god of riches; and that he was just come out of the house of a miser.

4. All superiority and pre-eminence that one man can have over another, may be reduced to the notion of quality; which, consid ered at large, is either that of fortune, body or mind.

5. The mode of reasoning more generally used, and most suited. to the train of popular speaking, is what is called the synthetic; when the point to be proved is fairly laid down, and one argument after another is made to bear upon it, till the hearers be fully con

2. Examples of improper use.

1. When an author is always calling on us to enter into transports which he has done nothing to inspire; we are both disgusted and enraged at him.

2. Vexed at the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly; willing to escape from a town where good people pointed with horror at his freedom; indignant also at the tyranny of his brother, who, passionate as a master, often beat his apprentice; Benjamin Franklin, then but seventeen years old, sailed clandestinely for New York.

3. The soil of a Republic sprouts with the rankest fertility; it has been sown with dragon's teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurping demagogues, we must enlighten, animate and combine the spirits of freemen; we must fortify and guard the constitutional ramparts about liberty.

4. I put these together, both because they fall nearly under the same rules, and because they commonly answer the same purpose; serving to illustrate the cause or the subject of which the orator treats before he proceeds to argue either on one side or the other.

5. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

6. History, as it has been written, is the genealogy of princes; the field-book of conquerors.

The parts separated by the semicolon in No. 1 and 2, make imperfect sense; and hence they should be separated by the comma. No. 2, however, may be punctuated as it is by the first law of Deviation. (See laws of Deviation a few pages forward.)

The parts in No. 3 make perfect sense, but the connective is suppressed. Accordingly, they cannot be separated by the semicolon under the rule.

The parts in No. 4 and 5, also make perfect sense, but in both the connective is suppressed, as in the preceding No. 3: consequently, the semicolon is incorrect punctuation. In No. 5 the punctuation is inconsistent; for while it has a semicolon before teaching, it has only a comma before baptizing; and yet the circumstances are precisely the same.

Why neither the comma nor semicolon is admissible before the participles in this position, will be fully explained under the next pause.

In No. 6, the connective is not expressed. The semicolon is therefore improperly used.

III. THE COLON.

The colon properly separates the parts of a sentence, making perfect sense; or distinct though related propositions, connected by conjunctions, adverbs, or relative pronouns understood. (See Semicolon, Notes.)

In the suppression of the connectives or copulatives, lies the only rational and even imaginable distinction between the colon and semicolon. By this suppression alone, is the connection between the parts of a sentence in which either of them may be employed,

made less close, and a longer pause than the semicolon, necessary; and then a longer pause is necessary: a fact which printers of the present day, who almost universally dispense with the use of the colon, seem to have forgotten, or studiously to neglect.

The sentence in which the colon is properly employed, does not differ in construction from that in which the semicolon is inserted. (See Semicolon.)

This pause is relatively as long again as the semicolon: under the influence of passion its time is indefinite.*

1. Examples of the proper use of the Colon.

1. He shows you what you ought to do, but excites not the desire of doing it: he treats man as if he were a being of pure intellect, without imagination or passions.

2. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven: I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

3. Gratitude is of a fruitful and diffusive nature of a free and communicative disposition: of an open and sociable temper. It will be imparting, discovering and propagating itself: it affects light, company and liberty: it cannot endure to be smothered in privacy and obscurity. (See Deviations II.)

4. The faults opposed to the sublime are chiefly two: the frigid

and the bombast.

5. One of the court party interrupted him in these words: "How dare you praise a rebel before the representatives of the nation ?"

6. The following observations exactly correspond with the senti

* The learned reader may be gratified by a comparison of what I have advanced on the comma, as a pause of imperfect sense, and on the semicolon and colon, as pauses of perfect sense, with the remarks of Quinctilian on the same subject. He is speaking of the pronun ciation or delivery of the following passage from Virgil, with respect to its punctuation:

"Arma, virumque, cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris

Italiam, fato profugus Lavinaque venit

Littora: multùm ille et terris jactatus et alto,

Vi Superûm, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram:
Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
Inferretque Deos Latio; genus unde Latinum,
Albinique patres, atque altæ moenia Romæ.""

Secundum est, (says Quinctilian,) ut sit oratio distincta; id est, ut qui dicit, et incipiat ubi oportet, et desinat. Observandum etiam quo loco sustinendus et quasi suspendendus sermo sit (quam Græci ὑποδιαστολὴν, vel ὑποσυστολὴν, vel ὑποστιγμὴν vocant,) quo deponendus. Suspenditur, Arma virumque cano, quia illud virum ad sequentia pertinet; ut sit, virum, Troje qui primus ab oris; et hic iterum; nam etiam si aliud est unde venit, quam quo venit, non distinguendum tamen, quia utrunque eodem verbo continetur, venit. Tertio Italiam, quia interjectio est, fato profugus, et continuum sermonem qui faciebat, Italiam, Lavinaque, dividit. Ob eandemque causam, quarto profugus, deinde, Lavinaque venit Littora; UBI JAM ERIT DISTINCTIO, QUIA INDE ALIUS INCIPIT SENSUS. Sed in ipsis etiam distinctionibus tempus aliàs brevius, aliàs longius dabimus. Interest enim, sermonem finiat, an sensum. Itaque illam distinctionem Littora, protinus altero spiritus initio insequar. Cum illuc venero, Atque alte mania Rome, deponam et morabor, et novum rursus exordium faciam. Book xi. ch. 3.

ments of our author: "Nothing can contribute more towards bringing the powers of genius to their ultimate perfection than a severe judgment, equal in degree to the genius possessed."

7. And with this, I finish the discussion of the structure of sentences: having fully considered them under all the heads I mentioned, of perspicuity, unity, strength and musical arrangement.

8. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.

9. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him.

The parts of No. 1, 2 and 3, are properly separated by the colon, because the connective and is understood.

In No. 4, 5 and 6, namely is understood. The colon is therefore correctly used. In No. 7, 8 and 9, we have at length the proper punctuation before the participles, wh m employed as in these sentences. I now call the student's attention to the reason for this. The participles when so used, (and the perfect as well as the present is so used, though I have given no examples,) are uniformly abbreviated forms substituted for the finite verb preceded by conjunctions, adverbs, or relative pronouns. Thus, having in No 7, is strictly the equiva lent of I have; seeing, in No. 8, of we see; and knowing, in No. 9, of we know; and as these fuller expressions would, if employed, be preceded by the semicolon or colon, according as the connective for might be expressed or understood, no reason can be assigned why their equivalents should not be treated in the same manner; that is, (since the connective, not merely, but also the pronoun, is understood,) with the colon.

Against the use of the comma, which, as we have seen, is employed before the participle so situated, and I may now add, very frequently employed, there is a stronger objection than against that of the semicolon; for the participle is often employed in nearly the same manner after imperfect sense. Observe above the first sentence under the head of colon. "The colon properly separates the parts of a sentence, making perfect sense." The participle making here is the substitute or equivalent of "which make," preceded by imperfect sense. Take another example. "And there was seen a great way off a herd of swine, feeding." Here the participle is a mere abbreviation of "which were feeding," as before preceded by imperfect sense; and consequently it should be separated from what precedes by the comma. How shall we distinguish cases of this kind from such as we find in Nos. 7, 8, 9, if we point them in the same manner?

It should be observed before dismissing this subject, that the participle often appears in what seems to be the one or the other of the two positions which I have just noticed, but which is yet very distinct from both: e. g. "I saw him sliding down hill.” "He went crying all the way home." "The horse stood champing the bit." Here the participle limits, restrains or qualifies the object or action, and therefore cannot be separated from it even by the comma, unless some specification of time or place, &c., should intervene; as, "I saw him, just at night, sliding down hill." "The horse stood, in the yard, champing, &c."

2. Examples of improper use.

1. They entered in, and dwelt together: and the second possession was worse than the first.

2. One may have a considerable degree of taste in poetry, eloquence, or any of the fine arts, who has little or hardly any genius for composition or execution in any of these arts: but genius cannot be found without including taste also.

3. But on other occasions, this were improper: for what is the use of melody, or for what end has the poet composed in verse, if in reading his lines, we suppress his numbers, and degrade them, by our pronunciation, into mere prose?

4. These are degrading: whereas, similes are commonly intended to embellish and to dignify.

5. He first lost by his misconduct the flourishing provinces of France, the ancient patrimony of the family: he subjected his kingdom to a shameful vassalage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: and he died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking shelter as a fugitive from the pursuit of his enemies.

6. When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: then I beheld all the works of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun.

7. As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the dial, but did not perceive it moving; and it appears the grass has grown, though nobody ever saw it grow: so the advances we make in knowledge, as they make such minute steps, are only perceivable by the distance.

In the first five of these examples, the colon is improperly employed, because the connec tives are expressed: in the last two, because it separates parts making imperfect sense.

It may be worth while to notice the improper use of the comma between the sub-parts of the first part of No. 5. At France, we have perfect sense: consequently the comma should be displaced by the colon: which were, the connective and the verb, being suppressed.

IV. THE PERIOD.

The period is properly placed at the end of a complete and independent enunciation of thought. Its relative length is double that of the colon; but under the influence of passion, its length is indeterminate.

As this pause is too well known to need illustration, I shall confine my examples to the purpose of showing its improper use.

Examples of improper use.

1. Jurists may be permitted with comparative safety to pile tome upon tome of interminable disquisition upon the motives, reasons and causes of just and unjust war. Metaphysicians may be suffered with impunity to spin the thread of their speculations until it is attenuated to a cobweb; but for a body created for the government of a great nation, and for the adjustment and protection of its diversified interests, it is worse than folly to speculate upon the causes of war, until the great question shall be presented for immediate action.

2. The most eminent physicians bear uniform testimony to this propitious effect of entire abstinence. And the spirit of inspiration