Q. What is the Scripture doctrine of progress? A. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. iii. 13-15.)

Don. Good-morrow, Count Erizzo: you are early.
Are you bound to the palace?

Eriz.

Ay, Donato,

The common destination; but I go

With an old friend.

Don.

What, Celso, thou turned courtier?

In the silence of evening, conscience has a distinct and audible voice. And for us, erring, sinning men, it is greatly wise to listen, "To talk with our past hours,

And ask them what report they bore to heaven,

And how they might have borne more welcome news."

A SOFT ANSWER TURNETH AWAY WRATH. The Horse in the Pound, and the Cattle in the Field. The horse of a pious man in Massachusetts happening to stray into the road, a neighbor of the man who owned the horse put him in the pound. Meeting the owner soon after, he told him what he had done, and added, "If ever I catch him in the road hereafter, I'll do just so again.". "Neighbor," replied the other, "not long since, I looked out of my window in the night, and saw your cattle in my mowing ground; and I drove them out, and shut them in your yard; and I'll do it again." Struck with the reply, the man liberated the horse from the pound, and paid the charges himself. - Anecdotes of Kindness and Philanthropy.

SECT. CLXXVIII. —A CONSISTENT SERVANT.

A very rich lady in Boston had in her employment a young man from the country. On certain occasions, he was instructed to inform any company who might ring at the door, that Mrs. not at home.

was

One day, John made his reply to an intimate friend of the lady, who shortly went away, leaving a card and a promise to call again. As the card was handed to Mrs. she said, "John, what did you

say to the lady?" "I told her you were not at home.” Well,

John, I hope you did not laugh? "I never laugh when I tell a lie."

“Oh, no! ma'am,” said John:

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CHAPTER IV.

LETTER, SYLLABIC, AND QUOTATION POINTS.

THE points treated of in the two preceding chapters have been classified into two kinds, 1. The grammatical; and, 2. The grammatical and rhetorical. As previously stated, they are used for the purpose of developing the sense of a composition, by exhibiting the various connections and constructions of words, phrases, and clauses; and of aiding the delivery, by showing the nature of sentences, as affirmative, interrogative, emotional, parenthetic, suspensive, or broken. The marks to be considered in this chapter are

These are put into a class different from the others, because, though they serve to bring out the sense and to aid a just delivery, they do not exhibit any analysis of sentences, or point out the relation of their parts to one another, but call the attention merely to letters or syllables, as do the Apostrophe and Hyphen, or to something foreign to the meaning and construction of the passages to which they are prefixed and annexed, as is the case with the Marks of Quotation.

198

SECT. I. - THE APOSTROPHE.

The APOSTROPHE ['] is a mark distinguished in appearance from a comma, only in being placed above the line; but its uses are altogether different.

RULE I.

Elision of Letters, or Shortening of Words.

The apostrophe is used, chiefly in poetry and in familiar dialogue, to denote the omission of a letter or of letters.

a. A word pronounced in full should not be abbreviated with the apostrophe, except in headings to column-work, where saving of room is necessary, and where the full point at the end would not indicate the word intended. See p. 149, Remark c.

b. Though not, strictly speaking, abbreviations, the plurals of mere letters or of Arabic figures are formed by the insertion of an apostrophe before the s; as, "Mark all the a's and o's in your exercise." "In this sum there are four 2's and three 5's."

c. It was once a common practice, especially in verse, to write and print tho' and thro', instead of though and through; but these abbreviated forms are now discontinued, for the very just reason that they do not shorten the pronunciation of the words, the chief object for which abbreviations are used. To prevent, however, the

turuing of a line in poetry, so as to occupy the space of two, which is offensive to the eye, tho' and thro' may occasionally be thus printed.

d. Borough, the termination of some proper names, is not unfrequently contracted into bro or boro, either with or without the addition of an apostrophe; as, Marlbro, Southboro'. If the abbreviation is made, the apostrophe should be used to indicate the omission of the last letters; but, except in lines where room must be saved, it would be much better to write and print all such words in full; as, Marlborough. Edinboro' is a barbarous corruption of Edinburgh, and should never deface a printed page.

e. The particle till, being a substitute for until, which is now seldom used, should not be preceded by an apostrophe.

f. The mark under notice is erroneously used in the words to, the, heaven, power, every, threatening, and others of a similar nature, when written, as they frequently are in verse, t', th', heav'n, pow'r, ev'ry, threat'ning, &c.; for, though apparently, in the full or unelided form, making a syllable additional to the number of the feet required by the verse, they are never pronounced differently from the same words in prose, nor does this pronunciation at all affect the rhythm. Indeed no elocutionist or poet deserving of the name would read the phrases, "to attain perfection " and "the accomplished sofa," in the following lines, as if written tattain perfection, thaccomplished sofa; though, judging from the mode in which they were originally printed ("t' attain, th' accomplished"), a reader might imagine that this absurd pronunciation was requisite. The verse in which they occur should therefore stand thus:

So slow

The growth of what is excellent; so hard
To attain perfection in this nether world.
Thus, first, Necessity invented stools;
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs;

And Luxury, the accomplished sofa next.

g. It seems to have been the practice in former times to pronounce, as an additional syllable, the ed in the imperfect tense of verbs, in past participles, and in participial adjectives; and hence arose the propriety, in poetical works of a bygone age, of omitting the e in words of this sort, and of supplying its place with an apostrophe, when the termination treated of coalesced in pronunciation with the primitive to which d or ed was attached. Now, however, that this syllable is not separately enunciated in prose, —except in learned, beloved, cursed, winged, when used as adjectives, and in some

instances where a combination of harsh consonants necessarily requires the ed always to be articulated as a syllable; and except also in Sacred Scripture, portions of which should be read in a very solemn manner, the propriety of supplying the place of the e with an apostrophe is exceedingly questionable. In many recent publications, therefore, the mark of elision has been thrown aside in regard to such words, and a grave accent placed on the e in those only which are lengthened for the sake of the rhythm; as will be seen in the following lines:

I praised the sun, whose chariot rolled

On wheels of amber and of gold;

I praised the moon, whose softer eye

Gleamed sweetly through the summer sky;

And moon and sun in answer said,

"Our days of light are numbered."

Some writers, however, prefer to mark the additional syllable by an acute accent or a diæresis on the vowel; as, mailéd or brightenëd. But, as the acute accent is sometimes used in poetry to point out a change in the true accentuation of a word, as aspect, instead of áspect, — and the diæresis to separate in pronunciation two vowels coming together, —as Danaë, — it would be better to appropriate in verse the grave accent to the lengthening of words ending in ed.

h. In the preceding paragraph, we have endeavored to show the inutility of substituting the apostrophe for an e, in the termination ed, when pronounced in union with a preceding syllable. It may, however, be proper to admit, that many respectable authors and printers adopt a middle course in reference to the words under consideration. They always retain the e in the imperfect tense and perfect participle of those verbs whose infinitive ends in that letter, but in poetry use an apostrophe in the same forms of verbs, when the infinitive terminates with a consonant; as, "to grieve, grieved; to gain, gain'd." They also, as a matter of course, reject as useless the accent in such a word as numberèd, when the ed forms an additional syllable; the e being retained as an exception to their general rule, in order to show that the ed does not coalesce with the preceding syllable. The mode of using the vowel and the apostrophe, here adverted to, is exemplified in the following lines:—

Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry nature lengths unknown before,

To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.