RULE III.

A Series of Expressions having a Common Dependence. When, in a series of expressions, the particulars depend on a commencing or a concluding portion of the sentence, they should be separated from each other by a semicolon, if they are either laid down as distinct propositions, or are of a compound nature.

EXAMPLES.

1. Philosophers assert, that Nature is unlimited in her operations; that she has inexhaustible treasures in reserve; that knowledge will always be progressive; and that all future generations will continue to make discoveries, of which we have not the slightest idea.

2. To give an early preference to honor above gain, when they stand in competition; to despise every advantage which cannot be attained without dishonest arts; to brook no meanness, and stoop to no dissimulation, — are the indications of a great mind, the presages of future eminence and usefulness in life.

3. If we think of glory in the field; of wisdom in the cabinet; of the purest patriotism; of the highest integrity, public and private; of morals without a stain; of religious feelings without intolerance and without extravagance, - the august figure of Washington presents itself as the personation of all these ideas.

REMARK S.

a. The first sentence exemplifies a series of clauses, being each a distinct proposition, but depending all on the words that precede them, namely, "philosophers assert." The second example illustrates a series of expressions, the first two consisting each of a phrase and a clause; the third, of two coupled phrases; and all depending on the portion which concludes the sentence, on the predicate, "are the indications of a great mind," &c. The third example exhibits a series of phrases, which, according to Rule XVI., p. 98, would be punctuated only with a comma, were it not for the compound phrase, "of the highest integrity, public and private," the subdivision of which requires to be distinguished by a point less significant than that between the other phrases.

b. Commas are sometimes preferable to semicolons, when none of the particulars in a series of clauses, except perhaps the last, are

divisible into simpler portions. This mode of punctuation should be adopted when the particulars begin each with a verb, and have a common nominative on which they depend, as in the following passage: Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of early feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.” —- See page 98.

c. If a series of phrases, of which some at least are compound, though none of them parts of clauses, depends on the commencing or the concluding portion of a sentence, and any of them are capable of being subdivided by means of a comma, all the depending portions should be separated from each other by a semicolon; as, "By doing, or at least endeavoring to do, our duty to God and man; by acquiring an humble trust in the mercy and favor of God, through Jesus Christ; by cultivating our minds, and properly employing our time and thoughts; by correcting all unreasonable expectations from the world and from men; and, in the midst of worldly business, habituating ourselves to calm retreat and serious recollection, - by such means as these, it may be hoped, that, through the divine blessing, our days shall flow in a stream as unruffled as the human state admits."

d. Accordingly, such phrases as those which occur in the following sentence, though dependent on another expression, are punctuated better by the comma: "The world is still renewed with fresh life and beauty, with a constant succession of trees and plants, with a new race of animals, with a new generation of men."

e. Some punctuators insert a dash, instead of a semicolon or a comma, between clauses or phrases dependent on other expressions. But, though it is not denied that in the more rhetorical kind of such sentences, this mark may be adopted, the semicolon or the comma is usually preferable, because the frequent recurrence of dashes, thence ensuing, would be unpleasant to the eye, without affording a proportionate aid to the understanding, and would mar the effect which they have when properly and necessarily used.

f. The dash, however, appended to a comma, as in the second and third examples under the rule, is suitably put after the last particular, that the relation of all the particulars to the portion on which they depend may be more clearly shown. See Chap. III., Sect. III.

ORAL EXERCISE.

Show how the Rule (p. 120) may be applied to the insertion of the semicolons in the following sentences :—

To have even our earthly being extended in everlasting remembrance; to be known wherever the name of virtue can reach; and to be known as the benefactors of every age, by the light which we have diffused, or the actions which we have performed or prompted,-who is there that does not feel some desire of this additional immortality? Is there any splendor to be found in distant travels beyond that which sits its morning throne in the golden east; any dome sublimer than that of heaven; any beauty fairer than that of the verdant and blossoming earth; any place, though invested with all the sanctities of old time, like that home which is hushed and folded within the embrace of the humblest wall and roof?

Leighton is great by the magnificence of thought; by the spontaneous emanations of a mind replete with sacred knowledge, and bursting with seraphic affections; by that pauseless gush of intellectual splendor, in which the outward shell, the intermediate letter, is eclipsed and almost annihilated, that full scope may be given to the mighty effulgence of the informing spirit.

Happy, thrice happy, he who relies on the eternity of the soul; who believes, as the loved fall one after one from his side, that they have returned to their native country; who feels that each treasure of knowledge he attains, he carries with him through illimitable being; who sees in virtue the essence and the element of the world he is to inherit.

There are men whose powers operate in leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigor deserts them in conversation; whom merriment confuses, and objection disconcerts; whose bashfulness restrains their exertion, and suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is past; or whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled.

That benevolence which prompted Jesus to incessant exertion; which supported him through unparalleled suffering; which was alike the soul of his discourses, his actions, and his miracles; which shone through his life and his death; whose splendors were around his brow, when he expired on the cross, and when he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, - what is it but a glorious revelation of the glorious truth, that God is love?

EXERCISES TO BE WRITTEN.

Insert semicolons or commas between the particulars of each series in these sentences, in accordance with the Rule and Remarks (pp. 120-21): —

The great tendency and purpose of poetry is to carry the mind above and beyond the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life to lift it into a purer element and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. (Rule, and Remark c.)

He was framed to enjoy equally the fire of poetic or the abstruseness of philosophical writings to watch the meteor-flash of oratory or to trace in history's page the even course of milder eloquence. (Remark d.)

Benevolence remembers the slave pleads his cause with God and man recognizes in him a human brother respects in him the sacred rights of humanity and claims for him, not as a boon but as a right, that freedom without which humanity withers, and God's child is degraded into a tool or a brute. (Remark b.)

If thou hast never tasted the holy peace which descends into the simplest heart, when it fervently realizes the presence of God if no gleam from the future life ever brightens thy earthly way if the sores and irritations of thy contact with the world are never soothed and softened by the healing consciousness of a divine love, thou hast studied to little purpose, and the fountains of a true happiness are yet sealed up to thee. (Rule.)

The bad phenomenon of character, which is mainly to be traced to impulse, is that of uncertainty of a being on whom no dependence can be placed who is driven hither and thither by every wind that blows who receives impressions one day from one quarter, another day from another who has neither fixed principles in his intellect, nor harmony and consistency in his conduct. (Rule.)

No matter in what language the stranger's doom may have been pronounced no matter what complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery, the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust his soul walks abroad in her own majesty his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible Genius of Universal Emancipation. (Rules, pp. 120, 116.)

Let the following paragraphs be punctuated throughout, in consistency with the Rule and Remarks (pp. 120-21), and with preceding portions of the work:

Wherever on this earth an understanding is active to know and serve the truth wherever a heart beats with kind and pure and generous affections wherever a home spreads its sheltering wing over husband and wife and parent and child- there under every diversity of outward circumstance the true worth and dignity and peace of man's soul are within reach of all.

In the light of beauty that floats over the changing aspects of the material universe in the grand interpreting thought which pervades the broken story of the ages and translates it into coherency in the spirit which comes to you from the smiles of gladness and the tears of sorrow and softens your heart in genial sympathy with human weal and human woe in the interchange of ideas which kindles enthusiasm and draws a higher meaning and purpose out of lifeacknowledge realities which transcend the limits of sense own a spiritual world whose mysteries encompass you on every side by whose laws you are bound and in whose issues of endless unfolding you are yourself perhaps destined to be involved.

Those who have shone in all ages as the lights of the world the most celebrated names that are recorded in the annals of fame legislators the founders of states and the fathers of their country on whom succeeding ages have looked back with filial reverence patriots the guardians of the laws who have stemmed the torrent of corruption in every age heroes the saviours of their country who have returned victorious from the field of battle or more than victorious who have died for their country philosophers who have opened the book of nature and explained the wonders of almighty power bards who have sung the praises of virtue and of virtuous men whose strains carry them down to immortality-with a few exceptions have been uniformly on the side of goodness and have been as distinguished in the temple of fame. It was one of the maxims which governed their lives that there is nothing in nature which can compensate wickedness that although the rewards and punishments which influence illiberal and ungenerous minds were set aside that although the thunders of the Almighty were hushed and the gates of paradise were open no more they would follow religion and virtue for their own sake and co-operate with eternal Providence in perpetual endeavors to favor the good to depress the bad and to promote the happiness of the whole creation.