outspread palm of the left hand a fair sheet of best Bath post, (ready to receive thoughts yet unhatched,) on which their eyes are rivetted with a stare of disconsolate perplexity, infinitely touching to a feeling mind.

257. Oh the unspeakable relief (could such a machine be invented) of having only to grind an answer to one of one's dear five hundred friends.

258. Have I not groaned under similar horrors, from the hour when I was first shut up (under lock and key, I believe,) to indite a dutiful epistle to an honoured aunt?

259. To such unhappy persons, then, I would fain offer a few hints, (the fruit of long experience) which may prove serviceable in the hour of emergency.

260. If ever you should come to Mōdena, (where among other relics you may see Tassoni's bucket) stop at a palace near the Reggio gate, dwelt in of old by one of the Donati.

261. My father, and my uncle Toby (clever soul) were sitting by the fire with Dr. Slop; and Corporal Trim (a brave and honest fellow) was reading a sermon to them.

As the sermon contains many parentheses, and affords an opportunity also of showing you a sentence in brackets, (you will observe that all the previous parentheses in this lesson are enclosed in crotchets) I shall insert some parts of it in the following numbers. [See Nos. 262, 263, &c.]

262. To have the fear of God before our eyes, and in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions

C

by the eternal measures of right and wrong: the first of these will comprehend the duties of religion; the second those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables, even in imagination (though the attempt is often made in practice) without breaking and mutually destroying them. [Here my father observed that Dr. Slop was fast asleep.] I said the attempt is often made; and so it is; there being nothing more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and, indeed, has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral character, or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous to the uttermost mite.

263. I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in [There is no need, cried Dr. Slop (waking) to call in any physician in this case,] to be neither of them men of much religion.

264. Have courage, my child [He's as courageous as a lion, cried Roderick,] and pray to the good God that you may be as happy as I am, who have had the honour of serving his majesty, and of receiving many wounds [That's the worst part of the story, exclaimed Roderick,] and helping to establish his glory.

265. Experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all (saving some few exceptions) to certain general rules.

266. Ingenious boys, who are idle, think, with the hare in the fable, that, running with snails, (so they count the rest of their schoolfellows,) they shall come soon enough to the post; though sleeping a good while before their starting.

LESSON XVII.

THE DASH.

The Dash is a straight mark like this

The Dash is sometimes used to express a sudden stop, or change in the subject.

Sometimes the Dash requires a pause no longer than a comma, and sometimes a longer pause than a period.

The Dash is frequently used instead of Crotchets or Brackets, and a Parenthesis placed between two dashes. [See No. 281.]

The Dush is sometimes used to precede something unexpected, as when a sentence beginning seriously ends humorously. [See Nos. 311 to 318.]

In the following sentences the Dash expresses a sudden stop, or change of the subject.

EXAMPLES.

267. If you will give me your attention I will show you -but stop, I do not know that you wish to see.

268. Alas! that folly and falsehood should be so hard to grapple with-but he that hopes to make mankind the wiser for his labours, must not be soon tired.

269. I stood to hear-I love it well-the rain's continuous sound; small drops, but thick and fast they fell, down straight into the ground.

270. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered-I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards.

271. Each zone obeys thee-thou goest forth dread, fathomless, alone.

272 Please your honours, quoth Trim, the inquisition is the vilestPrithee spare thy description, Trim. I

hate the very name of it, said my father.

273. The fierce wolf prowls around thee-there he stands listening-not fearful, for he nothing fears.

274. The wild stag hears thy falling waters' sound, and tremblingly flies forward-o'er his back he bends his stately horns the noiseless ground his hurried feet impress notand his track is lost amidst the tumult of the breeze, and the leaves falling from the rustling trees.

275. The wild horse thee approaches in his turn. His mane stands up erect-his nostrils burn-he snorts-he pricks his ears-and starts aside.

276. The music ceased, and Hamish Fraser, on coming back into the shealing (or shed,) said, I see two men on horseback coming up the glen-one is on a white horse. Ay-blessed be God, that is the good priest-now will I die in peace. My last earthly thoughts are gone by-he will show me the salvation of Christ-the road that leadeth to eternal life.