Is the goodness, or wisdom, of the divine Being, more manifest in this his proceedings? Spectator, N° 519.

Exclamation.

THIS note is appropriated by grammarians to indicate that some passion or emotion is contained in the words to which it is annexed, and it may, therefore, be looked upon as essentially distinct from the rest of the points; the office of which is commonly supposed to be, that of fixing or determining the sense only. Whether a point that indicates passion or emotion, without determining what emotion or passion is meant, or if we had points expressive of every passion or emotion, whether this would in common usage more assist or embarrass the elocution of the reader, I shall not at present attempt to decide : but when this point is applied to sentences, which from their form might be supposed to be merely interrogative, and yet really imply wonder, surprise, or astonishment; when this use, I say, is made of the note of exclamation, it must be confessed to be of no small importance in reading, and very justly deserve a place in grammatical punctuation.

Thus the sentence, How mysterious are the ways of Providence! which naturally adopts the exclamation, may, by a speaker who denies these mysteries, become a question, by laying a stress on the word how, and subjoining the note of interrogation; as, How mysterious are the ways of Providence? Expressing our gratitude, we may cry out with rapture, What have you done for me! or we may use the very same words contemptuously to inquire, WHAT have you done for me? intimating that nothing has been done; the very different import of these sentences, as

they are differently pointed, sufficiently show the utility of the note of exclamation.

It may not be entirely useless to take notice of a common errour of grammarians; which is, that both this point and the interrogation require an elevation of voice. The inflexion of voice proper to one species of question, which it is probable, grammarians may have mistaken for an elevation of voice, it is presumed has been fully explained under that article: by the elevation of voice they impute to this point, it is not unlikely that they mean the pathos or energy, with which we usually express passion or emotion, but which is by no means inseparably connected with elevation of voice : even to suppose that all passion or emotion necessarily assumes a louder tone, it must still be acknowledged this is very different from a higher tone of voice, and therefore that the common rule is very fallacious and inaccurate.

were we

The truth is, the expression of passion or emotion consists in giving a distinct and specific quality to the sounds we use, rather than in increasing or diminishing their quantity, or in giving this quantity any local direction upwards or downwards: understanding the import of a sentence, and expressing that sentence with passion or emotion, are things as distinct as the head and the heart: this point therefore, though useful to distinguish interrogation from emotion, is as different from the rest of the points as Grammar is from Rhetoric: and whatever may be the tone of voice proper to the note of exclamation, it is certain the inflexions it requires are exactly the same as the rest of the points; that is, if the exclamation point is placed after a member that would have the rising inflexion in another sentence, it ought to have the rising in this; if

H

after a member that would have the falling inflexion, the exclamation ought to have the falling inflexion likewise.

An instance that the exclamation requires no particular inflexion of voice may be seen in the following speech of Gracchus, quoted by Cicero, and inserted in the Spectator, N° 541.

Whither shall I tùrn? Wretch that I am! to what place shall I betake myself? Shall I go to the Capitol? Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's bloòd! Or shall I retire to my hòuse? yet there I behold my mother plunged in misery, weeping, and despairing!

Every distinct portion of this passage may be truly said to be an exclamation; and yet we find in reading it, though it can scarcely be pronounced with too much emotion, the inflexions of voice are the same as if pronounced without any emotion at all; that is, the portion, Whither shall I turn, terminates like a question, with the interrogative word, with the falling inflexion. The member, Wretch that I am, like a member forming incomplete sense, with the rising inflexion; the question without the interrogative word, Shall I go to the Capitol, with the rising inflexion; Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's blood, with the falling; the question commencing with the disjunctive or, Or shall I retire to my house, with the falling inflexion, but in a lower tone of voice.

Thus we see how vague and indefinite are the general rules for reading this point, for want of distinguishing high and low tones of voice from those upward and downward slides, which may be in any note of the voice, and which, from their radical difference, form the most marking differences in pronunciation.

Parenthesis.

THE parenthesis is defined by our excellent grammarian, Dr. Lowth, to be a member of a sentence inserted in the body of a sentence, which member is neither necessary to the sense, nor at all affects the construction. He observes also, that, in reading, or speaking, it ought to have a moderate depression of the voice, and a pause greater than a comma.

The real nature of the parenthesis once understood, we are at no loss for the true manner of delivering it. The tone of voice ought to be interrupted, as it were, by something unforeseen; and, after a pause, the parenthesis should be pronounced in a lower tone of voice, at the end of which, after another pause, the higher tone of voice, which was interrupted, should be resumed, that the connexion between the former and latter part of the interrupted sentence may be restored. It may be observed too, that, in order to preserve the integrity of the principal members, the parenthesis ought not only to be pronounced in a lower tone, but a degree swifter than the rest of the period, as this still better preserves the broken sense, and distinguishes the explanation from the text. For that this is always the case in conversation, we can be under no doubt, when we consider that whatever is supposed to make our auditors wait, gives an impulse to the tongue, in order to relieve them, as soon as possible, from the suspense of an occasional and unexpected interruption.

EXAMPLES.

Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs us, that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that nature (who it seems was even with the son for her prodigality to the father) rendered him incapable of improving, by all the rules of

eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavours, and the most refined conversation in Athens. Spect. No 307. Natural historians observe (for whilst I am in the country I must fetch my allusions from thence) that only the male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breedingtime, and end a little after. Ibid. No 128.

Dr. Clarke has observed, that Homer is more perspicuous than any other author; but if he is so (which yet may be questioned) the perspicuity arises from his subject, and not from the language itself in which he writes. Ward's Grammar, p. 292.

The many letters which come to me from persons of the best sense of both sexes (for I may pronounce their characters from their way of writing) do not a little encourage me in the prosecution of this my undertaking. Spect. No 124.

It is this sense, which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagination or fancy (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects. Ibid. No 411.

We sometimes meet, in books very respectably printed, with the parenthesis marked where there ought to be only commas. We have an instance of this in Hannah More's Strictures on Modern Female Education; where, describing in the most picturesque and truly satiric style, the confusion, indifference, and insincerity, which reign at routs and drums, she says, "He would hear "the same stated phrases interrupted, not answered, by the same stated replies; the unfi"nished sentence driven adverse to the winds by pressing multitudes; the same warm regret mutually exchanged by two friends (who "had been expressly denied to each other all the

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winter) that they had not met before; the same "soft and smiling sorrow at being torn away "from each other now; the same anxiety to re"new the meeting, with perhaps the same secret "resolution to avoid it." Vol. ii. p. 180.

In this beautiful description, the words marked with the parenthesis belong essentially to the