tached. For this reason, they have injudiciously combined them into one complex sentence, by inserting the relative which, and thereby weakened the expression : "Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble." They have also thought fit sometimes to add the conjunction and when it was not necessary, and might well have been spared.

"If any one perceives not the difference, and consequently, is not satisfied of the truth of this doctrine, let him make the following experiment on the song now under review. Let him transcribe it by himself, carefully inserting conjunctions and relatives, in every place which will admit them in a consistency with the sense, and then let him try the effect of the whole. If, after all, he is not convinced, I know no argument in nature that can weigh with him. For this is one of those cases in which the decision of every man's own taste must be final with regard to himself."27

Although there has not been any intention in this essay, of trenching on the office of a rhetorician, any further than is necessary to elucidate the punctuation of sentences, it is suggested that in the formation of a sentence, the use of pronouns and other words of reference to other sentences, should as much as possible be avoided.

Perhaps to the arrangement or misarrangement of the members and fragments of periods and sentences, is it to be attributed, that we are pleased with some public speakers, and displeased with others :-two preachers shall have the very same ideas upon the very same subject, shall both use much the same words upon the same subject, and both shall actually convey their ideas to the minds of their hearers; now one pleases us

because speaking in well-framed sentences and periods, he does not distress our minds; while the other displeases us because he deals in loose sentences, and is therefore tiresome.

To follow Grammarians and Rhetoricians in all that they have said as to the several varieties of the period, and of the feet and measures of which periods ought to consist, and with which they ought to conclude, in order to make them harmonious, is too foreign to the particular subject of this essay, and will not be further attempted.

THE COLON AND SEMI-COLON.

FIRST, MORE PARTICULARLY AS REGARDS THE COLON.

Colon is a Greek word, which is variously translated; a limb; a member, as a foot or leg; a part of a building; a member of a sentence.28

The ancient author before referred to, describes the colon and semi-colon under the name of come: "the sentence," he says, "either is yet unperfect, or else if it be perfect, there cometh more after it belonging to it; the which more cannot be perfect by itself without, at the least, somewhat of it which goeth before."

In the preface to an English dictionary (published anonymously) the colon is described as follows;-“the colon is used when that which precedes it, is complete, but is followed by something illustrative": to illustrate his position the author gives the following example ;— "In misfortunes we often mistake dejection for constancy we bear them without daring to look on them; as cowards suffer themselves to be killed without resist

ance"-commenting on the passage he adds;-" the connective as in the latter division, makes a semi-colon more proper than a colon before it"; this author confounds colons and semi-colons with the colon and semi-colon points.

Nature confesseth some atonement to be necessary: the Gospel discovers that the atonement is made.

In this quotation the first member, "Nature confesseth some atonement to be necessary, is by itself a simple period: the second member, “the Gospel discovers that the atonement is made," is also by itself a simple period; this second member is the more which cometh after, which relatively is not perfect of itself, without somewhat of that which went before ;-singly, they are sentences, or periods; in connection they become colons, and form only one period.

The Definition of colons in English composition may be set out as follows;-when a simple period has in it, no words leading the reader to expect another member, and another simple period, illustrative of the first, and used for that illustration alone, does immediately follow, the two periods severally become colons and form a sentence. In a discourse, in which the subject-matter is closely kept to, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a sentence, simple or complex, which does not throw some light or have some relation to another sentence; but it does not thence follow that such a sentence is a colon; to become such, it must be used to illustrate an immediately preceding member, and for that purpose alone. The word immediately in the preceding sentence, is not intended to have the force of excluding the use of more than one colon in a sentence.

In the formation of colons, pronouns representing

nouns of the period or member to be illustrated, are frequently and must sometimes be necessarily used: thence it follows, that every colon may be reduced to the form of a simple or monocolonic period, by converting its pronouns into the nouns they severally represent, and by repeating or supplying any word, which is not expressed, but only understood.

One criterion of a colon is, that it always has its own verb expressed or understood.29

Example of a sentence of three members ;

Geology has claims upon the regard of all cultivated and pious minds: it leads us to study that, which God has made our earthly abode, in its present state, filled with monuments of past conditions, and presages, I venture to think, of the future: it leads us into some acquaintance with a magnificent part of Jehovah's will, according to which he worketh all things.

The following is an example of a sentence consisting of five members, in the form of a climax ;—

We can do nothing well till we act with one accord: we can have no accord in action till we agree together in heart: we cannot agree without a supernatural influence: we cannot have a supernatural influence unless we pray for it: we cannot pray acceptably without repentance and confession.

A mistake pointed out, sometimes teaches as much as a perfect work: the printer of William Cobbett's English Grammar, in the very sentence in which Cobbett professes to shew what a colon is, has placed a fullpoint, where a colon-point ought to have been inserted : this may be seen in the following extract;-"The colon which is written thus (:) is next to the full-point in requiring a complete sense to the words. It is indeed often used when the sense is complete, and there is something still behind, which tends to make the sense fuller or clearer" now Mr. Cobbett's second period is a member, which tends to make the sense of the

former fuller or clearer; therefore, according to Mr. Cobbett's own rule, it ought to have been divided from the former by a colon-point, or at least a semi-colonpoint, and not by a full-point.

MORE PARTICULARLY OF THE SEMI-COLON.

The semi-colon of English composition is only a variety of the colon: like that it has its own verb expressed or understood:-the distinction between them may be drawn as follows;-the colon takes more nearly than the semi-colon the form of a period, and words of reference are more frequently used in the semi-colon, than in the colon.

The semi-colon appears in two forms: the first is this ; if one member contains a word or words, which lead the reader to expect another member, and another member, having a word or words of reference to the former does immediately follow, the latter member is a semi-colon.

The second form is, when one member is followed by another, and the latter means nothing or effects nothing, without calling in aid the preceding member, then the latter member is a semi-colon.

An example of the semi-colon in the first form will now follow ;

As the desire of approbation, when it works according to reason, improves a man in everything that is laudable; so nothing is more destructive to him, when he is governed by vanity and folly.

Examples of the semi-colon in the second form;—

Under the general head of conversation for the improvement of the mind, we may rank the practice of disputing; that is, when two or more persons appear to have different sentiments, and maintain their own, or oppose the other's opinion, in alternate discourse, by some methods of argument.

Disputes may sometimes be successful to search times effectual to maintain truth and convince the other times a dispute is a mere scene of battle, in and vain triumph.

D

out truth,-somemistaken; but at order to victory