the Trojan chief? wherefore am I by the fates forbidden? Had not Pallas the power to burn the Argive Fleet? THE INTERJECTION. What is an interjection? is it a fragment of one single word? or is it a member or a fragment of a sentence of many words? or is it merely a point? Instead of a long dissertation upon these questions, I will quote some phrases marked by Grammarians with the interjectionpoint, and leave my readers to form their own opinions upon the matter. From the Port Royal Latin Grammar : Oh what a country! Oh wretched me! Oh too happy! Alas, where is the religion and fidelity of former days! Oh unhappy race! O lamentable! Ye gods! Ye men! Oh sacred Jupiter! Ah me! From the Eton Latin Grammar: She left the hope of the flock, alas! upon a bare rock. What madness! Oh the joyful day of man! O too fortunate husbandmen, if they knew but their own happiness! O beautiful boy! trust not too much to your beauty. This note in its legitimate use, is expressive of astonishment, rapture, or lamentation, and other emotions of the mind; but it is often abused, and pressed by satirists and libellers into their service: one of these writers is afraid to speak out; yet he wishes to satirise or to libel a particular person; to effect this he uses words of courtesy; but he adds the dagger-like note of admiration: The gallant admiral! The honorable gentleman! The learned civilian!!! In such hands it may be denominated the coward's-point. Upon another abuse of this note Blair says, "it has become a fashion among some writers, to subjoin points of admiration to sentences, which contain nothing but simple affirmations or propositions; as if, by an affected method of pointing, they would transform them in the reader's mind into high figures of eloquence.39" THE DASH. This mark was at first called the break, and its primary use was to denote that a period had broken off abruptly: I speak in the presence and fear of the Everlasting God, that my tongue is not my own for it is the Lord's, and to be disposed of according to his pleasure, and not to speak my own words; I have been so long in prison Then he was interrupted by the Judge. In this way was this mark used in 1662. The Dash is classed by Lindley Murray among the points: according to him it may be legitimately used, where a significant pause is required,-where a sentence breaks off abruptly, or where there is an unexpected turn. Others go beyond Murray and use the dash, in the place of the colon, semi-colon, and parenthesis-points; there are men to be found, who go even yet further, and contend that the dash should, in all cases, be substituted for the colon and semi-colon and comma points. The lawful object of pointing is, as before quoted, to make the period very light and easy to be understood both to the reader and hearer :-dismiss the period-point, the colon-point, and the semi-colon-point and the commapoint, and the parenthesis-point, and substitute the dash!-will its use make periods very light and easy to be understood? Let colon-points and semi-colon-points and comma-points and parenthesis-points be disused !— will colons and semi-colons and commas be destroyed? No they are realities, and wherever the language of civilized life is made use of they must have an existence. It can readily be imagined that ignorance or indolence, perhaps a combination of both, first suggested that the dash should perform all the duties of the colon, semicolon, comma, and parenthesis points. Cobbett's opinion of the dash is expressed in his concise and pithy language:40 "the dash is a cover for ignorance as to the use of points, and it can answer no other purpose." Cobbett would dismiss the dash altogether and he is wrong: others would use it for half a dozen different purposes, and they are equally out of the way.41 Dean Swift, (if a judgment is to be formed of a man's opinions by his rhymes,) had a contemptible opinion of the dash : "All modern trash is Sir James Burrow, as lately as 1768, speaks of the dash only by the name of break. The dash with Blair was not a favorite mark: he describes it, 66 as a contrivance practised by some writers, of separating almost all the members of their sentences from each other, by blank lines; as if, by setting them thus asunder, they bestowed some special importance upon them; and required us, in going along, to make a pause at every other word, and weigh it well." 42 Although Lindley Murray, in some cases, allows the use of the dash, he makes an observation upon it; that it is often used improperly by hasty and incoherent writers. However it must be allowed that the dash is become a well known, if not a well understood point. It appears to me that, besides marking epigrammatical and peculiar turns of expression, the dash may be lawfully used in conjunction with the other points, to qualify, or perhaps it may be said, to augment their several powers in pointing out the different members and fragments of a period, and in denoting certain pauses;—whenever used, unless, as in the example of 1662, to denote a sudden interruption, it appears to me, that it ought only to be an adjunct to another point, and never to be used independently. Some writers have contended for the propriety of other points, than those now commonly in use; for instance Dr. Ward, the Gresham professor, proposed a point to be called the semi-period;—but if the dash be used to qualify other points, the necessity of new points will be avoided.43 THE GENERAL CONCLUSION. If any one yet clings to the notion that periods, colons, and semi-colons are points, and not members of periods, he is referred to the language of Cicero; "what the Greeks call commas and colons, we call commata [commas] and [membra] members."44—Quinctilian distinctly says, "A member is contained within certain measures; torn from the body it can effect nothing. Oh skilful men, is perfect; but, removed from the body, it has no strength, as a hand, foot, or head by itself: when then is the body [period] perfect, even when the conclusion is attained?" 45 Many writers have no other intention in using any points, than to mark certain pauses, and some masters even of authority, have condescended to teach,-" at a comma stop while you can count one,-at a semi-colon two, at a colon three,—at a period four : "-looking at the imperfection of language, perhaps no better method can be found of teaching infants what pauses are; in the practice of grown up life such rules are of little or no value; the proper length of the several pauses depending upon the nature of the work, and the style of the reader or speaker. In this work, very little notice has been taken of the rules laid down by Grammarians for pointing; this has been done under a conviction, that a knowledge of what a period is, that a knowledge that colons, semi-colons, and interrogatives, are members of a complex period,— that a knowledge of what is a comma, a parenthesis, or a parathesis,—added to a knowledge of the uses of the |