ming goblets, On to the church!' It was the tempter's voice, And we obey'd him. 'Twas a glorious night A fearful, boding silence. Oh! it seem'd As if some black enchanter's pow'r had hush'd The very elements to guide us on Unto our fatal goal. We came at length On to a weeping-vault, where baleful weeds Hung idly o'er the portal. 'Twas the place Where my dead fathers slumber'd. Would to Heav'n That the black womb had cast its inmates forth Some shrouded thing had burst its cearments, rais'd Its skinny arm, and breath'd a boding And spears with wreaths of tortuous ivy Gleaming from half-illuminated shrines, Shed their faint light upon the effigy next I fain would leave untold: We ranged ourselves, In our unseemly garbs, before the altar Of the Most High, with faces smear'd and stain'd With wine-lees,-rob'd us in the sacred vestments AN ESSAY ON PUNCTUATION. THE purpose of points, or stops, in writing, is not to mark periods of graceful pause, but to distinguish sentences, the members of sentences, and the intersections of those members. Many persons, misapprehending this, and studiously careful to point their writings according to their erroneous notion, make strange shipwreck of real perspicuity. They would mar the following sentence with an unnecessary and impeding comma; thus-" All things connected with the confederacy, were proceeding prosperously." Evidently this is wrongly pointed. If the sentence is to be divided at all, there should be a comma after things as well as after confederacy, otherwise the currency of the meaning is. hindered. The nominative case in a sentence has a necessary and immediate connection with its verb. As the sentence "All things," &c. is (erroneously) pointed above, this connection is undone. There the six words "All things connected with the confederacy" are made the undivided nominative, and this nominative is separated from the verb it governs by an interpolated comma. Had the sentence been written-"All things, connected with the confederacy, were proceeding prosperously," there would have been no precise blemish, for the words "connected with the confederacy" would have stood as an explanation of, or addition to, the nominative "All things;" so that the nominative "All things" and the verb "were" would not have been disjoined, or rendered irrelative, because in cases of this sort the commas are parenthesitical. There are more errors respecting the different uses of the comma than any other point. We will take a sentence. "He reprobated, also, the odious, because unsatisfactory, task of every day struggling for the redress of injuries.' The author, or compositor, very properly puts a comma after reprobated, and a comma after also, in order to parenthe size the word also, as the verb reprobated is immediately and naturally connected with the accusative case, the odious task, which it governs, just as the nominative and verb are connected. The author, further, very properly puts a comma after odious, which adjective is connected with task, and not with because, the words because unsatisfactory being merely explanatory. But here the author's, or compositor's, accuracy deserts him. He forgets that the adjective odious is connected immediately with task, and carelessly includes task in the explanatory parenthesis because unsatisfactory. The words because unsatisfactory form a distinct and perfect clause, and must be pointed off accordingly; by which means the adjective and substantive odious task will have a manifest connection. The author has then omitted a comma after unsatisfactory; but (perhaps to make up, on an arithmetical principle, for the omission) we find one obtruded after task, effectually cutting the connection betwixt that word and those following it. The currency of the sentence obviously is" the odious task of struggling." Lastly, the author has forgotten to point off" every day," by inserting a comma after of, and one after day. Of and struggling, forming together the perfect genitive case of a participle, are the words connected. Every day is an addition to the force and meaning of the passage, which might as well be placed after "struggling" as before. The author's punctuation of the sentence in question, partly false and partly true, is (my readers will perceive) as follows: "He reprobated, also, the odious, because unsatisfactory task, of every day struggling for the redress of injuries." The true punctuation is this: "He reprobated, also, the odious, because unsatisfactory, task of, every day, struggling for the redress of injuries The accurate observance of the It is unpleasant to see sentences clogged and overloaded with false points: but I would here observe, that, in common practice, it is frequently not amiss to use fewer points than strictness would require. natural and immediate connection of words (how distantly soever placed from each other) is all in all, with respect to the right distribution of commas. On this part of my subject, therefore, I will say no more. But there is in fashion an irregular method of lengthening the comma's pause, which I must briefly notice. I allude to the smart dashes so liberally employed by writers of the present day. These, besides being occasionally used alone, are not unfrequently appended to legitimate points. Thus we see the comma dashed (-) and so on with the rest. When the comma is dashed, it is always to lengthen the pause. The seldomer this is done the better; but there are cases in which a good enough purpose is answered. Thus, when the last clause of a sentence is a sort of amplification or exposition of the preceding :-" His taste for indiscriminate amusements rose into a passion for excitements of a higher character,-for the movements of great interests and great efforts." Also, when an intermediate parenthesitical clause is designed to be emphatic, the effect is good; as here" When he encountered Adhemar, ever surrounded now by companions,-assuredly by design,-no cordial kindling of countenance answered to the affectionate light in his." Writers must distinguish, however, between the dashed comma (if I may so express myself) and the simple dash. In many cases, where the latter may be used with considerable effect, the former would annihilate construction: as in the following line. "The paths of glory lead-but to the grave!" A dashed comma (,-) after lead would obviously destroy the connection betwixt lead and the following words. And here I will remark, that care must be taken that the dash be properly placed. The only place it could hold properly in the above line is the one it holds. Put it after glory, and it becomes nugatory expectation would not, in that case, be defeated, because it would never have been excited: in fact, we should have formed no idea of the subsequent part of the sen tence. Place the dash after but, or after to the, writing the verse "The paths of glory lead but-to the grave;" or, "The paths of glory lead but to thegrave;" and the meditated object is unattained; for in neither case is expectation raised, so in neither is it defeated. If you write without check-" The paths of glory lead but-" nothing is expected from them; no bright goal can be anticipated; our hopes with regard to these paths are blighted by the but, and we are not surprised to find the conclusion-" to the grave." When, however, the dash is judiciously placed after lead, it is finely efficient. Our expectations are raised. "The paths of glory lead-" whither? to some illustrious goal, doubtless? no-" but to the grave!" There our excited hopes are finely defeated. In the first part of the sentence we met with nothing to damp them all was reserved for the last. The sentence might have run— "The paths of glory lead to sovereign power," or to any thing else illustrious and excellent. But it is not so; and we were not undeceived till we could be undeceived wholly and powerfully. My readers will observe the distinction betwixt this verse, when properly dashed, after lead, and when improperly dashed after glory. In the former case, we are led to anticipate something, though of what quality we know not: we, in fact, anticipate a goal. In the latter case, we anticipate nothing-the poet might be describing the goal of glory, or the advantages of glory, or the nature of the paths of glory, or the beings who pursue them. We know nothing; and therefore, though our expecta tions are not at once prematurely defeated, as when the dash is put after the "but," they are not raised, they are not at all excited: in fact, we entertain no expectations, we have no hopes to defeat; so that the “lead but to the grave" comes upon us in the character of an unexciting truism. We come now to speak of the semi colon, which signifies properly a half- any I have thus discussed the uses of the semi-colon and colon at once, and shall now dismiss them, trusting that I am not here obnoxious to the Horatian caution-" Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio." 66 Next in order to the above points comes the period. That this is a full stop any one will tell you; yet there are many, who, when they come to practice, seem to forget this unequivocal definition; and this forgetfulness, or inattention, (be it which it may,) is sometimes observable in the best writers-in writers of learned precision. A sentence in a celebrated Theologian's work is of the following nature: "Sylvanus compassed three points in his intercourse with the Court. First, a splendid marriage for his sister. Secondly, a post of high distinction for himself near his Majesty's person. Thirdly, an extensive patronage." It is quite obvious that all connection is here broken. We find four distinct sentences made out of one. Let us analyse the passage. First, a splendid marriage for his sister." This is presented to us as a perfect sentence. Of course, then, we can be at no loss to determine what case "splendid marriage" is in. But are we not? A person wishing to translate the words into Latin, could not possibly know that marriage is in the accusative. Yet it is in the accusative; so, if the sentence were really complete, we should find its governing verb in it. But there is no verb in it-there is nothing that can govern the accusative marriage. The sentence, then, is imperfect. I need scarcely add, that we must look to the clause erroneously pointed off as a separate sentence, preceding the one in question, in order to find a governing verb for marriage. Obviously, marriage is governed by compassed. The construction is, "Sylvanus compassed a splendid marriage," &c., and so on with the remainder; for a post of high distinction, and an extensive patronage, stand precisely in the same predicament with a splendid marriage. Some writers are led into the above error by a fear (I take it) of penning long sentences. Short sentences are the fashion, and sentences must, without regard to their real length, be pointed off accordingly. They will then at least look short. But this is bad judgment, unscholarlike judgment. A sentence essentially long (and some sentences are not the |