"as little as Christ would acknowledge his vicar; "and the rest would be unable to guess what the "ceremony represented or intended." Though this sentence forms perfect sense at vicar, the critick affirms, that the succeeding members are so closely 'connected with the preceding, that they all togeth'er may be considered as a period, or compact sen

'tence.

Here we find the former distinction destroyed, and we are again to seek for such a definition of a sentence as will assure us what is a period or compact sentence, and what is a loose sentence; or, in other words, what members are necessarily, and what are not necessarily connected. In the first place we may observe, that it is not the perfect sense, formed by the preceding members, that determines a sentence to be loose: because succeeding members may be so necessarily connected with those that precede, notwithstanding the preceding members form perfect sense, that both together may form one period. Mr. Addison affords us an instance of this, in the Spectator, No. 86: "Every one that speaks and reasons, "is a grammarian and a logician, though he may be "utterly unacquainted with the rules of grammar or logick as they are delivered in books and systems." If we finish this sentence at logician, we shall find the sense perfect; and yet nothing can be more evident than that both the member which contains this word, and that which follows, are inseparably connected. It is not, therefore, the perfect sense which a member may form, that necessarily detaches it from the rest; if, upon perusing the latter part of the sentence, we find it evidently contained in the idea of the former, they must both be inseparably connected: the whole sentence, therefore, must be understood before we can pronounce upon the connection consisting between its parts.

46

But it may be demanded, what is the criterion of this connection; and how shall we know, with certainty, whether the idea of the latter member is necessarily contained in the former? To this it may be answered, if the latter member modifies the former, or places it in a point of view different from what it appears in alone, we may pronounce the members necessarily connected, and the sentence to be compact and periodick. In the last instance, the first member, Every one that speaks and reasons, is a grammarian and a logician; does not intend to af firm a fact which might be understood as descriptive of the state of man, either with or without the attainments of grammar and logick; but it refers precisely to that state which has no such attainments, and thus is modified by the last member, though he may be utterly unacquainted with the rules of grammar, or logick, as they are delivered in books and systems. The modification, therefore, of the former member by the latter, is the criterion of such connection as forms a period or compact sentence.

It is on this principle that all sentences founded on an hypothesis, a condition, a concession, or exception, may be esteemed compact sentences or periods; for in these sentences we shall find one part of the sentence modified by the other; and it may be affirmed of all other sentences, that whenever the conjunctions that connect their members together modify these members, the sentences they compose are periodick; and that whenever the conjunctions only explain or add to the meaning of the members to which they are subjoined, the sentences which these members compose are loose sentences. It will be necessary to explain this observation by examples.

EXAMPLES.

A man should endeavour to make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, that he may retire into them with

safety, and find in them such a satisfaction as a wise man would not blush to take. Of this nature are those of the imagination, which do not require such a bent of thought as is necessary to our more serious employments, nor at the same time suffer the mind to sink into that negligence and remissness, which are apt to accompany our more sensual delights.—Spectator, No. 411.

In the first of these sentences we find the conjunc tion that modifies or restrains the meaning of the preceding member; for it is not asserted in general, and without limitation, that a man should make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, but that he should do so for the purpose of retiring into himself these two members, therefore, are necessarily connected, and might have formed a period or compact sentence, had they not been followed by the last member; but as that only adds to the sense of the preceding members, and does not qualify them, the whole assemblage of members, taken together, form but one loose sentence.

The last member of the last sentence is necessarily connected with what precedes, because it modifies or restrains the meaning of it; for it is not meant, that the pleasures of the imagination do not suffer the mind to sink into negligence and remissness in general, but into that particular negligence and remissness which is apt to accompany our more sensual delights. The first member of this sentence affords an opportunity of explaining this by its opposite : for here it is not meant, that those pleasures of the imagination only are of this innocent nature which do not require such a bent of thought as is necessary to our more serious employments, but that of this nature are the pleasures of the imagination in general; and it is by asking the question whether a preceding member affirms any thing in general, or only affirms something as limited or qualified by what follows, that we shall discover whether these members are

either immediately or remotely connected, and, cònsequently, whether they form a loose or a compact sentence as the former member, therefore, of the last sentence, is not necessarily connected with those that succeed, the sentence may be pronounced to be a loose sentence.

If these observations have any solidity, we have at last arrived at the true distinction between a period and a loose sentence; which is, that a period is an assemblage of such words, or members, as do not form sense independent on each other; or if they do, the former modify the latter, or inversely; and that a loose sentence is an assemblage of such words or members as do form sense, independent on those that follow, and at the same time are not modified by them: A period or compact sentence, therefore, is divisible into two kinds; the first, where the former words and members depend for sense on the latter, as in the sentence, As we cannot discern the shadow moving along the dial-plate, so the advances we make in learning are only perceived by the distance gone over. Which for distinction's sake we may call a direct period. The second kind of period, or compact sentence, is that where, though the first part forms sense without the latter, it is nevertheless modified by it; as in the sentence, There are several arts which all men are in some measure masters of, without being at the pains of learning them. Which we may call an inverted period. The loose sentence has its first members forming sense, without being modified by the latter; as in the sentence, Persons of good taste expect to be pleased at the same time they are informed; and think that the best sense always deserves the best language. In which example, we find the latter member adding something to the former, but not modifying or altering it.

It will readily occur to the critical reader, that, in this definition of a period, I have departed widely

from the doctrine of the ancients, who consider it as an assemblage of members, and not of words only; but as such a reader will know the difficulty of giving a precise idea of a period, according to the opinion of the ancients, and what diversity and uncertainty there is about it among the moderns; he will the more easily excuse my hazarding a definition of my own. My principal object has been, to give such a definition as would be clear, precise and useful: such a one as would best answer the purposes of pronunciation, by exactly drawing the line between the connection and disjunctions of words, without making use of such indefinite terms as the more or less intimate connection of the parts, or the concurrence of the parts to the plenitude of a total sense.

Sentences thus defined and distinguished into their several kinds, we shall be better enabled to give such rules for dividing them by pauses, as will reduce punctuation to some rational and steady principles. Previously, however, to these rules, it will be necessary to observe, that as the times of the pauses are exceedingly indefinite, the fewer distinctions we make between them, the less we shall embarrass the reader: the common estimate of the times of the comma, the semicolon, the colon, and the period, in the geometrical proportions of 1, 2, 4, 8, pleases us, from its analogy with the times of the semibrief, minim, crotchet, and quaver in musick; but every one will confess at first sight, that as these distinctions in reading are arbitrary, they are useless; every one feels a difference between a greater and a smaller pause, but few can conceive degrees of these; I shall beg leave, therefore, to reduce the number of pauses to three; namely, the smaller pause, answering to the comma; the greater pause answering to the semicolon and colon; and the greatest pause answering to the period. The ancients knew nothing of the semicolon and if we consider practice and real utility,