Here the exclamatory part of the sentence stops after sinecure. The point of admiration is therefore to be placed there. What follows is a plain and unelevated assertion: what precedes is elliptical and suspensive. We may conceive adjectives comprehensive enough to include the several qualities assigned to the nymph; but this ceases in the fifth line; there we must have a verb: in other words, a logical preposition is there enunciated, and to it the point of admiration cannot be applied.

Sometimes it is difficult to say whether the note of admiration or of interrogation ought to be used. In cases where strong exclamatory surprise is accompanied with interroga tion, either the one or the other may be adopted, as the author intends the feeling of surprise or the wish for information to predominate. Thus Young:

The morning came, when Strephon, waking. found

(Surprising sight!) his bride in sorrow drown'd:

"What miracle," says Strephon, "makes you weep?"

“Ah, barbarous man," she sobs, "how could you sleep?"

Here the point after weep may be

either the note of admiration or interrogation, but that after sleep must be the latter.

In closing these desultory remarks on a subject which may perhaps be deemed not worth so much room, I may be permitted to observe, that he who would acquire a practical knowledge of punctuation ought to read our best, and especially our old classics, with an audible voice, and a scrupulous attention to the system of their style. I do not say that he must study their punctuation, but that if he reads aloud, his ear will contract a familiarity with the genuine unfrenchified melody of our admirable language, and he will thus be directed more easily and accurately in the choice and situation of the points, than by any system of rules, however elaborate. The benefits of such a course of reading are not only the acquisition of a correct punctuation, but also a familiarity with the pure English style of our better days. He who seriously studies our Hookers and our Bacons, our Raleighs and our Spensers, will not only acquire a correct and measured phraseology, but, what is of more conse. quence, he will improve his mind, increase his knowledge, and learn why he ought to be proud of the name of Englishman. G. H.

As with a crushing weight, which straightway pass'd,

And then I felt them carry me away From all my kindred, weeping and dis

trest.

Oh, how I inward shudder'd at decay. And pray'd in anguish for the blessed light of day!

I heard the measur'd march, and sullen tread,

And, now and then, a murmur pass along.

Hollow and deep, as best befits the dead To be spoke of, although men say no wrong:

They went the graves and sepulchres among,

And all, in still and solemn silence, stood

To let the coffin down; the earth they flung

Upon me, and I heard them beat the sod

I rav'd, and in my madness did blas pheme my God!

But that too pass'd away, and I could think,

And feel, and know my dismal, helpless state;

SIR,

THE "Classical Reveries" in your highly respectable Miscellany have, for some months past, given me, at leisure hours, much pleasure and curious information. Although I have not always been able to acquiesce in the conclusions at which the learned critic arrives, I have been uniformly pleased with the liberal manner, and good-humoured style, with which his discussions have been marked. As it is only through the "loci deplorati," the shoals and quicksands of classical literature, that he professes to steer his course, it can scarcely be expected that he should always reach the harbour with safety and success. Without any intention, however, to throw down the gauntlet to your classical correspondent, and produce discord among the peaceful haunts of Parnassus, I will, with your permission, offer a few

observations on some of the passages in which his attempts, in my opinion at least, have not been attended with their usual success.

In your Number for September he selected the 6th Stanza of the 35th Ode of the 1st Book of Horace, upon which he might display his ingenuity and critical acumen.

"Te, Spes, et albo rara Fides colit
Velata panno; nec comitem abnegat,
Utcunque mutata potentes
Veste domos inimica linquis.”

The following is an exact transcript of his interpretation of the passage, "Thee, Hope, and Faith, rarely to be found clothed in white *, attend,nor does Faith refuse to accompany thee, even when you change your character and your dress, and desert the houses of the great." This is, I believe, the explanation which is ge

nerally given of the stanza, and yet I suspect it conveys, if carefully examined, the very reverse of the author's meaning. To suppose that the poet had represented to himself Fortune as a twofold goddess, and that, in the commencement of the stanza, "Te, Spes, et albo rara Fides colit velata panno," he meant the goddess of Prosperity, and that in the very next line, "nec comitem abnegat," without at all apprising his readers, he meant the goddess of Adversity, would be to accuse Horace of a confusion of ideas, and a mixture of metaphors unworthy of the Roman Lyrist. The rock upon which all the commentators seem to have split is concealed, I imagine, under the expression " nec comitem abnegat,” which has been uniformly explained, "Nor does Fidelity refuse to accompany thee (Fortune) whenever thou (Fortune) leavest the houses of the rich," &c.

Now, if Hope and Fidelity abandon the houses of the rich along with the goddess Fortune, then, certainly, they are both equally deserving of the appellation of summer friends, as the faithless, vulgar, and perjured courtezan. It was this view of the subject that caused the slashing Bentley to unsheath his twoedged sword, and to cut the Gordian knot, instead of loosing it. It is not a little wonderful that the whole tribe of grave and learned critics should have taken it for granted that it was necessary, after abnegat, to understand se. This, in my opinion, has been the whole cause of their wandering. That verbs are sometimes used in this middle sense, with se understood after them, is a fact which none acquainted with the language will deny. But the practice is rare, and certainly not in the case before us. I would then understand abnegare as used to signify to abandon, or to refuse to accompany; and comes to signify a friend. If this view of the passage be correct, the stanza may be thus translated: "Hope attends upon thee, (Fortune,) and Fidelity arrayed in white robes, seldom to be met with in this degenerate age; nor does Fidelity abandon her friend, even when thou (Fortune) has changed thy gay robes for mourning, and in sullen anger

leavest the houses of the powerful." It is evident from the adversative conjunction at, that this stanza is meant to be contrasted with the following; and when this interpretation is put upon it, there is no necessity of accusing Horace of saying the contrary of what he intends.

Agricola of Tacitus.-Chap. VI. '

Hinc ad capessendos magistratus in urbem digressus, Domitiam Decidianam, splendidis natalibus ortam, sibi junxit: idque matrimonium ad majora nitenti decus ac robur fuit: vixeruntque mirâ concordiâ, per mutuam caritatem et invicem se anteponendo; nisi quod in bonâ uxore tantò major laus quanto in malâ plus culpa est.

This passage is a striking example of the elliptical manner of Tacitus's style, and affords ample proof, that, in reading his works, we must frequently guess at, rather than hope to ascertain his meaning. In the former part of the sentence, he informs us that Agricola and Decidiana lived in wonderful harmony with each other, and ascribes that domestic comfort to their reciprocal deference; and thus bestows equal praise_upon both the husband and wife. But in the latter clause he loses sight, as it were, for a moment, of the subject in hand, and qualifying the expression which represents both as equally meritorious, throws in a general remark, that in every case of this kind the wife is vested with more power than the husband, either of promoting the peace and happiness of a family, or of producing its discord and misery; in short, that in the home department the wife may be considered as commander-in-chief. Whether this sentiment of Tacitus, philosophically considered, be rigidly accurate or not, is not, I conceive, the subject with which we have at present to do; but, since this is the uniform reading of the manuscripts, let us endeavour to find out the just interpretation of the words, as they have come down to us. Believing, then, that these are the words which came from the pen of Tacitus, and that the sentiment conveyed by them is worthy of that philosophic writer, I would translate the passage thus: