not be denied that this results only from a knowledge of a writer's meaning, and from the kind of phraseology which he employs. That the notes of interrogation and exclamation have far less to do with the inflections of the voice than is commonly imagined, will be fully apparent from the following sentences, some of which require a rise, and others a fall, in their pronunciation: "Shall we in your person crown' the author of the public calamities, or shall we destroy him?"-"What is the happiness that this world can give? Can it defend us from disasters"?"—"Oh that these lips had language'!"-"How mysterious are the ways of Providence`!" RULE I. Expressions in the Form of Questions. An interrogative mark is placed at the termination of every question, whether it requires an answer, or, though in its nature assertive, is put, for the sake of emphasis, in an interrogative form. EXAMPLES. 1. Why, for so many a year, has the poet or the philosopher wandered amid the fragments of Athens or of Rome; and paused, with strange and kindling feelings, amid their broken columns, their mouldering temples, their deserted plains? It is because their day of glory is past. 2. How can he exalt his thoughts to any thing great or noble who only believes, that, after a short term on the stage of existence, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness for ever? REMARK S. a. The first of these passages exemplifies a sentence expressive of direct inquiry; the second, one that is assertive in its meaning, but interrogative in its structure or form. b. The mark of interrogation should not be used when it is only affirmed that a question has been asked, and the expression denoting inquiry is put in any other shape than that of a direct question; as, "I was asked if I would stop for dinner." If put in the interrogative form, this sentence would be read and punctuated according to the rule: "I was asked, 'Will you stop for dinner?'" c. In some instances, however, a question may be assertive in its form, but interrogative in its sense; as, "You will stop for dinner?" In order to distinguish a sentence of this kind from one that is affirmative both in form and signification, it is obvious that the note of interrogation should be employed. d. It is a common error, both with writers and printers, to make one interrogative mark represent several successive questions, which, though connected in sense, are in construction distinct and separate; and to substitute semicolons or dashes where notes of interrogation should be used. In the following passage, therefore, each question should be distinguished by its appropriate mark, and not by dashes, which are used in the original: "What is civilization? Where is it? What does it consist in? By what is it excluded? Where does it commence? Where does it end? By what sign is it known? How is it defined? In short, what does it mean?" e. When, however, the expressions denoting inquiry cannot be separated, and read alone, without materially injuring the sense, one mark of interrogation, placed at the end of all the questions, will be sufficient; as, “Ah! whither now are fled those dreams of greatness; those busy, bustling days; those gay-spent, festive nights; those veering thoughts, lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?" f. When sentences or expressions which were affirmative when spoken or originally written are quoted by a writer in the form of a question, the interrogative point should be put after the marks of quotation [""], and not before them; as, "The passing crowd" is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls "universal sympathies," and even to the plain, ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than "the passing crowd"? But, for the sake of neatness, any of the four grammatical points, when required, should be put before the quotation-marks, as they are not likely to give a false meaning to the words cited. g. The interrogative mark should be inserted immediately after a question which formally introduces a remark or a quotation; as, "Who will not cherish the sentiment contained in the following words of Washington? The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is, in some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.'" ORAL EXERCISES. After mentioning the distinctive uses of the notes of interrogation and exclamation, say why interrogative marks are inserted in these sentences: Are there not seasons of spring in the moral world? and is not the present age one of them? Who can look only at the muscles of the hand, and doubt that man was made to work? The past, the mighty past, the parent of the present, — where is it? What is it? Are the palaces of kings to be regarded with more interest than the humbler roofs that shelter millions of human beings? If a wicked man could be happy, who might have been so happy as Haman? Who would tear asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? Have you more liberty allowed you to wound your neighbor's character than you have to shed his blood? A gaudy verbosity is always eloquence in the opinion of him that writes it; but what is the effect on the reader? Bion, seeing a person who was tearing the hair of his head for sorrow, said, "Does this man think that baldness is a remedy for grief? Is the celestial fire which glowed in their hearts for ever quenched, and nought but ashes left to mingle with the earth, and be blown around the world? You say you will repent in some future period of time; but are you sure of arriving at that period of time? Have you one hour in your hand? Have you one minute at your disposal? What but the ever-living power of literature and religion preserved the light of civilization, and the intellectual stores of the past, undiminished in Greece, during the long and dreary ages of the decline and downfall of the Roman empire? Who shall sunder me from such men as Fenelon and Pascal and Borromco, from Archbishop Leighton, Jeremy Taylor, and John Howard? Who can rupture the spiritual bond between these men and myself? Do I not hold them dear? Does not their spirit, flowing out through their writings and lives, penetrate my soul? Are they not a portion of my being? Am I not a different man from what I should have been, had not these and other like spirits acted on mine? And is it in the power of synod or conclave, or of all the ecclesiastical combinations on earth, to part me from them? Show how the Rule or the Remarks (pp. 155–6) apply to the punctuation of these sentences: "Honest man," says I, "be so good as to inform me whether I am in the way to Mirlington." The question is not what we might actually wish with our present views, but what with juster views we ought to wish. When a king asked Euclid the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner, he was answered that there was no royal way to geometry. "The sun not set yet, Thomas?". "Not quite, sir. It blazes through the trees on the hill yonder, as if their branches were all on fire." The Phoenicians invented letters; but what did they do with them? Apply them to the record, the diffusion, transmission, and preservation of knowledge? You do not expect me to leave my family, when we are all so comfortable, and brave the perils of a long passage and sickly climate, for the mere chance of getting gold? To purchase heaven, has gold the power? In life can love be bought with gold? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is not their period to be reserved for retirement and meditation? Are the stars, that gem the vault of the heavens above us, mere decorations of the night, or suns and centres of planetary systems? Where be your gibes now; your gambols; your songs; your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? -- Are you conscious of a like increase in wisdom, in pure endeavors to make yourself and other men what you and they ought to be? Greece, indeed, fell; but how did she fall? Did she fall like Babylon? Did she fall "like Lucifer, never to hope again"? Is there any man so swelled by the conceit of his union with the true church, as to stand apart, and say, "I am holier than thou"? What do you say? What? I really do not understand you. Be so good as to explain yourself again. Upon my word, I do not. Oh! now I know: you mean to tell me it is a cold day. Why did you not say at once, " It is cold to-day "? RULE II. Expressions indicating Passion or Emotion. An exclamative mark is put after expressions denoting an ardent wish, admiration, or any other strong emotion; after interjections, words used as interjections, or clauses containing them; and after terms or expressions in an address, corresponding to the vocative case in Latin, when emphatic. EXAMPLES. 1. Would that we had maintained our humble state, and continued to live in peace and poverty! 2. How sweet are the slumbers of him who can lie down on his pillow, and review the transactions of every day, without condemning himself! 3. What a fearful handwriting upon the walls that surround the deeds of darkness, duplicity, and sensual crime! 4. Bah! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to do! Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. 5. Away, all ye Cæsars and Napoleons! to your own dark and frightful domains of slaughter and misery! 6. Friends, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. REMARK S. a. With the exception of the dash, there is probably no point respecting which more vague and inaccurate conceptions are entertained than in regard to the applying of the note of exclamation. Some writers freely make use of this mark where the sentiments do not contain one iota of emotion, and foist it in on every possible occasion, sometimes in a twofold or a triplicate form; thus vainly trying to hide their lack of pathos or of passion by a bristling array of dagger-like points. Others, again, indulge a questionable taste for the same mark, by using it wherever their diction is capable of conveying emotion to others, but where neither the structure of the expressions employed, nor the tones or inflections of the voice required in reading, will admit of the point. On this subject, we quote the judicious remarks of the Rev. Joseph Robertson, in his "Essay on Punctuation," third edition, Lond. 1791, p. 113: "It may |