they are manageable by the sense, which will, if carefully attended to, enable you to legislate for your self in these and more important matters. In conclusion, let me advise you never to sacrifice sense to rule› but, on all occasions, to forsake the rule that is opposed to sense! and thus will you cling to the only principle of safety.

END OF THE GRAMMAR.

PUNCTUATION.

PUNCTUATION.

1. BEFORE we enter fairly upon our subject, it may not be improper to observe, that, although I shall address you, invariably, as if confining my self to punctuation, I would by no means have you to proceed under such an impression, as you might thereby lose sight of many valuable hints on composition, for the teaching of which, this treatise is the more indirectly designed.

2. By composition, we are taught the best mode of conveying our thoughts, in language, to others, and by punctuation, we are instructed in the uses of certain marks, or stops, by which to point out the various relations subsisting between one portion of our composition and another, so as the precise idea intended may be the more easily ascertained by the reader.

3. Strange as it may seem, and strange as it undeniably is, punctuation has been left in the distance. While grammarians their selves, that they might not lack pace in the march of intellect, have sought, by every possible means, a brighter development of the beauties of our language, they have, at all times,

B

manifested the profoundest ignorance on the subject of our present inquiry, and while they have been advancing, step by step, in every other branch of grammatical science, on this subject, they have endeavoured to season our ignorance by telling us, that we must leave it to the better judgment of others. Although punctuation, to some, may have seemed so monstrous as not to be encountered but by the extraordinary in intellectual attainment, let us not start at the position, and, I doubt not, by calm and mature deliberation, we shall discover this frightful thing to be like the rest of those frightful things, which everybody has ever talked about, and nobody, ever seen.

4. The more particularly you attend to this subject, the better qualified will you be for evading similar errors to those which are daily committed by people who have not availed their selves of a knowledge of punctuation, under the mistaken notion, that the printer supplies the deficiency. A short time ago, I had a piece of letter-press, in which, on perusal, I found errors almost innumerable. I well remember seeing some bronzed ladies, which struck me very forcibly. The whole of the passage does not recur to my mind, but the ladies, who should have been white, were, by the improper insertion of a comma, transformed into bronzed ones. See No. 115.

We are furnished with a remarkable instance by Cobbett: "A memorable proof of the great importance of attending to points was given to the English nation in the year 1817. A committee of the House of Lords made a report to the house, respecting certain political clubs.