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 ROBERT BEALL, 
 
 ' '•• AND StaTIO.N'EB, 
 
 405 Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
PENS AND TYPES: 
 
 OR, \ C^ 
 
 HINTS AND HELPS > 
 
 THOSE WHO WRITE. PRINT, OR READ. 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJAMIN DREW. 
 
 'A PORTION TO SEVEN, AND ALSO TO EIGHT.'* 
 
 IV 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 New York: 
 
 LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1874. 
 
ffM7 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 
 
 By BENJAMIN DiltiW, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 No. 19 Spring Lane. 
 
^ 
 
 EPACE. 
 
 *JA' 
 
 As "man measures man the world over," so 
 it may be presumed that the experience of a 
 laborer in any one department of literature, will, 
 in the general, tally with that ©f all others occu- 
 pying a similar position. This volume gives the 
 results of a proof-reader's experience, and such 
 suggestions derived therefrom as may, he hopes, 
 be usefiil to all who prepare reading-matter for 
 the press, to all who assist in printing and pub- 
 lishing it, and, finally, to the reading public. 
 
 But as a vein of imperfection runs through all 
 human achievement; and as the most carefully 
 issued volume must contain errors, — so this 
 work, if critically examined, may perhaps be 
 found to violate, in some instances, its own 
 rules ; nay, the rules themselves may appear to 
 be, in some points, erroneous. Still, the inex- 
 
 3* 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 perienced, we feel assured, will find herein many- 
 things of immediate benefit ; and those who need 
 no instruction may have their opinions and their 
 wisdom re-enforced by the examples used in 
 illustration. So, believing that on the whole it 
 will be serviceable ; that it contains " a portion " 
 for "seven, and also" for "eight," we send this 
 treatise to press. And if its perusal shall incite 
 some more competent person to produce a more 
 valuable work on the topics presented, we shall 
 gladly withdraw, and leave him, so far as we 
 are concerned, the undisputed possession of the 
 field. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Writing for the Press 7 
 
 II. Proof-reading 29 
 
 III. Style . 43 
 
 IV. Punctuation 51 
 
 V. Orthography 100 
 
 VI. Reading Greek 121 
 
 VII. Technical Terms used in this Work 125 
 
 Various Sizes of Letter 129 
 
 Specimen of Proof, marked for Correction . 130 
 Marks used in correcting Proofs 131 
 
PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 
 
 In an action recently brought against the 
 proprietors of Lloyd's paper, in London, for 
 damages for not inserting a newspaper ad- 
 vertisement correctly, the verdict was for the 
 defendant, By reason of the illegibility of the 
 writing. 
 
 " The illegibility of the writing " is the cause of 
 the larger portion of what are conveniently termed 
 "errors of the press." One can scarcely take up 
 a periodical publication without finding, from 
 editor or correspondent, an apology for some 
 error in a previous issue, couched somewhat in 
 this style : " The types made us say, in our last, 
 something about the 'Dogs of the Seine'; we 
 certainly wrote 'Days of the League.'" We 
 have no doubt that, in a large majority of cases 
 of this sort, if the question between " the types " 
 
 7 
 
8 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 and "the pen" were left to a jury, they would, 
 as in the case of Lloyd's paper, decide in favor 
 of the types. 
 
 By dint of hard study, by comparison of letters 
 in various words, and by the sense of the context, 
 the compositor generally goes through his task 
 creditably in spite of the " illegibility of the writ- 
 ing." But sometimes, in despair, he puts into 
 type that word which most nearly resembles an 
 unreadable word in the manuscript, making non- 
 sense of the passage because he can make noth- 
 ing else of it. We remember a great many 
 instances of this sort, in our own experience as 
 a proof-reader, — instances which, according to 
 custom, might be attributed to "the types," but 
 which were really due to the writers' carelessness 
 alone. Thus, in a medical work, it was stated 
 that " This case had been greatly aggravated by 
 the ossification of warm poultices to the face"; 
 the author having intended to write " applica- 
 tion." 
 
 Ames's " Typographical Antiquities " has been 
 made to figure as "Typographical Ambiguities," 
 — owing to chirographical ambiguity. 
 
 "The reports in the * Times' and other jour- 
 nals, never give the name of the Lord Chandler." 
 "Chancellor" was, of course, intended by the 
 writer, but this was an "error of the press." 
 
 In an investigation touching the field of a com- 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 9 
 
 pound microscope, a witness was made to say, 
 "It would vary with the power of the lye-juice 
 employed." The reporter meant to write " eye- 
 piece," but he succeeded in writing what the 
 compositor set up. 
 
 The title of a book, — "A Treatise on the 
 Steam-engine ; with Theological Investigations 
 on the Motive Power of Heat." The latter 
 clause might seem appropriate to "Fox's Book 
 of Martyrs " ; but the transcriber of the title 
 imagined he had written "Theoretical." 
 
 A toast, — "The President of the County 
 
 Agricultural Society, — May he enjoy a grim old 
 age " : the word was corrected to "green," before 
 the whole edition of the paper was worked off. 
 
 We have seen an advertisement of " Mattle- 
 bran's Universal Geography," — no doubt a very 
 entertaining work. 
 
 In a treatise on botany, we have been told, 
 "we first find those that form the bud, then the 
 calx, the corrola, the stamina and pistol" The 
 writer should have spelled correctly, and dotted 
 his Vs. 
 
 A catalogue of hardware to be sold by auction 
 had an item, "3 bbls. English pocket-knives." 
 This was set from " commercial " writing, in 
 which "bbls.," or something like it, was used as 
 a contraction for "bladud." 
 
 "Nature intended man for a social beinsr. 
 
10 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Alone and isolated, man would become impa- 
 tient and peevish" No doubt this is true ; but 
 "the types" were to blame again, — the author 
 fancied that he had written "impotent, and 
 perish." 
 
 The constitution of a certain corporation ap- 
 peared with the following article in the proof- 
 sheet : " The Directors shall have power to 
 purchase, build, equip or* charter all such steam- 
 boats, propellers, or other vessels, as the engi- 
 neers of the Corporation shall in their judgment 
 require." Why the Directors should be placed at 
 the mercy of the engineers seemed unaccountable. 
 But a critical examination of the manuscript re- 
 vealed that the "engineers" were "exigencies." 
 
 A " Bill of exceptions having been examined, 
 and found unfavorable to the truth, is allowed." 
 The Justice who signed the above, understood 
 the word which we have italicized to be "con- 
 formable." 
 
 " They could not admit those parts of the tes- 
 timony until they had examined the plaintiff in 
 regard to the poets" — " Facts " should have 
 been written instead of " poets " ; but the " pen " 
 made an error which the compositor did not feel 
 at liberty to correct. 
 
 We have read in a newspaper a description of 
 a battle-field ; — "It was fearful to see : the men 
 fell in ranks, and marched in pantaloons to their 
 
WHITING FOR THE PRESS. 11 
 
 final account." This was explained by an erasure 
 and a blot on the word " platoons." 
 
 It is very easy to say that errors of the kind 
 we have recited, are owing to the ignorance or 
 carelessness of the printers ; but, on the other 
 hand, when printed copy is reset, such errors 
 almost never occur, — and the absence of errors 
 is in direct ratio to the legibility of the copy. 
 
 Men who write much, generally imagine that 
 they write well ; but their imagination is often a 
 vain one. The writer of the worst manuscript 
 we recollect to have met with, expressed surprise 
 when told that printers and proof-readers could 
 not read his writing, and remarked that he had 
 often been complimented on the plainness and 
 neatness of his chirography. His memory was, 
 no doubt, excellent,- — the compliments must 
 have been bestowed in his juvenile days, when 
 he was imitating engraved copies. 
 
 While one. is imitating a copy, he may, indeed, 
 write legibly, nay, even elegantly; for he has 
 nothing to attend to, save the formation of the 
 letters. But when he is writing a report or a 
 sermon or a poem, his mind is busy with some- 
 thing besides chirography. 
 
 The fact is, that men seldom succeed well in 
 doing more than one thing at a time. . The itin- 
 erant musician who imitates the various instru- 
 ments of a full band, may be detected in an 
 
12 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 occasional discord. Paley remarks that we can- 
 not easily swallow while we gape; and, if any 
 one will try the experiment, he will presently be 
 satisfied that in this statement, at least, Paley was 
 physiologically and philosophically correct. 
 
 Thus, in the haste of composition, ideas crowd 
 ing upon us faster than the pen can give them 
 permanence, we can bestow little thought on 
 mere chirography; writing becomes mechanical, 
 or even automatic ; and we pay scarcely more 
 attention to the forms that follow the pen, than 
 we do to the contractions and dilatations of the 
 vocal organs when engaged in conversation with 
 an entertaining friend. 
 
 Let school training and practice be the same, 
 yet such are the differences of physical confor- 
 mation that handwritings are as various as the 
 individuals that produce them ; running through 
 all degrees of the scale, from an elegance tran- 
 scending the engraver's skill,' down to misshapen 
 difficulties and puzzling deformity. 
 
 But however widely our handwriting may vary 
 from Wrifford, Spencer, or Dunton, it is gener- 
 ally legible to ourselves, and soon becomes famil- 
 iar to our friends and acquaintances. Hence 
 comes the danger that we shall cease to bestow 
 any care upon it when others than ourselves and 
 acquaintances are concerned ; and hence it is, 
 that, with scarcely any consciousness of our 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 13 
 
 short-comings, we are liable to impose on an 
 utter stranger the task of deciphering a piece 
 of manuscript in which not only the letters have 
 no proper characterization, but which is smutched 
 with erasures, deformed by interlineations, and 
 obscured by frequent and needless abbreviations. 
 
 The loss of time spent in endeavoring to read 
 such a document, is reckoned among the " small 
 things" of which "the law takes no cognizance" ; 
 were it otherwise, many of us who fancy that our 
 manuscript is above reproach, would be aston- 
 ished at the number of bills collectible, or at 
 least payable, outstanding against us. 
 
 Complaints may indeed casually reach us, or 
 ridicule may laugh at our scrawls. But fashion 
 seems to hold no " fluctuating seat," so far as 
 penmanship is concerned. We learn from Ham- 
 let, that " the statists " of his day held it a " base- 
 ness to write fair " ; and the same opinion seems 
 prevalent even now ; for few, after leaving school, 
 endeavor to improve in this respect, and many 
 learned men write as if afraid that legibility 
 would be considered proof of intellectual weak- 
 ness. 
 
 In all other cases of encroaching on the time 
 and patience of another, — as, for instance, our 
 failure to fulfil an appointment, or calling at an 
 unseasonable hour, or seeking advice in an affair 
 wholly our own, — we feel bound to make due 
 
14 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 apology, nay, sometimes even acknowledge a 
 sense of shame ; but who ever felt regret on 
 hearing that he had put some one to the trouble 
 of studying, and guessing at, and puzzling out 
 cramped writing, seeking aid from dictionaries, 
 gazetteers, directories, and even experts? We 
 never heard of a man's suffering compunction 
 on this score. 
 
 We say this, referring to ordinary business 
 transactions between man and man, where bad 
 writing, except in rare and extreme cases, does 
 not involve pecuniary loss. But when we are 
 writing for the press, our duty to write legibly 
 becomes imperative ; indeed, a failure in this 
 respect, trenches so closely upon a violation of 
 the eighth commandment, that it can seldom 
 happen but from a want of thought as to the 
 relation between those who write and those who 
 print. 
 
 Compositors usually work by the piece, and 
 are paid a fixed rate per thousand ems. If a 
 line of type be divided by vertical lines into 
 equal squares, these squares show the number 
 of ems in the line. Suppose there are twenty 
 such squares : then fifty lines would contain one 
 thousand ems. To set, correct, and distribute 
 six thousand ems, is considered a fair clay's 
 work. With plain, legible copy, this can ordi- 
 narily be done ; and, at the close of the week, 
 
WRITING FOR THE PKESS. 15 
 
 the compositor receives full wages : all parties 
 are satisfied, and no one is entitled to complain. 
 
 But if, at the eiid of the week, notwithstand- 
 ing the closest application, the compositor has 
 averaged but four thousand ems per day, whereby 
 he receives but two thirds of the sum he is capa- 
 ble of earning under favorable conditions, who 
 is morally responsible to him for the lacking 
 third ? We need not go far to ascertain : a 
 glance at his " copy " answers the question. He 
 has been laboring upon bad manuscript. To 
 show the difficulties which have been in his 
 way, we will put a supposititious case ; — and 
 yet we can scarcely apply that adjective to a 
 case the reality of which every compositor will 
 recognize. 
 
 He has been setting up a sermon of Jthe Rev. 
 Mr. Z. The society of the reverend gentleman 
 were so well pleased with the discourse, that 
 they requested a copy for the press. Mr. Z. 
 should, of course, have copied the whole manu- 
 script fairly ; for, the haste of composition being 
 past, he could have written it off carefully, pay- 
 ing special attention to chirography, spelling out 
 his abbreviations, reducing dislocations, bringing 
 interlineations into line, — in short, he should 
 have done to the compositor what he would that 
 the compositor should do unto him. But, in- 
 stead of this, what did you do, Mr. Z.? Pen 
 
16 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 in hand > you re-read the sermon, making era- 
 sures, striking out some words and interlining 
 others. You crowded new sentences, of two or 
 three lines each, between lines already closely 
 written ; and you interlined these interlineations. 
 You then wrote sundry additions on loose pieces 
 of paper, denoting them as "A," "B," "C," etc., 
 and then placed the same capitals in the body of 
 the work, without sufficiently explaining that 
 new matter was to be inserted ; neither did you 
 make it appear whether the addenda were to 
 constitute new paragraphs. And in this amor- 
 phous condition you allowed the sermon to go to 
 the printing office. It has, too, passed through 
 several hands. Some of the pieces belonging 
 to "A," have got into "B," and some of the "B" 
 have straggled into "C," and the printers cannot 
 say where they do belong. 
 
 Dean Eamsay tells an anecdote of an old ser- 
 vant of Colonel Erskine, the father of the cele- 
 brated lawyer. On one occasion the servant had 
 done something that very much displeased his 
 master. The Colonel's wrath became quite un- 
 controllable, his utterance was choked, and his 
 countenance became pale as death. Xte servant 
 got somewhat uneasy, and at last said, " Eh, 
 sir, maybe an aith would relieve you." We are 
 sure, Mr. Z., you will much regret, that the 
 compositor who has your manuscript in hand 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 17 
 
 will often seek "relief" after the manner indi- 
 cated by the old Scotch servant. We have heard 
 a man, with such manuscript as yours before 
 him, exclaim, "If this author had known how 
 much swearing there would be over his writing, 
 he would have written better ! " 
 
 One compositor finds in his " take " * the ab- 
 breviation "Xn," and, after many inquiries, 
 learns that X is the Greek Chi, and so " Xn " 
 signifies "Christian." Another hesitates at a 
 phrase which, to his eye, seems to read "a par- 
 boiled sceptic " ; but, as modern methods with 
 heretics do not include heated applications, he 
 asks those about him what the word is ; perhaps 
 goes to the proof-reader with it, — such things 
 are done sometimes, — for the compositor ex- 
 pects ultimately to conform to the proof-reader's 
 decision, — and thus he loses five or ten minutes 
 in learning that the word is purblind. Now, 
 reverend sir, the compositor's time is his money, 
 and if you rob him of his time — the inference is 
 obvious. Your better course, henceforth, will 
 be to copy your manuscript, or get it copied, in 
 a careful, painstaking manner, after all your 
 emendations of the text have been made. 
 
 There is a proverb to the effect that lawyers 
 are bad penmen ; but we think the proverb un- 
 
 * "For this and all other technical terms used in this work, 
 see Chapter VII. 
 
 2 
 
18 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 just. So far as our experience goes, the hand- 
 writing of lawyers compares favorably with that 
 of any other class of persons, of whatever pro- 
 fession. It is certainly as legible as the mercan- 
 tile style ; since the latter, although generally 
 pretty to look at, is often very difficult to read, 
 — abounding in flourish and ornament, which 
 are too often but another name for obscurity. 
 Sometimes, too, one meets with clerkly invoices 
 or catalogues, containing remarkably fanciful 
 capitals : we have seen good readers scarcely 
 able to decide whether a given initial were a 
 W, an H, or an N. 
 
 But legal gentlemen, like all others, dislike 
 the mechanical labor of copying what they have 
 once committed to paper. Their arguments, and 
 especially their briefs, are sometimes sent to the 
 printer in a confused, chaotic mass ; in a shape, 
 or, rather, with a want of shape, which, if not 
 resulting from inconsiderateness, would be — we 
 were on the point of saying — disgraceful. A 
 manuscript of this sort, covering but six or 
 eight pages of letter-paper, sometimes requires 
 several hours' labor in reading, correcting, and 
 revising, before a presentable proof can be ob- 
 tained. 
 
 Legal documents are often interlarded with 
 technical terms in law Latin and old French. 
 Of course such terms ought to be made as plain 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 19 
 
 as print. Usually the principal divisions of a 
 brief are indicated by large Soman numerals in 
 the middle of the line ; the points under these 
 greater divisions, by Roman numerals at the 
 commencement of paragraphs ; smaller divisions, 
 by Arabic numerals ; and if still smaller divi- 
 sions are required, these are denoted by letters 
 in parenthesis, as, (a), (b) , (c) , etc. In the haste 
 of writing, however, it is sometimes found im- 
 possible, doubtless, to make so nice distinctions, 
 and Arabic numerals are used throughout, while 
 no proper care is taken to distinguish the various 
 divisions of the subject-matter by varying inden- 
 tions.* The faults of the manuscript reappear in 
 the proof. This leads to much loss of time " at 
 the stone " ; and as such work is frequently hur- 
 ried during the sessions of the courts, the delay 
 is exceedingly vexatious to all parties concerned. 
 If one eighth of the time now spent in correct- 
 ing, overrunning the matter, and revising, were 
 bestowed upon perfecting the copy, there would 
 seldom be any delay in a well-appointed printing 
 office. 
 
 When transcripts of records of court are to 
 be printed, care should be taken that only the 
 
 * We do not mean " indentation," nor yet " indention," but 
 " indention," as written in the text. The word is in the mouth 
 of every printer, proof-reader, author, and publisher : why 
 should it not be inserted in the dictionaries? 
 
20 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 very documents intended for the press, are sent 
 to the printing office. For want of proper atten- 
 tion in this matter, it not unfrequently happens 
 that certificates of notaries, extraneous docu- 
 ments, and duplicates, are put in type, to be 
 presently cancelled. 
 
 We have said something above, touching mer- 
 cantile handwriting. . Constant practice with the 
 pen gives facility and boldness of execution, — 
 and where these are combined with good taste, 
 chirography approaches the dignity of a fine art, 
 and produces beautiful effects, and is seen to be 
 near of kin to drawing and painting. In signa- 
 tures, especially, flourish and ornamentation have 
 a double use : they please the eye, and they baffle 
 the forger. But when lines stand as near each 
 other as in ordinary ruling, the flourish in one 
 line interferes with the letters of the next ; and 
 the elegance of a well-cut capital will scarcely 
 excuse its obtrusiveness, when it obliterates its 
 more obscure but equally useful neighbors. 
 
 Further, business men, deeply impressed with 
 the value of time, learn to delight in abbrevia- 
 tions. Types have been cast to meet some of 
 these, as the "commercial a" [(a)] and the "per 
 cent" [%] ; but the compositor is sometimes put 
 to his trumps to cut, from German and job-letter, 
 imitations of abbreviations which never ought 
 to be sent to a printing office as copy. We 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 21 
 
 are not astonished that a merchant of Boston 
 once received from a Prussian correspondent a 
 request, that if he, the Bostonian, were to write 
 again, it might be either in German or in plain 
 English. We adopt the spirit of this advice ; 
 and would say to the banker, the broker, the 
 merchant, and to their respective clerks, that 
 when they write for the press, they should drop 
 ornament, drop pedantic abbreviations, drop Ger- 
 man, and write in plain English. 
 
 We do not know that there is anything spe- 
 cially characteristic in copy furnished by the 
 medical faculty, unless it be that their rela- 
 tions of "cases," both in medicine and surgery, 
 abound, no doubt necessarily, in " words of 
 learned length"; which, being unfamiliar to the 
 laity, should be written with conscionable care; 
 every letter performing its proper function, and 
 duly articulated to its neighbors. But the scien- 
 tific terms of their art, as written by most phy- 
 sicians, are, to the average printer, as illegible 
 as the Greek from which a portion of such terms 
 is derived. Recipes are seldom got typographi- 
 cally correct, until they have passed through 
 three or four revisions. Even apothecaries, it is 
 said, sometimes put up morphine instead of mag- 
 nesia; in which case, unless the revising is done 
 in a hurry with the stomach-pump, a jury may 
 have something to say about the "illegibility of 
 
22 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 the writing." When troublesome consequences 
 arise from misapprehension of a Latin word, or 
 of its meaning, we hear much said in favor of 
 writing recipes in plain English. 
 
 Some years ago (of course such a thing could 
 not happen now), a gentleman residing at the 
 South End, in Boston, was furnished by his 
 medical adviser with a prescription, containing 
 among other ingredients the following : — 
 
 Syr. Scillae § ss. 
 
 Tinct. Ejusdem § i. 
 
 That is, half an ounce of sirup of squills, and 
 one ounce of the tincture of the same. With 
 this recipe, he went to the nearest apothecary. 
 " I cannot put up that medicine for you," said 
 the apothecary ; " I have all the ingredients but 
 one; I have no tincture of ejusdem." The gen- 
 tleman went to the next drug-store. Its pro- 
 prietor said, "I cannot fill that recipe ; I should 
 as soon think of undertaking to compound the 
 ptisan of Kenilworth's blacksmith. Tincture 
 ejusdem ! who ever heard of tincture ejusdem? " 
 Disappointed at shop after shop, the gentleman 
 at length reached the well-known stand of the 
 late Dr. B., at the North End. Without making 
 any remark, the doctor proceeded to weigh 
 or measure the various ingredients called for. 
 "What!" exclaimed the gentleman, "have you 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 23 
 
 got * Tincture ejusdem'! I have been to fifty 
 shops, more or less, but not one of them had it ; 
 and some pharmacists even averred they had 
 never heard of it." — "The recipe," quietly re- 
 marked Dr. B., "calls for half an ounce of sirup 
 of squills, and one ounce of the tincture of the 
 same." — "Then why didn't he write « tincture 
 of the same,' instead of that stupid 'Tinct. Ejus- 
 dem'? Here have I walked from home a mile 
 and a half, and shall have to return the ' ejusdem' 
 distance, because the doctor didn't write plain 
 English." 
 
 But, whatever may be said to the contrary, 
 there are weighty and, we think, irrefutable ar- 
 guments for continuing the use of Latin and 
 Greek terms in medical writings, — even in 
 recipes. Since it should be so, and certainly 
 is so, we insist here, as elsewhere, that all tech- 
 nical terms, proper names, or any words on 
 which the context can throw but little, if any, 
 light, should be written not with ordinary, but 
 with car dinar y care, — which new word we haz- 
 ard, that our meaning may make a deeper im- 
 pression. 
 
 In passing, we nury remark that the mode of 
 indicating names of remedies comes under the 
 head of "style" (see Chapter III.), and varies 
 in different offices. Names of medicines are 
 often abbreviated, and set in italics ; and when a 
 
24 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 generic word is used, it should be capitalized ; 
 as, "Dr. S. administered Rhus tox" In homoeo- 
 pathic works, the number expressing a dilution 
 or trituration is placed in superiors at the right ; 
 as, "Ordered Cuprum rnetallicum 100 " 
 
 A few suggestions to those who write any kind 
 of copy for the press, will close this part of our 
 subject. * 
 
 Write on only one side of the paper. 
 
 If you wish to make an addition to a page, do 
 not write it on the back of the sheet ; cut the 
 leaf, and paste the new matter in, just where it 
 belongs, being careful not to cover up so much 
 as a single letter in doing so : we have known 
 lines to be omitted by the compositor, in conse- 
 quence of careless pasting. The leaf having 
 thus been lengthened, you may, for the sake of 
 convenience, fold the lower edge forward upon 
 the .writing. This minute direction may seem 
 idle ; but when a portion of the leaf has been 
 folded backward, out of sight, the folded part 
 may very likely escape notice, and, to insert it, 
 many pages of matter may afterward require to 
 be overrun. 
 
 Abbreviate those words only, which you wish 
 the printer to abbreviate. 
 
 Never erase with a lead pencil ; for an erasure 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 25 
 
 with lead leaves it questionable whether or not 
 the marked word is to go in. Use ink, drawing 
 the pen . horizontally through the words or lines 
 to be omitted ; and be careful that the marking 
 leave* off on exactly the right word. If you 
 afterward regret the cancellation, do not write 
 "stet"i*L the margin; for "stet" will probably 
 be unnoticed, in the presence of obvious eras- 
 ures. The better way is to -re-write the pas- 
 sage, and paste it in the place you wish it to 
 occupy. 
 
 Take time to write plainly and legibly. In 
 writing for the press, the old adage holds good, 
 — "The more haste, the worse speed"; and for 
 every hour you save by writing hurriedly, 
 you will be called upon to pay for several 
 hours' labor in making corrections. Write join- 
 hand : mistakes often arise from a long word 
 being broken up, as it were, into two or three 
 words. 
 
 I and J are often mistaken for each other. 
 Either imitate the printed letters, or uniformly 
 carry the loop of the J below the line. 
 
 It is often impossible to distinguish Jan. from 
 June, in manuscript, unless the context furnishes 
 a clew. 
 
 Whatever may- be the divisions of your work 
 (as books, chapters, sections, cantos, and the 
 like), let your entire manuscript be paged in 
 
26 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 the order of the natural series of numbers from 
 1 upward. If you commence each division with 
 1, — as is sometimes done, — and two or three 
 divisions are given out as "takes" to compos- 
 itors, it is obvious that portions of one division 
 may exchange places with those of another ; and, 
 further, if leaves happen to become transposed, 
 they can readily be restored to their right places 
 if no duplicate numbers are used in indicating 
 the pages. 
 
 Make sure that the books, chapters, etc., are 
 numbered consecutively. The best proof-reader 
 must confess to some unguarded moments ; and 
 it would be very awkward, after having had two 
 hundred and forty chapters stereotyped, to find 
 that two chapter V.'s have been cast, that every 
 subsequent chapter is numbered one less than it 
 should have been, and that compositor aud 
 proof-reader have exactly followed copy. 
 
 Examine your manuscript carefully with refer- 
 ence to the points. Avoid the dash when any 
 other point will answer your purpose. A man- 
 uscript that is over-punctuated occasions more 
 perplexity than one that is scarcely pointed 
 at all. 
 
 Before sending it to press, get your manu- 
 script into a shape you can abide by. Altera- 
 tions made on the proof-sheet must be paid for, 
 — and, further, matter that has undergone alter- 
 
WRITING FOR THE PRESS. 27 
 
 ations seldom makes a handsome page : some 
 lines will appear crowded, others too widely 
 spaced. 
 
 If you feel obliged to strike out a word from 
 the proof, endeavor to insert another, in the 
 same sentence, and in the same line if possible, 
 to fill the space. So, if you insert a word or 
 words, see whether you can strike out, nearly 
 at the same place, as much as you insert. 
 
 In writing a foot-note * let it immediately fol- 
 
 * In many works, the foot-notes, by a slight change 
 of arrangement, might advantageously become a portion 
 of the text. 
 
 low the line of text which contains the asterisk, 
 or other reference-mark ; just as you see in the 
 above example, and do not write it at the bottom 
 of the manuscript page. The person who makes 
 up the matter, will transfer such note to its 
 proper place. 
 
 When writing for the press, never use a lead 
 pencil. Let your copy be made with black ink 
 on good, white paper. We have been pained to 
 see page after page of a report to an extensive 
 religious association, which report had been in 
 the first place wholly written with a lead pencil : 
 then words cancelled, w T ords interlined, various 
 changes made, — and all these alterations done 
 with pen and ink. Of course, sleeve and hand 
 
28 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 rubbing over the plumbago, gave the whole a 
 dingy and blurred appearance. The effect of the 
 ink sprinkled among the faded pencillings was 
 so much like that of mending an old garment 
 with new cloth, that the manuscript had an 
 unchristian, nay, even heathenish aspect. How- 
 ever, from this copy the report was printed, — 
 let us charitably hope that it did much good in 
 the world. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROOF-READING. 
 
 So long as authors the most accomplished are 
 liable to err, so long as compositors the most 
 careful make occasional mistakes, so long as dic- 
 tionaries authorize various spellings, just so long 
 must there be individuals trained and training 
 to detect errors, to rectify mistakes, overrule 
 dictionaries, and' conserve the English language. 
 The experienced proof-reader speaks ex cathedra ^ 
 and submits to no council his claim to infallibil- 
 ity ; he lays down rules, but never descends to 
 give reasons. In all other callings and profes- 
 sions, humility is a virtue ; in proof-reading, it 
 is little less than a sin. 
 
 Admitting that a perfect proof-reader exists, 
 he is possessed of all human knowledge and all 
 learning ; is thoroughly acquainted with all true 
 religions, all false religions, all languages, all 
 sciences, all arts. If the world is a school, he 
 is the head-master; if it be a stage, he is the 
 
 29 
 
30 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 prompter and the star. And he knows that all 
 else availeth him nothing, unless he can tell at 
 sight whether a lead is too thick or too thin, and 
 can discriminate between a three-em space and a 
 four-em space. 
 
 Invalided teachers and clergymen, educated 
 men, and, indeed, literary men generally, who 
 happen to be out of business, often apply for 
 situations as proof-readers ; if they can do noth- 
 ing else, they fancy that they can at least read 
 proof. But however highly cultivated they may 
 be, ninety-nine in a hundred of them fail in the 
 attempt. All their learning is of no avail in 
 wrestling with the difficulties of a first proof. 
 Outs and doublets escape them, or seem to be 
 enigmas which they cannot solve ; false grammar 
 is overlooked ; the c which has usurped the place 
 of an e goes by unchallenged; the turned s 
 hisses as they pass, and remains standing on its 
 head ; and in punctuation they recognize, as 
 familiar acquaintances, only the full-point and 
 the dash. A practical printer who never heard 
 of the digamma, and who never read anything 
 but newspapers, will presently step in over their 
 heads : for he is at least their equal in spelling, 
 and he has been compelled to give some atten- 
 tion to the grammatical points. Further, his 
 dealing with individual types enables him to see, 
 without searching, errors which men far more 
 
PROOF-READING. 31 
 
 learned than he, do not know enough to search 
 for ; and his pen pounces on a wrong letter as 
 instinctively and unerringly as the bird darts on 
 its insect prey. 
 
 Sterne has uttered a sneer at the husk and 
 shell of learning; but the best bread is made 
 from the whole meal, and includes the " shorts " 
 and the "middlings" as well as the fine flour. 
 If every lawyer, physician, and clergyman were 
 to spend six months at the "case "before entering 
 upon his profession, he would find, even in that 
 short term of labor, a fitting and preparation 
 for such literary tasks as may devolve upon 
 him, which the schools do not, if they can, 
 bestow. 
 
 Nearly all manuscript copy is indebted to the 
 compositor and proof-reader for the proper punc- 
 tuation ; and many errors in spelling, made by 
 men who ought to know better, are silently cor- 
 rected in the printing office. Contradictions, 
 errors of fact, anachronisms, imperfect sentences, 
 solecisms, barbarisms, are modestly pointed out 
 to the author by the proof-reader's "quaere," or 
 by a carefully worded suggestion : and, most 
 usually, the proof is returned without comment, 
 — and none is needed., — corrected according to 
 the proof-reader's intimations. Dickens, and a 
 few other writers of eminence, have acknowl- 
 edged their indebtedness in such cases ; but we 
 
32 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 know one proof-reader — whose experience em- 
 braces an infinite variety of subjects from bill- 
 heads to bibles — who can remember but three 
 cases in which his assistance, whether valuable 
 or otherwise, was alluded to in a kindly manner. 
 On the other hand, the correction in the proof is 
 sometimes accompanied by some testy remark; 
 as, "Does this suit you?" or, "Will it do now?" 
 The proof-reader is, however, or should be, per- 
 fectly callous to all captious criticisms and foolish 
 comments. Let no nervous or touchy man med- 
 dle with proof-reading. 
 
 For the especial benefit of our non-professional 
 readers, we will here point out the usual routine 
 in regard to proofs. The editor or publisher of 
 a book or periodical sends to the printer such 
 portions of reading-matter or manuscript as he 
 can, from time to time, conveniently supply. 
 This copy is passed to a head-workman, who, by 
 aid of knife and scissors, divides it into a num- 
 ber of parts, called "takes," each part being a 
 suitable quantity for a compositor to take at one 
 time ; and the name of each compositor is pen- 
 cilled at the top of his take. The type when set 
 up is called " matter." 
 
 When there is enough matter to fill a " galley " 
 (a metallic or wooden casing about two feet in 
 length), an impression, or "proof," is taken on 
 a strip of paper wide enough to receive in the 
 
PEOOF-READING. 33 
 
 margin the correction of such errors as may be 
 found. This proof, with the corresponding copy, 
 is carried to the proof-reader's desk, often ac- 
 companied with the jocose remark, " If there is 
 -not room enough here to mark all the errors, 
 you can paste another piece on." 
 
 If not hurried by a press of work, as may 
 sometimes be the case, the reader will first 
 glance at the proof as a w r hole. A variation in 
 the thickness of the leads, or a wrong inden- 
 tion, will catch his eye quickest in this way. 
 Then, still supposing he has time, he will si- 
 lently read it through, marking errors in spell- 
 ing, turned or inverted letters ; improving the 
 spacing, the punctuation ; noting whether the 
 heads and sub-heads are in the required type ; 
 whether the capitalization is uniform ; w 7 hether 
 — if the " slip " beneath his eye happen to be 
 near the middle of a big book — the word 
 " ourang-outang " was not printed somewhere in 
 the early part of the work as "orang-outang," 
 or, in fact, whether, after some questioning, it 
 finally went to press as "orang-utan," — which 
 w r ord he must now, to preserve uniformity, hunt 
 for and find among his old proofs, if, perad ven- 
 ture, author or publisher, or other person, haye 
 not borrowed them "for a few minutes," — alas ! 
 never to be returned. 
 
 Having settled this, and all similar cases and 
 o 
 
34 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 other doubtful matters, he hands the copy to an 
 assistant, called a " copy-holder," whose duty it 
 is to read the copy aloud, while he himself keeps 
 his eye on the print (but in newspaper offices, 
 for the sake of greater celerity, the reader often, 
 reads aloud, while the copy-holder follows him 
 silently, intent on the copy ; interrupting, how- 
 ever, whenever any discrepancy is observed). 
 If the reader desire the copy-holder to pause 
 while he makes a correction, he repeats the word 
 where he wishes the reading to stop ; when ready 
 to proceed he again pronounces the same word, 
 and the copy-holder reads on' from that place. 
 The various signs used in correcting may be 
 found in their appropriate place in this work, — 
 for which the table of contents may be consulted. 
 If the proof in hand be a reprint, and the new 
 edition is to conform to the old, the points, 
 capitals, etc., should be pronounced aloud by 
 the copy-holder. Take, for instance, the second 
 stanza of Tennyson's " Voyage " : — 
 
 " Warm broke the breeze against the brow, 
 
 Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail : 
 The Lady's-head upon the prow 
 
 Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. 
 The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel, 
 
 And swept behind : so quick the run, 
 We felt the good ship shake and reel, 
 
 We seem'd to sail into the Sun I " 
 
 This stanza the copy-holder reads thus : — 
 
PROOF-READING . 3 5 
 
 Warm broke the breeze against the brow, (com.) 
 
 Dry sang the tackle, (com.) sang- the sail: (colon.) 
 The Lady'ss-(<;rtj9. pos. s, hyphen)he[id upon the prow 
 
 Caught the shrill salt, (com.) and shcer'(zws.)d the gale, (full point.) 
 The broad seas swell'(^os.)d to meet the keel, (com.) 
 
 And swept behind : (colon.) so quick the run, (com.) 
 We felt the good ship shake and reel, (com.) 
 
 We seem'(pos.)d to sail into the Sun ! (cap. exclam.) 
 
 The slip is numbered, and marked at top 
 "First Proof": the names of the compositors, 
 which have been inscribed on their takes, are 
 duly transferred to the printed proof, which, with 
 the errors plainly noted thereon, is then given 
 for correction to the same persons who set up 
 the matter. Their duty having been attended 
 to, a "second proof" is taken: this the reader 
 compares carefully with the first, to ascertain 
 whether the requisite changes of type have been 
 properly made ; whether " doublets " have been 
 taken out, and " outs " put in. If any mark has 
 escaped the notice of the compositors, it is trans- 
 ferred to the second proof. Close attention 
 should be given to this process of " revising " ; 
 it is not enough to see that a wrong letter has 
 been taken out, and a right one put in ; in the 
 line where a change has been made, all the words 
 should be compared, — since in correcting an 
 error among movable types, some of the types 
 may move when they ought not, and get mis- 
 placed. 
 
 As what escapes the notice of one observer, 
 
36 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 may be perceived by another, this second proof 
 is again " read by copy " by another proof-reader 
 and assistant ; and a second time corrected and 
 revised. The "third proof" is now sent to the 
 author, editor, or publisher, with so much copy 
 as may cover it, the copy-holder being careful, 
 however, to retain the "mark-off" ; i.e., the 
 sheet on which is marked off the place where 
 the next "first proof" is to begin. But when 
 the work is of such sort as not to require ex- 
 traordinary care, the second proof is sent out, a 
 single reading by copy being deemed sufficient. 
 If the work is read twice by copy, only one 
 reader should attend to the punctuation. 
 
 If, now, the copy have been hastily or care- 
 lessly prepared, or if the author have gained new 
 light since he prepared it, the outside party hav- 
 ing charge of the work (whom, for convenience, 
 we will designate as the "author") will return 
 his proof, full of erasures, additions, alterations, 
 interlineations, and transpositions. Vv^ith these 
 the original compositors have no concern ; the 
 changes required are made by " the office," and 
 the time is charged to the person who contracted 
 for the printing of the work. 
 
 A second, third, or even more consecutive 
 revises of the same slip are sometimes sent to 
 the author, to the intent that he may see for 
 himself that his corrections have been duly made, 
 
PROOF-READING. 37 
 
 and to allow him further opportunity to introduce 
 such alterations as to him may seem desirable. 
 Usually, however, the work, after the correction 
 of the author's first proof, is made up into pages ; 
 and when there are enough of these for a "sig- 
 nature" or form of octavo, duodecimo, or what- 
 ever the number of pages on the sheet may be, 
 the proof-reader revises these pages by the au- 
 thor's latest returned proof, cuts off the slip at 
 the line where the last page ends, and sends the 
 folded leaves, labelled " Second," " Third," or 
 "Fourth" proof, as the case may be, together 
 with the corresponding slips of the next previous 
 proof, to the author, as before. The portion of 
 slip proof remaining, — termed the "make-up," 
 — should be inscribed with the proper page, and 
 the letter or figure which is to be the signature 
 of the next sheet, and given, for his guidance, 
 to the person who makes up the* work ; to be 
 returned again to the proof-reader, with the other 
 slip proofs of the next sheet of made-up pages, 
 when that is ready for revision. 
 
 The author may be desirous of seeing a fifth, 
 sixth, or, as the algebraists say, any number, n 9 
 of proofs. When he expresses himself as satis- 
 fied with his share of the correcting, the last 
 author's proof is corrected, a "revise" taken, 
 and the proof-reader gives this last revise a final 
 reading for the press. As any errors w T hich 
 
38 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 escape detection now, will show themselves in 
 the book, this last reading should be careful, 
 deliberate, and painstaking. See to it, my 
 young beginner, that the "signature" is the 
 letter or number next in sequence to that on 
 your previous press-proof. See to it, that the 
 first page of the sheet in hand connects in read- 
 ing with the last page of the previous one, and 
 that the figures denoting the page form the next 
 cardinal number to that which you last sent to 
 press. Having done this, examine the "folios" 
 (the "pagination," as some say) throughout; 
 read the running titles ; if there be a new 
 chapter commenced, look back in your previ- 
 ous proofs to make sure that said new chapter 
 is "xix.," and not "xvni."; see that the head- 
 lines of the chapter are of the right size, and in 
 the right font of type : for, if the " minion " case 
 happened to be covered up, the compositor may 
 have forgotten himself, and set them up in " bre- 
 vier"; if there is rule-work, see that the rules 
 come together properly, and are right side up ; 
 if there is Federal money, see that the " $ " is 
 put at the beginning of the number following a 
 rule, and of the number in the top-line of every 
 page; if points are used as "leaders," see that 
 there are no commas or hyphens among them. 
 If the style require a comma before leaders, see 
 that none have been left out ; if the style reject 
 
PROOF-READING. 39 
 
 a comma, see that none have been left in ; in 
 short, see to everything, — and then, on the 
 corner of the sheet, write the word " Press " as 
 boldly as you can, but with the moral certainty 
 that some skulking blunder of author, composi- 
 tor, or corrector has eluded all your watch- 
 fulness. 
 
 The errors made by ourselves are those which 
 occasion us the most pain. Therefore be chary 
 of changing anything in the author's last proof. 
 If a sentence seem obscure, see whether the in- 
 sertion of a comma will make it clear. If you 
 find "patonce,"do not change it to "potence," 
 unless, from your knowledge of heraldry, you 
 are aware of a good reason for such an altera- 
 tion. If you find pro. ami, look in the diction- 
 ary before striking out the point after pro. ; 
 peradventure it is a contraction. If, finally, 
 after puzzling over some intricate sentence you 
 can make nothing of it, let it console you that 
 the following paragraph appears in Havernick : 
 "Accordingly it is only from this passage that a 
 conclusion can be drawn as to the historical con- 
 dition of the people, which is confirmed also by 
 notices elsew T here " ; and let it content you to 
 say in the words of Colenso, "I am at a loss 
 to understand the meaning of the above para- 
 graph." So let the obscure passage remain. 
 
 Still, however, should you find some gross 
 
40 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 error of dates, some obvious solecism, or some 
 wrong footing in a column of figures, and find 
 yourself unable to change the reading with abso- 
 lute certainty of being right, this proof, which 
 you had hoped would be a final one, must be 
 returned to the author with the proper quaere. 
 When it comes back to your sanctum, you may 
 perhaps be pleased at finding on the margin a 
 few words complimentary of your carefulness, 
 couched, perhaps, in this encomiastic style : 
 " Why did not your stupid proof-reader find 
 this out before?" 
 
 Whether reading first or final proofs, you 
 should not change the spelling of proper names, 
 nor supply omitted words, in printing Eecords 
 of Court ; for the printed record is assumecl to 
 be an exact transcript of what is written, and 
 there should be no alterations, — uniformity is 
 not to be sought at the expense of departing 
 from copy. Inserting the necessary points where 
 these have been neglected, is not considered a 
 change of the record, — as, for instance, an in- 
 terrogation point after a direct question to a 
 witness, — for as " the punctuation is no part of 
 the law," a fortiori it is no part of the record. 
 If the caption be "Deposition of John Prat," 
 and the signature be " John Pratt," and if in 
 another place you find the same individual des- 
 ignated as " John Pradt," there is no help for it. 
 
PROOF-READING. 41 
 
 You have no authority to alter the record, and 
 must print it as it stands. So, too, in regard to 
 dates. If you read "1st Feb. 1871" on one 
 page, "Feb. 1, 1871" on another, so let them 
 stand, —the change of style is a trifle ; and, if 
 it be a fault, it is the fault of the record, and 
 not yours. 
 
 And here let me say a word about this matter 
 of uniformity : very important in some works, 
 in others it is of no consequence whatever, how- 
 ever much some readers may stickle for it. If, 
 for example, a mass of letters, from all parts of 
 the country, recommending a patent inkstand, or 
 stating the prospects of the potato crop, are sent 
 in to be printed, the dates and addresses will 
 vary in style, according to the taste and knowl- 
 edge of the several writers ; and there is not the 
 slightest need of changing them to make them 
 alike, as if all these widely scattered writers had 
 graduated from the same school. Let such writ- 
 ings be printed as diversely as they come to 
 hand. If one writes plough, and another ploio 9 
 what matters it, so far as your proof-reading is 
 concerned? If one writes "15th June," and 
 another "June 15" or "June 15th," so let it 
 stand on the printed page. It is idle to waste 
 time in making things alike, that could not by 
 any possibility have been written alike. But 
 you can make each letter consistent with itself, 
 
42 PJENS AND TYPES. 
 
 which is all that uniformity requires. You need 
 not stretch one man out, and cut off the feet of 
 another, to justify them all in your stick. So 
 much for exceptional cases. 
 
 As a general rule, study to preserve uniformity 
 in every work. If "A. M." and "P. M." are in 
 capitals on one page, it will look very like care- 
 lessness to have them appear "a. m." and "p.m.," 
 in small capitals, on the next. Your only safety 
 is to have but one style, and to adhere to it with 
 the stiffness of a martinet, in all contingencies, 
 unless overruled by those who have a right to 
 dictate in the premises. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 Before beginning to read proof, a man usu- 
 ally prepares himself by learning how to make 
 the technical marks used in correcting ; he then 
 reads a chapter on the use of capitals ; takes up 
 a grammar, and reviews the rules of punctua- 
 tion ; and by reading, and conversing with read- 
 ers, gets such helps as give him a good degree 
 of confidence. But at the very threshold of his 
 duties, he is met by a little "dwarfish demon" 
 called "Style," who addresses him somewhat 
 after this fashion: "As you see me now, so I 
 have appeared ever since the first type was set 
 in this office. Everything here must be done as 
 I say. You may mark as you please, but don't 
 violate the commands of Style. I may seem to 
 disappear for a time, when there is a great rush 
 of work, and you may perhaps bring yourself to 
 believe that Style is dead. But do not deceive 
 yourself, — Style never dies. When everything 
 
 43 
 
44 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 is going merrily, and you are rejoicing at carry- 
 ing out some pet plans of your own, you will 
 find me back again, tearing the forms to pieces, 
 and again asserting my irrevocable authority. 
 Stick to my orders, and all will be well. Don't 
 tell me of grammarians or lexicographers ; say 
 nothing of better ways, or improvements or 
 progress. I am Style, and my law T s are like 
 those of the Medes and Persians." And Style 
 states his true character. 
 
 Unfortunately for the proof-reader, Style sel- 
 dom writes his laws; or, if at any time written, 
 their visible form presently perishes, and they 
 can only be got at, as one may learn the common 
 law of England, through past decisions. You, 
 my young friend, may in vain consult old proofs ; 
 works formerly read, at the desk you now oc- 
 cupy, by some vanished predecessor. Your 
 searching cannot help you much; for authors, 
 being without the jurisdiction, are independent 
 of the authority, of Style, — they may allow 
 him to dominate over their works, or they may 
 not. How, then, are you to distinguish, and 
 select as models, those which were read under 
 the direct supervision of Style? In the course 
 of a few years you may come to know a portion 
 of his laws ; but the whole code is past finding 
 out. 
 
 To drop the personification, every office has a 
 
STYLE. 45 
 
 style — an arrangement of details — peculiar to 
 itself. In one, "Government" is spelt with a 
 capital ; in a second, " government " is spelt 
 with a lower-case "g"; in this office, the four 
 seasons are always "Spring, Summer, Autumn, 
 and Winter " ; in that, they are " spring, sum- 
 mer," etc., having capitals only when per- 
 sonified : and so of a thousand other cases in 
 capitalization. In this office, before a quoted 
 extract Ave put a colon and dash, thus : — while, 
 in the office across the way, the style is to put a 
 colon only : and, a little farther on, is an office 
 which uses only the dash ; yet a fourth, round 
 the corner, puts a comma and dash, thus, — 
 while a fifth undertakes to use all these and even 
 additional methods, as the period, the semicolon 
 and dash, selecting as the sense, or convenience, 
 or caprice may dictate.* Here, the style requires 
 a comma before and, in " pounds, shillings, and 
 pence"; there, the style is "pounds, shillings 
 and pence." "Viz," in Mr. A.'s office, is con- 
 sidered a contraction, and is printed "viz." — 
 with the period ; in Mr. B.'s office, it is not a 
 contraction, and the period is not used; in Mr. 
 C.'s office, "viz" is put entirely under the ban, 
 
 * For some varieties of style in introducing quotations, see 
 u Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey. By Arthur 
 Penrhyn Stanley, I). D. London : John Murray, 1S6S " ; es- 
 pecially pp. 256, 257. 
 
46 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 and compositors and proof-readers are directed 
 to substitute for it the word "namely," in all 
 cases. As regards orthography, two styles — 
 the Worcester and Webster — have, in almost 
 all offices, alternate sway ; and, as if desiring to 
 complicate matters as much as possible, some 
 add an "office style." Each "rules a moment; 
 chaos umpire sits," etc. 
 
 Suppose half-a-dozen works going through the 
 press at the same time, embracing three styles 
 orthographic, and four or five styles in capitali- 
 zation ; one style which requires turned commas 
 at the beginning only, of a quotation, and one 
 which requires them at the beginning of every 
 line of an extract, — you see at once that a 
 proof-reader, so beset, must needs have his 
 wits about him. For, notice, the first "slip" 
 which comes to hand is in the "Life of John 
 Smith"; this is in the Worcester style, and re- 
 quires " traveller " and "jeweller" to be spelled 
 each with two Z's, and "empanel" with one n. 
 The next galley-proof to be read is part of the 
 " Life of James Smith " : this is in the Webster 
 style ; and now the reader must change front, 
 and see to it that he spells " traveler " and 
 "jeweler" with one I each, and "empannel" with 
 two n's. Now as these works are in the same 
 size of type, and are very similar in appearance, 
 it would not be strange if now and then the 
 
^ STYLE. 47 
 
 styles were to "cross over"; but, observe, the 
 third slip, the "Life of William Smith," is 
 " office style," requiring "traveler " to be spelled 
 with- one ?, and "jeweller" with two (very ab- 
 surd, but all styles have something absurd and 
 arbitrary in them) , while " impanel " now re- 
 pudiates an initial e. Further, the publishers of 
 the " Life of John " desire to have it in uniform 
 style with their " watch-pocket series," in which 
 names of ships were put between quotation- 
 marks : the author of the " Life of James " 
 insists, that, in his work, names of ships shall 
 not be quoted, and shall be set in roman : the 
 "Life of William," being in office style, requires 
 names of ships to be in italics. 
 
 Again, each of these works has, at the com- 
 mencement of its several chapters, a cast of 
 initial letter differing from the style of the other 
 two, — the first a two-line plain letter, the second 
 a black letter, the third an open-face letter ; and 
 still further (there is no "finally"), the "Life of 
 John " has " backwards," " forwards," " towards," 
 all with the final s ; and the proof-reader has just 
 received from the outside reader of the " Life of 
 James," a sharp note, stating that he has stricken 
 the s from " towards," as many as ten times, and 
 coolly assuring the said proof-reader that there 
 is no such word as " towards " in the English lan- 
 guage. Meanwhile, intermingled with the above 
 
48 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 readings, are four Sunday-school books, — A, B, 
 C, and D. A and B require the words "every- 
 thing," " anything," and " cannot " to *be divided 
 respectively into two words, — " every thing," 
 "any thing," "can not"; while C and D, with 
 a general direction to follow Webster, want these 
 words printed in the usual manner, — closed up. 
 A and C must have two words of " 't is," " it 's," 
 "don't," "couldn't," "mustn't"; B and D re- 
 quire the same, with the exception of "don't," 
 which must be made one word. A and D want 
 an apostrophe in " won't " ; while B and C insist 
 that the change from " will not" is so great, that 
 " wont " is virtually a new word, wherefore they 
 cannot conscientiously permit the apostrophe. 
 
 Among these literarv foolishnesses and idle 
 discriminations, are inter-readings of pamphlets 
 on the leather trade ; the Swamptown Directory, 
 the copy being the pages of an old edition, pasted 
 on broadsides of paper, half the names stricken 
 out, and new ones inserted hap-hazard on the 
 w T ide margin, their places in the text indicated 
 by lines crossing and re-crossing each other, and 
 occasionally lost in a, plexus or ganglion ; reports 
 of the Panjandrum Grand Slump Mining Com- 
 pany, the Glenmutchkin Railway Company, and 
 the new and improved Brown Paper Roofing 
 Company ; Proceedings of the National Wool- 
 Pulling Association, and of the Society for 
 
STYLE. 49 
 
 promoting the Introduction of Water-Gas for 
 Culinary and Illuminating Purposes ; likewise 
 auction-bills, calendars, ball-cards, dunning let- 
 ters (some of these to be returned through the 
 post-office, the proof-reader's own feathers wing- 
 ing the shaft), glowing descriptions of Dyes, 
 Blackings, Polishes and Varnishes ; in short, 
 proofs of the endless variety of matters which 
 constitute the daily pabulum of a book and job 
 office, — and in all these, style has its require- 
 ments. 
 
 If all this be borne in mind, it will not seem 
 surprising, especially when we reflect that all 
 individuals in their progress toward a perfect 
 civilization are not yet within sight of their 
 goal, — it will not seem surprising, if now and 
 then an irate brother should rush into the proof- 
 reader's presence, exclaiming, " What do you 
 mean, sir? I thought I knew something, but it 
 appears I don't ! Here you have put * Hudson 
 street' with a little s, and 'Hudson River' with a 
 capital It: what sort of work do you call tfiat? " 
 Should this occur, the schooled reader has but 
 to reply, "That, my dear sir, is the uniform 
 style of this office, — w T e alivays 'put things' as 
 you have stated," and the questioner is satisfied, 
 and apologetically withdraws. 
 
 As no acknowledged literary Dictator has 
 arisen since Johnson (if we except Webster), 
 4 
 
50 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 and as we have no good grounds to expect one, 
 let us hope there may be a convention of the 
 learned men of the United States, with full 
 powers to legislate upon, and finally settle, all 
 questions of orthography, punctuation, and style, 
 and authorized to punish literary dissenters, by 
 banishment from the Republic of Letters. 
 
 Were there a common and acknowledged au- 
 thority to which printer, publisher, proof-reader, 
 and author could appeal, the eye, the pen, and 
 the press would be relieved of much useless 
 labor, and the cost of books would be corre- 
 spondingly reduced. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PUNCTUATION. 
 
 As "law is the perfection of reason," so punc- 
 tuation is the perfection of common sense. 
 
 The printer and proof-reader are to take for 
 granted, that, in every work which falls under 
 their supervision, the proper agreement between 
 thought and expression has been effected by the 
 author. He alone has the right to change the 
 words and their collocation ; and, if fairly punc- 
 tuated, it is better that the manuscript be, in this 
 respect also, closely followed. 
 
 Every person who writes for the pres^phould 
 punctuate his work presentably ; but — since the 
 majority of writers are inattentive to punctua- 
 tion — custom and convenience, if not necessity, 
 have thrown upon the compositor and proof- 
 reader the task of inserting in their proper 
 places the grammatical points, that the author's 
 meaning may be more readily apprehended. 
 
 51 
 
52 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 By the grammatical points we mean the period 
 ( . ), the colon (:), the semicolon (;), the 
 comma ( , ), the note of interrogation (?), the 
 note of exclamation (!), and the dash ( — ). 
 (Some of these have at times rhetorical uses, 
 and are called rhetorical points. But, as our 
 purpose is to afford practical aid in the matter 
 of punctuation, we shall, for convenience, speak 
 of them as grammatical points.) 
 
 We have been often told, that the period de- 
 notes the longest pause ; the colon, a pause one 
 half the length of the period ; the semicolon, 
 a pause one half the length of the colon ; the 
 comma, a pause one half the length of the semi- 
 colon, etc. ; but, as Greene remarks, "Points are 
 used to mark the sense, rather than the pauses" 
 
 To aid writers and printers in deciding where 
 points should be placed, sets of rules have been 
 carefully framed. These are of great utility, 
 and should be studied by every young person 
 who is bent on rushing into print, and by every 
 apprei^ice who is learning the " case." Study- 
 ing the rules, and attending to the examples 
 under them, habituate the mind to a just discern- 
 ment when composing, — in whatever sense this 
 word is used. It should be borne in mind, how- 
 ever, that a close and slavish adherence to stated 
 forms, without ascertaining their bearings in in- 
 dividual cases, tends to becloud the judgment, 
 
PUNCTUATION. 53 
 
 and may cause an author's meaning to be 
 obscured, or even concealed, rather than eluci- 
 dated. 
 
 Rules of punctuation are laid down briefly in 
 almost all Grammars ; they have been taught by 
 being used as copies in writing-books ; but the 
 rales most widely and favorably known are in 
 the "Treatise on Punctuation, by John Wilson." 
 "VVe know of no work, however, which, in its 
 entirety, is adhered to by the generality of read- 
 ers and publishers. In books issued by different 
 houses will be found great diversity in the 
 manner of pointing similar and even the same 
 sentences ; and some part of what we have called 
 " style " results from the effort of a house to be 
 consistent with itself, and to establish a uniform- 
 ity among its own issues. 
 
 The English language is probably as near as 
 any living language can be, to a state of absolute 
 fixity. The American tongue, on the other hand, 
 is far from being adjusted on a stable basis. Our 
 orthography has undergone recognized changes 
 within fifty years ; and the war of the dictiona- 
 ries, if more quietty waged than heretofore, is 
 still carried on with obstinacy if not with deter- 
 mination. If one who prides himself on his 
 "spelling" may write " crums " or "crumbs," 
 "stanch" or "staunch," without censure, how 
 can we expect even the learned among us to 
 
54 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 agree on the more recondite subject of punc- 
 tuation? 
 
 But as all rules suitable to guide human con- 
 duct lie folded up in the golden rule, so all rules 
 for pointing sentences, *are embraced in this : 
 punctuate so as to bring out the author's mean- 
 ing. And by their consonance with this great 
 rule all special rules must be judged. Yet in 
 this, as in all other matters, men differ in their 
 judgments ; and we must be content in our di- 
 versities, until some modern Lindley Murray 
 shall be invested with grammatical infallibility. 
 
 For instance, as to placing a comma between a 
 nominative phrase or sentence and the predicate, 
 the best authorities differ. Wilson's rule is, — 
 
 " No point or pause-mark is admissible between the 
 subject or nominative and the predicate, . . . ." 
 
 The "Practical Grammar," by S. W. Clark, 
 A. M., published by A. S. Barnes & Co., New 
 York, gives the following rule : — 
 
 " A phrase or sentence used as the subject of a verb, 
 requires a comma between it and the verb.' , 
 
 Of course the examples under the rule exhibit 
 a corresponding difference. 
 
 " To be totally indifferent to praise or censure is a real 
 defect in character." — Wilson, 
 
 " To do good to others, constitutes an important object 
 of existence." -~-Olark. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 55 
 
 Ingersoll's Grammar (Portland, 1828) and 
 KerPs — which last is now very extensively 
 used — agree with Clark. Both have the same 
 example as Wilson, but pointed as follows : — 
 
 "To be totally indifferent to praise or censure, is a 
 real defect in character." 
 
 Goold Brown (Grammar of Grammars) inserts 
 the comma. Cobbett's Grammar omits it. 
 
 Take up the first dozen books that come to 
 hand, and you will find diversity of practice. 
 
 " The influences which Atterbury had fostered long 
 lingered in the precincts." — Stanley's Westminster Abbey. 
 
 " The distinction between transcendental and tran- 
 scendent, is observed by our elder divines and philoso- 
 phers." — Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. 
 
 " The interruption of friendly relations between Eng- 
 land and Spain was the fault . . . of the Emperor." — 
 Froude's England. 
 
 We prefer the omission of the comma, except 
 in those cases where its insertion would prevent 
 ambiguity ; as in the quotation above, from 
 Stanley's " Westminster Abbey," where there 
 should have been a comma after " fostered " ; as 
 it stands, the word "long" may qualify either 
 the word before or after it. 
 
 So, if you examine any number of volumes 
 with reference to placing a comma before and, 
 or, or nor, when three or more words, in the 
 same category, are connected, — in some you 
 
56 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 will find "Faith, and hope, and charity"; in 
 others " Faith and hope and charity." We have 
 just met with the following lines in a well-known 
 paper : — 
 
 " Round and round the atoms fly, 
 Turf, and stone, and sea, and sky." 
 
 Wilson's example is (p. 38), — 
 
 " Let us freely drink in the soul of love and beauty 
 and wisdom from all nature and art and history." 
 
 In view of these and similar differences of prac- 
 tice, and contradiction of rules, one is tempted to 
 say, that it is of no moment whether the commas 
 are inserted or not. But, leaving "style" out 
 of the question, a proof-reader should endeavor 
 to have a reason for every omission he allows, 
 and for every insertion he makes. We advise 
 him, then, in the first place to note which method 
 seems required by the golden rule of elucidating 
 the meaning ; then consider, further, if the sen- 
 tence already contains commas, whether insert- 
 ing more would offend the eye. Let him decide 
 each case on its own merits ; leaning, when in. 
 doubt, in favor of such grammatical rule as he 
 may have adopted. But use judgment; for the 
 most precise grammarians lay down pages of 
 exceptions ; and Cobbett (Grammar, Letter xiv.) 
 cannot be gainsaid when he writes, "It is evident, 
 that, in many cases, the use of the comma must 
 depend upon taste." 
 
PUNCTUATION. 57 
 
 When a phrase or clause, in its nature paren- 
 thetic, is quite closely connected with the parts 
 of the sentence in which it is placed, the inser- 
 tion of the comma before and after such phrase 
 or clause, "must depend upon taste." If in- 
 serted, we have a specimen of what is called 
 " close pointing " ; if omitted, we have "liberal 
 pointing." 
 
 Close pointing prevails in almost all publica- 
 tions except law-work, and in all doubtful cases 
 puts in the comma. Liberal pointing, on the 
 other hand, omits the points except when abso- 
 lutely necessary to avoid ambiguity. Lawyers 
 use as few points as possible, often leaving the 
 meaning in doubt, through fear, perhaps, of 
 breaking a well-rounded period into discon- 
 nected fragments. 
 
 A middle course, retaining the spirit rather 
 than adhering to the letter of the rules, will be 
 found the safest. When, as will often be the 
 case, a passage occurs, the meaning of which 
 varies with the insertion or omission of a comma 
 while it would be grammatical either way, the 
 compositor should follow the copy; the proof- 
 reader should mark the passage with his quaere ; 
 but if he first notices the fault when reading the 
 press-proof, he should suffer it to stand as the 
 author left it, letting all responsibility remain 
 where it rightfully belongs. 
 
58 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Abbreviated words, besides the period denot- 
 ing their abbreviation, require the same pointing 
 as if they were spelled in. full. Thus "Jno. 
 Smith, Esq., of Worcester; Abel Soane, M. D. ; 
 and James Doe, LL. D., — were appointed a 
 comm. to -take care of books, docs., etc., etc.," 
 has the same pointing as "John Smith, Esquire, 
 of Worcester ; Abel Soane, Doctor of Medi- 
 cine ; and James Doe, Doctor of Laws, — were 
 appointed a committee to take care of books, 
 documents, and so forth, and so forth." But in 
 some classes of work, as Directories, Catalogues 
 of books, Genealogies, and where titles and 
 abbreviations are of frequent occurrence, double 
 pointing may be partially avoided by omitting 
 the comma after a period which denotes an 
 abbreviation. 
 
 Neatness requires the omission of the comma 
 before leaders ; thus, 
 
 John Roe New Orleans. 
 
 James Doe San Francisco. 
 
 is more pleasing to the eye than 
 
 John Roe, New Orleans. 
 
 James Doe, San Francisco. 
 
 The semicolon should be placed before as, viz., 
 namely, etc. ; not after, as we too often see it. 
 Thus : 
 
 There are four seasons ; namely, spring, summer, 
 autumn, winter. 
 
PUNCTUATION r * 59 
 
 Incorrect. There are four seasons, namely ; spring, 
 summer, autumn, winter. 
 
 But when viz., or namely, ends a paragraph, 
 a. different mode of pointing prevails; as, — 
 
 " The books and exercises of the several classes shall 
 be as follows, viz. : — 
 
 " Class 4. — Worcester's Spelling-Book," etc. 
 
 "Sealed proposals will be received for wrappers' for 
 this Department for four years from the first of July, 
 18.71, namely: — 
 
 "No. 1. Note size. 
 No. 2. Letter size," etc. 
 
 The hyphen is used to connect the parts of a 
 compound word ; to show the divisions of words 
 into syllables ; it is placed at the end of a line 
 when a word is not finished ; and it is sometimes 
 placed between vowels to show that they belong 
 to different syllables (as "co-ordinate"). In 
 regard to its use in compound words great diver- 
 sity exists ; and the proof-reader can have, as we 
 believe, no fixed system which will apply to all 
 varieties of work. In specifications for bridges, 
 buildings, etc., the better way is to avoid com- 
 pounding; for, in everything of that kind, one 
 will find so many "door-sills," " newel-posts, " 
 " stair-balusters," "pulley-stiles," etc., that if he 
 begin marking in the hyphens he will scarcely 
 make an end of it, and many hyphens sadly 
 
60 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 deform a page : better put "doorknobs," "win- 
 dow frames," "stair nosings," etc. 
 
 Here, too, the dictionaries can scarcely be said 
 to assist, if they do not even mislead. Worces- 
 ter has " brickwork," " brasswork," without hy- 
 phens ; "wood-work," "iron-work," with them. 
 "Greenhouse" is closed up, while "school-house" 
 is not : "wood-house" has a hyphen, "almshouse" 
 has none. (Wilson writes "schoolhouse.") Web- 
 ster has "brick-work" with, " woodwork " with- 
 out the hyphen, — just reversing Worcester. 
 Again, Worcester writes, "humblebee" and "bum- 
 blebee " :. Webster, under B, has "bumble-bee, 
 .... sometimes called humble-bee"; and, under 
 H, writes "humblebee, .... often called bum- 
 blebee," apparently forgetful of his previous hy- 
 phens. 
 
 To search for authority, then, in the matter of 
 compounding words, will avail next to nothing. 
 In a volume containing " School Committees' lie- 
 ports," — and certainly school committees ought 
 to know many things, — we find "blackboard" and 
 "black-board"; and, on a single page, "school 
 books," "school-keeping," "schoolmaster," "school- 
 houses," " school checks." " Semi-annual " is fre- 
 quently printed with the hyphen, according to 
 Webster; but Worcester has "semiannual." 
 
 Thus it appears, that, in regard to compound- 
 ing (by which we mean inserting the hyphen 
 
PUNCTUATION. 61 
 
 between the parts of a compound word), the 
 proof-reader is left to his own discretion, and, 
 can do very much as he pleases. He should, 
 however, adopt some method by which he can 
 approximate to uniformity in his own work ; 
 for as to agreeing with anybody else, that is 
 out of the question. 
 
 Perhaps as good a rule as can be laid down on 
 this subject is to close up the word when com- 
 pounding changes the accentuation ; otherwise, 
 insert the hyphen. Thus, "Quartermaster" has 
 a different accentuation from the" two words 
 "quarter master"; therefore make one word 
 of it, without the hyphen: "Head-assistant" is 
 accented like the two words " head assistant," 
 
 — therefore insert the hyphen. By this rule 
 "schoolhouse" and "blackboard" should be sev- 
 erally closed up : " salt-mine" takes the hyphen, 
 
 — " saltsea " (adjective) does not. 
 
 The word "tree," with a prefix indicating the 
 kind, should be compounded; as, "oak-tree," 
 "forest-tree," "pine-tree," etc. (Webster has 
 " whitfle-tree," Worcester " whiffletree.") 
 
 "Cast-iron" and " wrought-iron " are usually 
 compounded, and should always be so when used 
 as adjectives; as, "cast-iron pillars," "wrought- 
 iron boilers." 
 
 "Temple-street place" (or "Place," according 
 to style), "Suffolk-street District," "Pemberton- 
 
62 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 square School," are quite correct ; the hyphen is 
 too frequently omitted in such cases. 
 
 The proof-reader often strikes a hyphen from 
 between the words " ex officio." 
 
 A prolific source of trouble in correcting is 
 wrong syllabication when it becomes necessary 
 to carry part of a word to the succeeding line. 
 Neither the English method of dividing on vow- 
 els, where this can be conveniently done, nor the 
 American method of dividing on syllables, ob- 
 tains exclusively in this country. Convenience, 
 and the desire of spacing in such a manner as to 
 make the lines look well, frequently determine 
 the dividing letter; so that, in the same w 7 ork, 
 you may find " pro-perty " and " prop-erty," 
 " trea-sure "• and "treas-ure." In a recent Eng- 
 lish work, we note the following divisions : 
 Pre-bendaries, mea-sure, pre-decessofs, supre- 
 macy, the Re-formation, pro-perty, theo-logy, 
 bre-thren, pre-paration. 
 
 But the division on the syllable is the mode 
 most generally practised in the United States, 
 and we must, however reluctantly, adhere to it 
 as closely as possible, until a convention of 
 publishers shall sanction the adoption of the 
 English usage. Our authorities close the first 
 syllable of "fa-ther" on the a, of "moth-er" 
 on the th, so that, practically, the latter word 
 
PUNCTUATION. 63 
 
 should not be divided at all ; the English printer, 
 without hesitation, places the hj'phen after the a 
 and the o respectively. 
 
 As to the word " discrepancy " there is a dis- 
 crepancy. Webster accents the second syllable, 
 and divides " discrep-ancy " ; while Worcester 
 accents the first syllable, and divides "discre- 
 pancy." In this, printers and readers must be 
 governed by the " style " of the work upon which 
 they are engaged. 
 
 One of the most frequently recurring errors 
 noticed in reading first proof, is the placing of 
 an s at the end of a line when it should have 
 been carried over. Corres-ponclence, des-cribe, 
 des-cription, Aus-tralian, are wrong, and are 
 corrected daily ; and their reappearance proves 
 that in this, as in weightier matters, " error is 
 wrought by want of thought." 
 
 In newspapers, or any work which is to be 
 read once and then cast aside, the carrying over 
 of an ed or Zy, or any other syllable of two let- 
 ters, may perhaps be tolerated ; but in book- 
 work such a division is inexcusable, except in 
 side-notes, or when the measure is very narrow. 
 To avoid extremely wide or thin spacing, and to 
 escape the trouble and expense of overrunning 
 pages already imposed, it must be considered 
 admissible, in certain cases, to carry over a con- 
 sonant preceding the final syllable ed ; as, expec- 
 
64 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 ted, divi-ded. We state this with some misgiv- 
 ings ; but, as we have known it to be done by 
 excellent readers and skilful printers, we lay it 
 down as allowable in extreme cases. An author 
 can sometimes much improve the appearance of 
 a page, by slight changes in the phraseology. 
 
 A good compositor studies to avoid divisions. 
 Some printers, rather than divide a word, will 
 justify a line by separating the words with two 
 three-em spaces. But no arbitrary rule can be 
 laid down in this regard. A well-spaced page 
 with several divided words looks much better 
 than a page unevenly spaced in which no divi- 
 sions occur. The number of hyphens occurring 
 in succession at the end of the lines on any page, 
 should never exceed three. 
 
 In manuscript the dash occurs more frequently 
 than any other mark of punctuation, many writ- 
 ers using it as a substitute for every other point. 
 This habit very much retards the compositor in . 
 his task; for, as we have already intimated, he 
 feels obliged to study the sense of his copy, and 
 to waste his valuable time in considering how 
 he shall best supply those aids to meaning which 
 the author has rejected, and without which any 
 work would be wholly unpresentable. 
 
 That the author of the paragraph quoted below, 
 pointed it with perfect accuracy before sending' 
 
PUNCTUATION. 65 
 
 it to press, does not admit of a doubt. For the 
 nonce, however, we will, with his leave, punctu- 
 ate the passage in the manner in which the com- 
 positor frequently finds passages pointed on his 
 "takes"; thus: — 
 
 "It has been said — ana — no doubt — truthfully — 
 that the smartest boys do not go to college. Yet — it is 
 evident — to every one competent to judge — that the 
 ablest men have been at college." 
 
 With so many dashes before him, it would not 
 be strange if the compositor were to retain some 
 of them ; and the proof might, perhaps, appear 
 as follows : — 
 
 " It has been said — and no doubt truthfully — that 
 the smartest boys do not go to college. Yet it is evident 
 to every one competent to judge, that the ablest men 
 have been at college." 
 
 This is much improved ; and, if we substitute 
 commas for the dashes in the first sentence, the 
 punctuation may be considered unobjectionable. 
 
 Beginners at the " case " are often puzzled in 
 regard to the insertion of commas before the 
 dashes which enclose a parenthetic clause. To 
 decide this point, it is enough to notice whether 
 or not a comma would be used, were the paren- 
 thetic clause omitted. This, we think, will be 
 readily understood by reference to the follow- 
 ing examples. 
 5 
 
66 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 "It was necessary not only that Christianity should 
 assume a standard absolutely perfect, but that it should 
 apply a perfect law to those complex and infinitely diver- 
 sified cases which arise when law is violated." 
 
 Now, if a parenthetic clause is inserted before 
 the word " but," the comma should be retained, 
 and another placed at the end of the inserted 
 clause ; thus : — 
 
 " It was necessary, not only that Christianity should 
 assume a standard absolutely perfect, — which, however, 
 far from anything that man has ever done, would be 
 comparatively easy, — but that it should apply a perfect 
 law," etc. 
 
 If there is no comma where the clause is to be 
 inserted, dashes alone should be used : — 
 
 " In the completed volume of the third report, the 
 countries wherein education has received the most at- 
 tention are treated of at length." 
 
 If a parenthetic clause be inserted after "coun- 
 tries," — where there is no comma, — only dashes 
 are required ; thus : — 
 
 "In the completed volume of the third report, the 
 countries — Prussia, for instance — wherein education 
 has received the most attention are treated of at length." 
 
 A thin space should be placed before, and also 
 after, a dash. 
 
 If a parenthesis is inserted in a part of a sen- 
 tence where no point is required, no point should 
 
PUNCTUATION. 67 
 
 be placed before or after the marks of paren- 
 thesis. 
 
 " By living sparingly, and according to the dictates of 
 reason, in less than a year I found myself (some persons, 
 perhaps, will not believe it) entirely freed from all my 
 complaints." — \_Cornaro. 
 
 As a general rule, if the parenthesis occur 
 after a punctuated clause, the point should be 
 placed after the latter mark of parenthesis. 
 
 " Popham's monument, by the intercession of his 
 wife's friends (who had interest at Court), was left in 
 St. John's Chapel on condition either of erasing the 
 inscription, or turning it inwards." 
 
 "Artist: Kneller (1723). Architects: Taylor (1788); 
 Chambers (1796) ; Wyatt (1813) .» 
 
 " Antiquities of St. Peter's, by J. Crull (usually signed 
 J. C.)." 
 
 If a parenthesis which closes with a note of 
 exclamation or interrogation, is inserted where a 
 point occurs, that point should precede the first 
 mark of parenthesis. 
 
 " Where foresight and good morals exist, (and do they 
 not here ?) the taxes do not stand in the way of an in- 
 dustrious man's comforts." 
 
 " He directed the letter to Gnat Smith, (spelling Nat 
 with a G !) and deposited it in a fire-alarm box." 
 
 An exclamation point is often found preceding 
 the first mark of parenthesis. 
 
68 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 " Ay, here now ! (exclaimed the Critic,) here come 
 Coleridge's metaphysics ! " — \_Biographia Literaria. 
 
 " I am, sir, sensible " — " Hear ! Hear ! " (they cheer 
 him.) 
 
 When a parenthesis occurs within a parenthe- 
 sis, brackets should be substituted for the first 
 and last parenthetic marks. 
 
 " As for the other party [I mean (do not misunder- 
 stand me) the original inventor], he was absent from the 
 country, at that time." 
 
 " Brackets are generally used .... to enclose 
 an explanation, note, or observation, standing by 
 itself." — [Parkers Aids. 
 
 A short comment inserted in a paragraph by a 
 reviewer, is placed in brackets. 
 
 " The sacks were badly eaten by rags [so in the affida- 
 vit], and the almonds had run out." 
 
 In transcripts of trials at law, brackets are 
 used to enclose statements of things done in 
 court, which things would not appear in a report 
 of the verbal proceedings alone ; as, — 
 
 u Ans. About a quarter past ten, he came into my 
 shop, and picked out a cane 
 
 " Gore. Of what wood was it made ? 
 
 " Ans. It was a good piece of hickory — heavy for 
 hickory 
 
 " [The stick was handed to the witness, who declared 
 it to be the same he had sold Mr. Charles Austin.] 
 
PUNCTUATION. 69 
 
 " Goie. What sticks had he usually bought of you ? " 
 — [Trial of 8 elf ridge. 
 
 Whether the words in brackets should also be 
 in italics is a matter of style. In the following 
 passage from the same report, italics are used. 
 
 " Gore. [Shewing the fracture of the hat on the fore- 
 part.'] Is not that the fore-part of the hat, as this 
 leather [that on the hinder part] marks the part of the 
 hat that is worn behind ? " 
 
 For inserting commas or other points after, 
 before, or within brackets, the same rules apply 
 as in case of marks of parenthesis. 
 
 Whether when a. noun singular terminates in 
 s, its possessive case requires an additional s, is 
 yet an open question. We have no hesitation in 
 giving an affirmative answer, especially in the 
 case of proper names. If Mr. Adams were to 
 manufacture ale, one might, perhaps, from pro- 
 hibitory considerations, advise him to advertise 
 it as "Adams' ale " ; but should Mr. Adams have 
 no fear of the law, he would avoid all misun- 
 derstanding by calling it "Adams's ale." It may 
 be objected that the position of the apostrophe 
 makes the matter sufficiently clear without the 
 additional s. Yes, — to the eye ; but to the 
 ear the propriety of the additional s becomes 
 very apparent. " Jacob's pillow " and " Jacobs's 
 
70 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 pillow " may be of very different materials. But, 
 to avoid too much sibilation, we read " for con- 
 science' sake," "for goodness' sake," etc. 
 
 The apostrophe, with s subjoined, is used to 
 denote the plural of letters and figures. 
 
 " The discipline which is imposed by proving that 
 some as' s are some ?/'s, and that other x's are all y's, will 
 enable you to pulverize any hot-headed deacon who may 
 hereafter attempt to prove that you had better be looking 
 out for another pastorate." — \_Ad Clerum. 
 
 " This 7 differs from the other 7's." 
 
 The apostrophe may be used in denoting the 
 plural whenever its use will assist in avoiding 
 obscurity. 
 
 " The children called loudly for their pa's and ma's." 
 
 We append a series of rules, which, we think, 
 may be found useful to such writers, composi- 
 tors, and proof-readers, as have not time or in- 
 clination to study more elaborate works. 
 
PUNCTUATION, 71 
 
 RULES OF PUNCTUATION. 
 
 I. PERIOD, OK PULL POINT. 
 
 1. The period is used at the end of every 
 complete sentence which is not interrogative or 
 exclamatory. 
 
 2. Sentences interrogative and exclamatory in 
 form, sometimes take' the period. 
 
 Will you call at my office, say on Tuesday next, or 
 whenever you happen to he in town, and much oblige 
 
 Yours truly, John Smith. 
 
 How much better it is, considering the saving of dis- 
 tance to the pupils, that two small schoolhouses should 
 be built, rather than one large one. 
 
 3. The period is put after initials when used 
 alone ; also after abbreviations. 
 
 J. Q. Adams. Supt. of R. K. A. M. 
 
 4. Place a period before decimals, and be- 
 tween pounds and shillings. 
 
 The French metre is 3.2808992 feet. 
 
 £24. 65. 8d. 5.75 miles. 
 
 5. A period should always be put after Ro- 
 man numerals, except when used in the paging 
 of prefaces, etc. 
 
 George III. came to the throne in 1760, 
 
72 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 II. COLON. 
 
 6. A colon is put at the end of a clause com- 
 plete in sense, when something follows which 
 tends to make the sense fuller or clearer. (See 
 Eules 9 and 13.) 
 
 In free states no man should take up arms, but with a 
 view to defend his country and its laws : he puts off the 
 citizen when he enters the camp ; but it is because he is 
 a citizen, and would continue to be so, that he makes 
 himself for a while a soldier. — Blackstone's Commen- 
 taries, Booh I. Ch. 13. 
 
 7. The last of several clauses that introduce a 
 concluding remark or sentiment, should be fol- 
 lowed by a colon, if the preceding clauses have 
 been punctuated with semicolons. 
 
 A pickpocket in every car ; a cheat at every station ; 
 every third switch on the road misplaced ; the danger of 
 being hurled from the track, and then burned alive : 
 these considerations prevent my travelling on the railroad 
 of which you speak. 
 
 Observation 1. In examples like the above, a very com- 
 mon and perhaps better method is to put a comma and dash 
 in place of the colon. The colon is neater, but more old- 
 fashioned. 
 
 8. The colon is commonly used whenever an 
 example, a quotation, or a speech is introduced. 
 
 The Scriptures give us an amiable representation of 
 the Deity in these wdrds : " God is love." 
 
PUNCTUATION. 73 
 
 Obs. 2. Modern writers, instead of the colon, mostly use the 
 semicolon, dash, or period. Our first example under Rule 9 
 — with a colon substituted for the semicolon — might with 
 propriety have been placed under Eule 6. We prefer the 
 semicolon, however; and if the word for were inserted in the 
 example mentioned, the colon would be inadmissible : 
 
 " Let there be no strife between theology and science ; for there 
 need be none." 
 
 In reprinting old works, the colon should be carefully re- 
 tained, as essential to a clear understanding of them. 
 
 The colon is generally placed after as follows, the following, 
 in these words, thus, or any other word or phrase which for- 
 mally introduces something; and it is usually followed by a 
 dash when the matter introduced forms a distinct paragraph. 
 
 III. SEMICOLON. 
 
 9. When two or more clauses of a sentence 
 are not so closely connected as to admit the use 
 of a comma, a semicolon is used. 
 
 Let there, be no strife between theology and science ; 
 there need be none. 
 
 Wisdom hath builded her house ; she hath hewn out 
 her seven pillars ; she hath killed her beasts ; she hath 
 mingled her wine ; she hath also furnished her table. 
 
 10. When a number of particulars depend on 
 an introductory or a final clause, such particulars 
 may be separated from each other by a semi- 
 colon. 
 
 There are three difficulties in authorship : to write 
 anything worth the publishing ; to get honest men to 
 publish it; and to get sensible men to read it. 
 
74 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 To present a general view of the whole Vedic lit- 
 erature ; to define its extent ; to divide it into well- 
 distinguished classes of writings ; to portray the cir- 
 cumstances of their origin, and the stage of cultural 
 development which they represent ; and to explain the 
 method of their preservation and transmission to us, — 
 were some of the objects which Miiller had in view. 
 
 11. Loosely connected clauses of a sentence 
 should be separated by semicolons, if those 
 clauses or any of them are subdivided by com- 
 mas. 
 
 As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, 
 injure not the eye by reason of their minuteness ; so the 
 attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought 
 not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignifi- 
 cance. 
 
 Obs. 3. In the first sentence of the following example, a 
 comma between the clauses is sufficient, because there are no 
 points in the clauses ; but the second sentence may serve to 
 illustrate Rules 11 and 12. 
 
 As there are some faults that have been termed faults on the 
 right side, so there are some errors that might be denominated 
 errors on the safe side. Thus, we seldom regret having been too 
 mild, too cautious, or too humble ; but we often repent having been 
 too violent, too precipitate, or too proud. 
 
 12. When two clauses not closely dependent 
 on each other, are connected by but, for, and, 
 or some similar connective, they are separated 
 by a semicolon. 
 
 I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy ; 
 but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 75 
 
 A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain 
 a victory ; because he knows that even the most success- 
 ful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more 
 profligate, than it found them. 
 
 Ingratitude in a superior is very often nothing more 
 than the refusal of some unreasonable request ; and if 
 the patron does too little, it is not unfrequently because 
 the dependant expects too much. 
 
 13. Phrases are often set off by a semicolon, 
 viz. : 
 
 a. Explanatory phrases. 
 
 There remain to us moderns, only two roads to suc- 
 cess ; discovery and conquest. 
 
 b. Participial and adjective phrases. 
 
 I have first considered whether it be worth while to say 
 anything at all, before I have taken any trouble to say it 
 well ; knowing that words are but air, and that both are 
 capable of much condensation. 
 
 These roads are what all roads should be ; suitable for 
 light carriages, and for heavy-laden wagons. 
 
 c. Any phrase, especially if elliptical, or if 
 divisible into smaller portions by commas. 
 
 (Obs, 4. In speaking or in writing, we " almost always leave 
 out some of the words which are necessary to a full expression 
 of our meaning. This leaving out is called the ellipsis.") 
 
 John Milton; born Dec. 9, 1608 ; completed Paradise 
 Lost, 1665; died Nov. 10, 1674. 
 
76 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 IT. COMMA. 
 
 14. Repeated words or expressions ; three or 
 more serial terms ; two unconnected serial terms, 
 — are separated from each other by the comma. 
 
 a. Eepeated words or expressions. 
 
 Shut, shut the door. 
 
 I, I, I, I itself, I, 
 The inside and outside, the what and the why, 
 The when and the where, and the low and the high, 
 All I, I, I, I itself, I. 
 Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morn- 
 ing. 
 
 b. Three or more serial terms. 
 
 Shakspeare, Butler, and Bacon have rendered it ex- 
 tremely difficult for all who come after them, to be sub- 
 lime, witty, or profound. 
 
 The firm of Smith, Longman, Jones, Llewellyn, & Co. 
 
 c. Two unconnected serial terms. 
 He had a keen, ready wit. 
 
 Obs. 5. The second example under a (" The inside and out- 
 side, the what and the why,"), furnishes an illustration of the 
 mode of punctuating terms joined in pairs. 
 
 Obs. 6. Style sometimes requires the omission of the comma 
 before and, or, nor, when one of these connectives precedes 
 the last term of a series : as, " Shakspeare, Butler and Bacon 
 have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them 
 to be sublime, witty or profound." But when the words are all 
 in the same predicament, the comma should be inserted; e. g. t 
 
PUNCTUATION. 77 
 
 — if you wish to state that three certain persons are wise, you 
 would point thus : 
 
 " Thomas, Richard, and John are wise." 
 
 But if Richard and John are the Solons, and you wish to inform 
 Thomas of that fact, you would point thus : 
 
 " Thomas, Richard and John are wise." 
 
 So, in the first example under 6, if it is desired to qualify the 
 three adjectives by the phrase "in the highest degree," the 
 comma after witty must stand: "in the highest degree sub- 
 lime, witty, or profound." But if that phrase is intended to 
 apply to sublime only, the pointing should be thus: "in the 
 highest degree sublime, witty or profound." 
 
 15. Phrases, clauses, and words, inverted, or 
 otherwise not in their natural position, generally 
 require to be set off by a comma. 
 
 Into this illustrious society, my friend was joyfully 
 received. 
 
 When we quarrel with ourselves, we are sure to be 
 losers. 
 
 To satisfy you on that point, I will make a short ar- 
 gument. 
 
 He, like the world, his ready visit pays, 
 "Where fortune smiles. 
 Roe, Richard. Doe, John. 
 
 Obs. 7. The exceptions to this rule are numerous. If the 
 first and last words of a passage are related (for him the sum- 
 mer wind murmured) ; if the inverted phrase be brief, and can 
 be read in close connection with what follows (in youth we 
 have little sympathy with the misfortunes of age) ; or if the 
 principal clause is itself inverted (In the centre of the common 
 rises a noble monument), — the comma is usually omitted. 
 
 Oiis. 8. In long lists of proper names, as Directories, &c, it 
 
78 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 is usual to omit the comma, although the names are trans- 
 posed, and to print thus : 
 
 Smith James W. 
 
 Thomson Theophilus. 
 
 16. When the principal sentence is broken to 
 receive an incidental or parenthetic expression, a 
 comma is placed at the break, and another at the 
 end of the inserted clause. 
 
 Rulers and magistrates should attempt to operate on 
 the minds of their respective subjects, if possible, by 
 reward rather than punishment. 
 
 Some writers, in a vain attempt to be cutting and dry, 
 give us only that which is cut and dried. 
 
 It is known to every physician, that,* whatever lazy 
 people may say to the contrary, early rising tends to 
 longevity. 
 
 Go, then, where, wrapt in fear and gloom, 
 Fond hearts and true are sighing. 
 
 The most common parenthetic expressions are at least, at 
 most, accordingly, as it were, beyond question, consequently, 
 doubtless, furthermore, generally speaking, in the mean time, 
 on the other hand, etc. 
 
 17. Words or phrases expressing contrast, or 
 emphatically distinguished, and terms having a 
 common relation to some other term that fol- 
 lows them, require the comma. 
 
 a. Contrast or notable difference. 
 
 His style is correct, yet familiar. 
 
 I asked for money, not advice. 
 
 'T was fat, not fate, by which Napoleon fell. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 79 
 
 Although Prince Hohenlohe was far more specific in 
 pointing out what ought to be avoided than in showing 
 what ought to be done, yet there could be no mistaking 
 the course which the government was intending to 
 pursue. 
 
 They are charitable, not to benefit the poor, but to 
 court the rich. 
 
 Obs. 9. Two contrasted words having a common depend- 
 ence, and connected by hut, though, yet, or as well as, should 
 not he separated; as, There are springs of clear but brackish 
 water. 
 
 6. Terms having a common relation to a suc- 
 ceeding term. 
 
 Ordered, That the Committee on Banking be, and 
 they hereby are, instructed to report a bill. 
 
 That officer was not in opposition to, but in close alli- 
 ance with, thieves. 
 
 Obs. 10. Some proof-readers, however, omit the second 
 comma, when hut a single word follows the latter proposition ; 
 as, "Many states were in alliance with, and under the pro- 
 tection of Rome." The better method is to insert the point. 
 " [Bonner was] an accomplished Italian, and probably also a 
 Spanish^ scholar." — [Froude. 
 
 18. Correlative terms, or expressions having 
 a reciprocal relation, are separated by a comma. 
 
 The farther we look back into those distant periods, 
 all the objects seem to become more obscure. 
 
 The more a man has, the more he wants. 
 
 As he that knows how to put proper words in proper 
 places -evinces the truest knowledge of books, so he that 
 
80 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 knows how to put fit persons in fit stations evinces the 
 truest knowledge of men. 
 
 It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to 
 root out old errors. 
 
 Where MacDonald sits, there is the head of the table. 
 
 Cincinnatus and Washington were greater in their 
 retirement, than Csesar and Napoleon at the summit 
 of their ambition ; since it requires less magnanimity to 
 win the conquest, than to refuse the spoil. 
 
 Obs. 11. When as or than, so that, or such that are used, 
 the connection is generally too close to admit the comma. 
 
 Cromwell's enemies say that he always fought with more sincerity 
 than he prayed. 
 Your house is larger than mine. 
 Paper is not so good as gold. 
 
 The old gentleman is so infirm that he can scarcely move. 
 He told such a story that we were all deceived by it. 
 
 19. Words used in direct address, and inde- 
 pendent and absolute words, with what belongs 
 to them, are separated from the rest of the sen- 
 tence by commas. 
 
 Q. You say, Mr. Witness, that you were present ? 
 
 A. Yes, sir. 
 
 Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes. 
 
 My son, give me thy heart. 
 
 At length, having fought the good fight, he left the 
 world in peace. 
 
 To confess the truth, I was in fault. 
 
 Richard Roe, his father being dead, succeeded to the 
 estate. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 81 
 
 Silence having been obtained, the speaker went on 
 with his remarks. 
 
 20. The clauses of a compound sentence may- 
 be separated by a comma when the connection is 
 too close for the semicolon. 
 
 The winds roared in the woods, and the torrents tum- 
 bled from the hills. ' 
 
 Hasten to your homes, and there teach your children 
 to detest the deeds of tyranny. 
 
 It has, by some grammarians, been given as a rule, to 
 use a comma to set off every part of a compound sen- 
 tence, which part has in it a verb not in the infinitive 
 mode. 
 
 Obs. 12. A dependent clause should be separated by a 
 comma, unless closely connected. 
 
 It argues a defect of method, when an author is obliged to write 
 notes upon his own works. 
 
 Unless we hurry to the beach, the tide will overtake us. 
 
 "Whatever reception the present age may give this work, we rest 
 satisfied with our endeavors to deserve a kind one. 
 
 When the Tartars make a Lama, their first care is to place him in 
 a dark corner of the temple. 
 
 Obs. 13. If a clause beginning with as, because, if, wher- 
 ever, how, lest, than, that, when, where, whether, while, why, 
 or any adverb of time, place, or manner, is put last, and is 
 closely connected in sense with what precedes, it is not set off 
 by a comma : " He went away when the boat left." " We love 
 him because lie first loved us." " He will pay if he is able." 
 " Tell me whether you will return." 
 
 Obs. 14. An infinitive phrase closely connected with what it 
 modifies, should not be set off by a comma; as, " We use lan- 
 guage to express our thoughts." "Nouns do not vary their 
 
 6 
 
82 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 endings to denote certain cases." But if the infinitive phrase 
 is preceded by in order, or if it is remote from what it modi- 
 fies, it should be set off by a comma. " He collected a great 
 many young elms from various parts of England, to adorn 
 his grounds." " If dissimulation is ever to be pardoned, it is 
 that which men have recourse to, in order to obtain situations 
 which will enlarge their sphere of general usefulness." 
 
 21. A word or phrase used in apposition, to 
 explicate or illustrate a previous word or phrase, 
 should be set off by commas ; but if the words 
 in apposition constitute a single phrase or a 
 proper name, they should not be separated. 
 
 a. Comma required. 
 
 Johnson, that mighty Caliban of literature, is held up 
 to view in the pages of Boswell. 
 
 The alligator, or cayman, is found in the Orinoco. 
 
 Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, was eminent for his 
 zeal and knowledge. 
 
 6. Comma not required. 
 
 Johnson the lexicographer completed his dictionary in 
 seven years. 
 
 We the undersigned agree to pay the sums set against 
 our names respectively. 
 
 Jeremy the prophet commanded them that were carried 
 away to take of the fire, as it hath been signified. 
 
 I Paul have written it with mine own hand. 
 
 The poet Chaucer lived in the reign of Richard II. 
 
 Sir Robert Walpole understood two grand secrets of 
 state ; the power of principal, and the weakness of prin- 
 ciple. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 83 
 
 22. A simple sentence usually requires no 
 point except the period at the end of it. 
 
 Count Bismarck has preserved a pleasant intimacy 
 with his old preceptor. 
 
 Obs. 15. When the subject is a clause ending with a verb, 
 or with a noun that might be mistaken for the nominative, a 
 comma should be inserted before the predicate. 
 
 That winter campaigns are undertaken, shows a desire to kill the 
 Indians. 
 
 Captain Smith's obedience to orders, issued in his promotion. 
 
 Every year that is added to the age of the world, serves to lengthen 
 the thread of its history. 
 
 He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation 
 of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a de- 
 cided advantage over his opponents. 
 
 Obs. 16. Whether a comma should be inserted after the verb 
 to be, when that verb is followed by an infinitive clause which 
 might by transposition be made the nominative, is a question 
 on which the best authorities differ. 
 
 First Method. — The highest art of the mind of man is to 
 possess itself with tranquillity in the hour of danger. 
 
 Second Method. — The highest art of the mind of man is, to 
 possess itself with tranquillity in the hour of danger. 
 
 We are of opinion that usage is in favor of the omission of 
 the comma, as in the following examples : 
 
 The proposed object of the Union Dictionary is to comprehend 
 at once all that is truly useful in Johnson, Sheridan, and Walker. — 
 [Thomas Browne. 
 
 The grandest of all conditions is to be at once healthy and wise 
 and good. — [D'Arcy Thompson. 
 
 Obs. 17. When the subject is an infinitive phrase, the better 
 method is not to separate it; as, " To be totally indifferent to 
 praise or censure is a real defect in character." Still there is 
 excellent authority for inserting a comma, thus : " To be to- 
 tally indifferent to praise or censure, is a real defect in charac* 
 
84 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 ter." In sentences of this kind we advise the proof-reader to 
 omit the comma unless the author is uniform in the insertion 
 of it. 
 
 Obs. 18. Some grammarians set off by a comma the predi- 
 cate, when it refers to separated nominatives preceding it; as, 
 "The benches, chairs, and tables, were thrown down." And, 
 again, we find this example given: "Veracity, justice, and 
 charity, are essential virtues." So, in the ordinances of the 
 city of Boston, " if any person or persons shall roast any 
 cocoa," without having complied with certain conditions, "he, 
 she, or they, shall forfeit and pay for every such offence," etc., 
 — a comma appearing after they, although a conjunction pre- 
 cedes it. But the weight of authority is against separating the 
 last noun or pronoun of such compound subject from the verb 
 when the conjunction is used. The last quotation, above given, 
 should read, " he, she, or they shall forfeit," etc. 
 
 23. A comma should be placed before or after 
 a word or phrase, to associate it with the group 
 to which it belongs, if, without the comma, the 
 sentence would be equivocal ; and, generally, a 
 comma may be inserted wherever its use will 
 prevent ambiguity. 
 
 This man, only cared to lay up money. 
 
 This man only, cared to lay up money. 
 
 Whoever lives opprobriously, must perish. 
 
 The first maxim among philosophers is, that merit 
 only, makes distinction. 
 
 The delight which I found in reading Pliny, first in- 
 spired me with the idea of a work of this nature. — 
 [Goldsmith. 
 
 My communication was offered and refused. 
 
 My communication was offered, and refused on account 
 of its length. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 85 
 
 Obs. 19. We recently met with this last sentence, pointed as 
 follows: "My communication was offered and refused, on 
 account of its length " ; but it is not easy to see why the 
 length of a communication should be assigned as the reason 
 for having offered it. 
 
 " Every favor a man receives in some measure sinks him below 
 his dignity." — [Goldsmith. 
 
 Obs. 20. A comma should have been placed after receives. 
 
 24. No comma is put between two w^ords or 
 phrases in apposition, following the verbs think, 
 name, make, consider, and others of similar 
 meaning. 
 
 They made him their ruler. 
 
 They called him captain. 
 
 They saluted him king. 
 
 I esteem you my friend. 
 
 Believing him an honest man, we elected him treas- 
 urer. 
 
 We constituted our Secretary a depositary of German 
 books. 
 
 I consider him a gentleman. 
 
 Obs. 21. Of the terms in apposition, one is the subject, and 
 the other the predicate of to be, understood ("They made him 
 to be their ruler"). The rule might, therefore, be worded 
 thus : When, of two terms in apposition, one is predicated of 
 the other, no comma is required. 
 
 25. In a compound sentence, the comma is 
 often inserted where a verb is omitted. 
 
 In literature, our taste will be discovered by that which 
 we give ; our judgment, by that which we withhold. 
 
86 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Wit consists in finding out resemblances ; judgment, 
 in discerning differences. 
 
 In the pursuit of intellectual pleasure lies every virtue ; 
 of sensual, every vice. 
 
 Sheridan once observed of a certain speech, that all its 
 facts were invention, and all its wit, memory. 
 
 Obs. 22. But sometimes the comma is not inserted : espe- 
 cially when the style is lively ; when the clauses have a com- 
 mon relation to something that follows; or when they are 
 connected by a conjunction. 
 
 Could Johnson have had less prejudice, Addison more profundity, 
 or Dryden more time, they would have been well qualified for the 
 arduous office of a critic. 
 
 The Germans do not appear so vivacious, nor the Turks so ener- 
 getic, as to afford triumphant demonstrations in behaif of the sacred 
 weed. 
 
 The boat was tight, the day fine, the bait tempting, and the fishes 
 hungry. 
 
 26. A short quotation, a remarkable expres- 
 sion, or a short observation somewhat in manner 
 of a quotation, is set off by the comma. 
 
 Plutarch calls lying, the vice of slaves. 
 
 It hurts a man's pride to say, I do not know. 
 
 Cicero observed to a degenerate patrician, " I am the 
 first of my family, but you are the last of yours." 
 
 An upright minister asks, what recommends a man ; a 
 corrupt minister, who. 
 
 There is an old poet who has said, " No deity is 
 absent, if prudence is with thee." 
 
 They tell me here, that people frequent the theatre to 
 be instructed as well as amused. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 87 
 
 The old proverb, " Too much freedery breeds despise," 
 is now rendered, " Familiarity breeds contempt." 
 
 Obs. 23. When the introductory clause is short, the comma 
 maybe omitted; as, " Charles Fox said that restorations are 
 the most bloody of all revolutions." — " Madame de Stael 
 admits that she discovered, as she grew old, the men could not 
 find out that wit in her at fifty, which she possessed at twenty- 
 five." 
 
 27. Numbers are divided by the comma into 
 periods of three figures each. 
 
 The distance of the sun from the earth is usually stated 
 at 95,000,000 miles. 
 
 Obs. 24. In a number expressing the year of an era, the 
 comma is nbt used; as, July 4, 1876. In tabular work it is 
 very neat and convenient to omit the comma, as in the follow- 
 ing example : 
 
 The number of letters in 1600 lbs. of Pica is as follows : 
 
 a 17000 
 
 » b 3200 
 
 c 6000 
 
 d ..... 8800 
 
 e 24000, etc. 
 
 Obs. 25. In some offices the style requires all numbers less 
 than 1,000 to be expressed in words; 1,000 and upwards in 
 figures. Some printers insert the comma before hundreds, 
 only when five figures or more occur. 
 
 28. Bestrictive phrases or clauses are not set 
 oft' by the comma. 
 
 He reviewed such regiments as were armed with En- 
 field rifles. 
 
 They flatter the vanities of those with whom they have 
 to do. 
 
88 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Attend to the remarks which the preacher is now about 
 to make. 
 
 Bishop Watson most feelingly regrets the valuable time 
 he was obliged to squander away. 
 
 A false concord in words may be pardoned in him who 
 has produced a true concord between such momentous 
 things as the purest faith and the profoundest reason. 
 
 " He is known by his company" is a proverb that does 
 not invariably apply. 
 
 Y. NOTE OP INTEEROGATION. 
 
 29. The note of interrogation is placed at the 
 end of a direct question. 
 
 Can gold gain friendship ? 
 
 Is that the best answer you can give to the fourteenth 
 cross-interrogatory ? 
 
 Is any among you afflicted ? 
 
 Obs. 26. When several distinct questions occur in succes- 
 sion, the practice of some writers is to separate them by com- 
 mas or semicolons, placing the question-mark at the close 
 only, — as : 
 
 " Where was Lane then; what was his situation?" — [Trial of 
 Selfridge. 
 
 f Am I Dromio, am I your man, am I myself? " 
 
 This we regard as incorrect. Each several question should 
 have the interrogation point. 
 
 " Rosalind. What did he when thou saw'st him ? What said 
 he ? How looked he ? Wherein went he ? What makes he here ? 
 Did he ask for me ? Where remains he ? How parted he with 
 thee ? and when shalt thou see him again ?" 
 
PUNCTUATION. 89 
 
 Obs. 27. If several questions in one sentence are joined by 
 connectives, each question takes the note of interrogation : 
 " Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth 
 of the next month? and are they not, some of them, set forward 
 already?" 
 
 Obs. 28. When a sentence contains several interrogative 
 clauses, having a common relation to, or dependence on, one 
 term, a single interrogation point is sufficient. 
 
 " Was I, for this, nigh wrecked upon the sea ; 
 And twice by awkward wind from England's bank 
 Drove back again unto my native clime ? " 
 "By sensational preaching do you mean an incoherent raving 
 about things in general and nothing in particular ; a perversion of 
 every text ; an insult of common sense ; a recital of anecdotes which 
 are untrue, and a use of illustrations which are unmeaning ? " 
 " What can preserve my life, or what destroy ? " 
 
 Note. — An assertion stating a question, does not take the 
 interrogation point; as, "The question is, what lenses lrave 
 the greatest magnifying power." 
 
 VI. THE NOTE OF EXCLAMATION. 
 
 30. The note of exclamation is applied to 
 expressions of sudden or violent emotion ; such 
 as surprise, grief, joy, love, hatred, etc. 
 
 O piteous spectacle ! O noble Caesar ! O woful day ! 
 
 An old lady one day importuning Mahomet to know 
 what she ought to do, in order to gain Paradise, — " My 
 good lady," answered the Prophet, " old women never 
 get there." — " What ! never get to Paradise ! " returned 
 the matron in a fury. "Never!" says he, "for they 
 grow young by the way ! " 
 
90 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Why was this heart of mine formed with so much 
 sensibility ! or why was not my fortune adapted to its 
 impulse ! Poor houseless creatures ! The world will 
 give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. 
 
 Ah ! well of old the Psalmist prayed 
 " Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid ! " 
 Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, 
 And man is hate, but God is love ! 
 
 31. The exclamation point is used in invoca- 
 tions. 
 
 Father of all ! in every age adored. 
 Gentle spirit of sweetest humor who erst didst sit 
 upon the easy pen of my beloved Cervantes ! 
 9 Oh, -my brothers ! oh, my sisters ! 
 
 Would to God that ye were near ! 
 
 32. Several exclamation points are sometimes 
 used together, to express ridicule, or to intensify 
 surprise, etc. 
 
 Malherbe observed, that a good poet was of no more 
 service to the church or the state, than a good player at 
 ninepins ! ! 
 
 YII. THE BASH. 
 
 33. The dash is used where a sentence breaks 
 off abruptly. 
 
 Charles. You must invent some ingenious subterfuge 
 — some — some kind of- 1 - 
 
PUNCTUATION. 91 
 
 Project. I understand ; not a suggestio falsi, but a 
 mild suppressio veri. 
 
 Charles. Oh, is that what you call it ? There is a 
 shorter word — 
 
 Project. There is ; but it is not professional. 
 
 I shall divide the subject into fifteen heads, and then I 
 shall argue thus — but not to give you and myself the 
 spleen, be contented at present with an Indian tale. 
 
 34. The dash is used before and after a paren- 
 thetic clause, when not closely enough connected 
 to admit the comma. 
 
 But it remains — and the thought is not without its 
 comforting significance, however hardly it may bear on 
 individual cases — that no bestowal of bounty, no culti- 
 vation of the amenities of life, .... can wipe out the 
 remembrance of even doubtful loyalty in the day of 
 trial. 
 
 Obs. 29. If a parenthetic clause is inserted where a comma 
 is required in the principal sentence, a comma should be placed 
 before each of the dashes enclosing such clause. 
 
 I should like to undertake the Stonyshire side of that estate, — it's 
 in a dismal condition, — and set improvements on foot. 
 
 35. Several clauses having a common depend- 
 ence, are separated by a comma and dash from 
 the clause on which they depend. 
 
 To think that we have mastered the whole problem of 
 existence ; that we have discovered the secret of crea- 
 tion ; that we have solved the problem of evil, and abol- 
 ished mystery from nature and religion and life, — leads 
 
92 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 naturally to a precipitation of action, a summary dealing 
 with evils, etc. (See Example and Obs. under Rule 7.) 
 
 36. The dash is used with the comma, the 
 semicolon, and the colon, which it lengthens, or 
 renders more emphatic. 
 
 We read of " merry England; " — when England was 
 not merry, things were not going well with it. We hear 
 of " the glory of hospitality," England's preeminent boast, t 
 — by the rules of which all tables, from the table of the 
 twenty- shilling freeholder to the table in the baron's hall 
 and abbey refectory, were open at the dinner-hour to all 
 comers. — \_Froude. 
 
 37. When words are too closely connected to 
 admit a strictly grammatical point, the dash is 
 used to denote a pause. 
 
 My hopes and fears 
 Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge 
 Look down — on what ? A fathomless abyss. 
 The king of France, with twice ten thousand men, 
 Marched up the hill, and then — marched down again. 
 
 38. When a word or phrase is repeated 
 emphatically, or echoed, it is preceded by the 
 
 ■ dash. 
 
 The immediate question is upon the rejection of the 
 President's message. It has been moved to reject if/, — 
 to reject it, not after it was considered, but before it was 
 considered ! 
 
 The world continues to attach a peculiar significance 
 to certain names, — a significance which at once recurs 
 
PUNCTUATION. 93 
 
 to one on hearing the isolated name unapplied to any 
 individual. 
 
 39. Ail equivalent expression, or an idea re- 
 peated in different words, is properly set off by 
 the comma and dash. 
 
 These are detached thoughts, — memoranda for future 
 use. 
 
 Wolsey's return to power was discussed openly as a 
 probability, — a result which Ann Boleyn never ceased 
 to fear. 
 
 There are three kinds of power, — wealth, strength, 
 and talent. 
 
 The value of our actions will be confirmed and estab- 
 lished by those two sure and sateless destroyers of all 
 other things, — Time and Death. 
 
 The present time has one advantage over every other, 
 — it is our own. 
 
 Those who submit to encroachments to-day are only 
 preparing for themselves greater evils for to-morrow, — 
 humiliation or resistance. 
 
 Obs. 30. In a portion of the examples under this rule, the 
 dash appears to supply the place of viz, or namely, 
 
 40. A dash placed between two numbers in- 
 dicates that the natural series between those 
 numbers is understood. 
 
 Obs. 31. If a writer refer to "pp. 90, 95," he means those 
 two pages only; but if he cite " pp. 90-95," the reference is 
 to pages 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. — In dates of the same cen- 
 tury, the figures denoting the century are omitted in the second 
 
94 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 number : " He has the Farmer's Almanac for 1810-70, — sixty- 
 one years." (It will be observed, that, under this rule, the 
 short or en dash is used.) 
 
 41. An ellipsis of letters is denoted by a 
 dash. 
 
 Ex-President J — ns — n. King F — der — ck W m. 
 
 VIII. VARIOUS MARKS USED IN WRITING AND 
 PRINTING. 
 
 The hyphen is used to denote the division of a 
 word into syllables ; as, in-ter-dict : it is placed 
 at the end of a line (usually at the close of a 
 syllable), when a word is not finished: and it 
 connects the parts of a compound word; as, "At 
 Cambridge, Cecil was present at the terrible and 
 never-to-be-forgotten battle between Cheke and 
 Gardiner on the pronunciation of the Greek 
 epsilon, which convulsed the academic world." 
 
 The apostrophe is used to abbreviate a word ; 
 as, His for it is, tho' for though, don't for do not. 
 It denotes the possessive case ; as, "John's hat," 
 "three years' service," "one hour's work," "two 
 days' notice," " Smith & Co. 's shops," "Brook's 
 book," "Brooks's book." It appears in names; 
 as, O'Brien; M'[Mac]Mahon. 
 
 In French, no space is put after an apostrophe 
 
PUNCTUATION. 95 
 
 denoting elision; as, "d'or": in Italian, a space 
 is inserted ; as, " n' arrivi." 
 
 A turned comma sometimes denotes the ac in 
 Mac; as, M'Donough. 
 
 Two commas (usually turned) are often used 
 instead of do. (ditto.) 
 
 Carving knives. 
 Pocket " 
 Case " 
 
 Book of History. 
 ,, ,, Chemistry. 
 „ „ Algebra. 
 
 Quotation marks [" " or " "] are used to 
 include a copied passage. If the copied pas- 
 sage itself contains a quotation, the latter is 
 denoted by single marks [< ' or c '] ; as, "My 
 father said in banter, 'James, the notes are not 
 correct.' The farmer dryly answered, 'I dinna 
 ken what they may be noo; but they were a' 
 richt afore ye had your fingers in amang 'em.' " 
 
 Brackets are used to enclose words omitted by 
 a writer or copyist; as, "Were you [on the] 
 deck of the steamer at the [time] of the colli- 
 sion?" (In the Holy Scriptures, supplied words 
 are put in italics : " Because they sought it not 
 by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the 
 law.") Explanations inserted in text, are usu- 
 ally enclosed in brackets ; as in the following 
 
96 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 instance, from "The Life of Dr. Goldsmith": 
 " You see, my dear Dan, how long I have been 
 talking about myself, \_8ome mention of private 
 family affairs is here omitted.'] My dear sir, 
 these things give me real uneasiness, " etc. 
 
 Marks of parenthesis are used to enclose a 
 sentence, or part of a sentence, which is in- 
 serted in another sentence : "One Sunday morn- 
 ing, when her daughter (afterwards Lady Elton) 
 went into the kitchen, she was surprised to find 
 a new jack (recently ordered, and which was 
 constructed on the principle of going constantly 
 without winding up) wholly paralyzed and use- 
 less." , 
 
 The index [ (g^ ] is used to draw attention to 
 some particular passage. Sometimes three as- 
 terisks [ * # * ] are used for the same purpose. 
 
 The caret [ A ] is used in writing, to denote 
 the point where an interlineation is to be in- 
 serted. It is sometimes used in printing when 
 the exact character of a manuscript is to be 
 represented, — as in "exhibits" in law work. 
 
 The brace [ ^/^ ] is used to connect a num- 
 ber of words with one common term ; and, in 
 poetry, to connect three lines which rhyme to- 
 gether. 
 
PUNCTUATION. 97 
 
 Moore's Works, ^ 
 
 Saurin's Sermons, >$1.75 each. 
 
 Lewis's Plays, ) 
 
 Injustice, swift, erect, and unconfined, ) 
 
 Sweeps the / wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind, > 
 While prayers, to heal her wrongs, move slow behind. ) 
 
 Marks of Ellipsis or Omission are the dash ; as, 
 "Col. Sm — h": or asterisks ; as, "Col. Sm**h" : 
 or, neatest of all, points; as, "Col. Sin . . h." 
 
 Leaders are dots which lead the eye from 
 something on the left of the page, to that with 
 which it is connected on the right. 
 
 Globe Insurance Co London, Eng. 
 
 Mutual Life In. Co Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Accents are the Grave [ x ] , the Acute [ ' ] , 
 and the Circumflex [ A ] : d is read by the copy- 
 holder grave e ; d, acute e ; §, circumflex e. 
 
 Marks of Quantity are the Long, as over o 
 in "show"; the Short, or Breve, as over o in 
 "not" ; and the Diaeresis, which denotes that the 
 latter of two vowels is not in the same syllable 
 as the former; as, "zoology," "Antinoiis." 
 
 The cedilla is a curve line under the letter c, 
 to denote that it has the sound of s; as in 
 7 
 
98 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 "gar§on," "facade." It appears in words from 
 the French language. 
 
 The Spanish n has the sound of n in onion ; 
 as, "Senor," "canon." 
 
 If denotes the beginning of a paragraph, as 
 may be noticed in the Sacred Scriptures. In 
 proof-reading and in manuscript, it is used to 
 denote where a paragraph or break should be 
 made. 
 
 § denotes a section; §§, sections; as, Gen. 
 Stat., Chap. IX., § 19, and Chap. X., §§ 20 
 and 21. 
 
 Eeference to notes at the bottom of the page 
 (commonly termed footnotes), is usually made 
 by the asterisk, *; the obelisk, or dagger, |; 
 the double obelisk, or double dagger, % ; the 
 section, § ; the parallels, || ; and the If, — but 
 a neater mode is to use superiors ; as, l , 2 , 3 , or 
 a , b , c , commencing with l or a on each page 
 where notes occur. 
 
 In concluding our chapter on punctuation, we 
 venture to say to our friends at the case, that, in 
 our opinion, no system of pointing can be of 
 uniform and universal application. Men differ 
 
PUNCTUATION. 99 
 
 as much in style of writing as in personal ap- 
 pearance ; and we might as well expect the same 
 robe to fit all forms, as that one set of rules 
 shall nicely apply to the endless diversities of 
 diction. 
 
 Other things being equal however, he who has 
 paid most attention to rule will punctuate with 
 the nearest approximation to correctness. With 
 a clear understanding of an author's meaning, 
 the compositor seldom need go far astray ; and 
 if, having done his best, he finds any passage 
 hopelessly involved, or the meaning too subtile 
 to be grasped, he has one safe resource, — and 
 that is, to follow the copy closely and me- 
 chanically. Could he have for reference a few 
 pages preceding a doubtful passage, the whole 
 matter might become perfectly clear; but, as 
 that is out of the question, those pages being 
 scattered as "takes" in other hands, let the 
 compositor adopt the safe course, — FOLLOW 
 COPY, — and rest assured that no person whose 
 opinion he need value, could possibly think of 
 finding fault with him. 
 
CHAPTER V.. 
 
 ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 Worcester defines orthography as "the art or 
 the mode of spelling words"; Webster, as "the 
 art of writing words with the proper letters, 
 according to common usage." 
 
 There are some words whose orthography 
 usage has not settled; two or three thousand, 
 perhaps. Worcester's list (from which certain 
 enumerated classes of words are excluded) em- 
 braces about seventeen hundred. That the de- 
 partures from a common usage are so few, seems 
 very remarkable when we take into account the 
 immense number of words in our most copious 
 language, and, further, that for the last eighty 
 years or thereabouts, printers, scattered all over 
 Great Britain and the United States, having va- 
 ried interests and destitute of direct concert of 
 action, "have exercised a general control over 
 English orthography." * 
 
 * The hurried manner in which the materials of the modern 
 newspaper are collected, tends in many ways to corrupt the 
 
 100 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 101 
 
 Of the words of doubtful or various orthog- 
 raphy comprised in Worcester's list, perhaps 
 one eighth are of very rare occurrence ; as, 
 "Aam or Awm"; " Bergander or Birgancler"; 
 "Glede or Glead" (Deut. xiv. 13) ; of another 
 large fraction it may be said that many American 
 printers would be puzzled to account for their 
 being classified as doubtful, in a modern diction- 
 ary. "Clothes," for instance, we consider to be 
 a settled orthography. What tailor in the Uni- 
 ted States advertises " cloaths " for sale ? If 
 there were one, we should expect to find his 
 shop filled with garments of the old Continental 
 cut. No chorister w r ould now " chuse " to call 
 
 language. Reporters and telegraphers care more for haste 
 than taste. Their news-items undergo but a slight revision 
 while passing through the hands of the compositor and proof- 
 reader; many slang terms are allowed to creep into notice; 
 these gradually infect the editorial columns of a portion of the 
 press ; thence force their way into magazines, and popular- 
 novel scribblings, — and finally obtain the sanction of some big 
 and authoritative Dictionary. 
 
 It is pleasant to know that in the office of the New York 
 Evening Post, Mr. Bryant has hung up a catalogue of words 
 that no editor or reporter is allowed to use. Among these in- 
 terdicted words are " bogus, authoress, poetess, collided, debut, 
 donate, donation, loafer, located, ovation, predicate, progressing, 
 pants, rowdies, roughs, secesh, osculate (for kiss), indorse (for 
 approve), lady (for wife), jubilant (for rejoicing), bagging 
 (for capturing), loaned (for lent), posted (for informed), real- 
 ized (for obtained)." It is to be hoped that Mr. Bryant's 
 example will find many followers. 
 
102 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 himself a "quirister"; and he must be a con- 
 firmed toper who would be so " aukward " as to 
 " asswage " his thirst from a " cag " of " sider." 
 
 Striking from the list, then, those words on 
 which all are now virtually agreed, there remain 
 a portion of the words on which our two princi- 
 pal dictionaries differ. Authors and publishers 
 are of course at liberty to follow T either of our 
 two most distinguished lexicographers ; and the 
 compositor and proof-reader, however desirous 
 that one system shall overcome the other, are 
 perfectly "powerless in the matter: they live on 
 the field of conflict, between the contending par- 
 ties, in a sort of literary Belgium, and must 
 suffer, as all borderers do, the greatest hardships 
 of the conflict. For this there is no remedy : 
 while a language is living, it must, like all living 
 things, be changing, — and while present ques- 
 tions are becoming settled, and forms now famil- 
 iar are dropping toward the obsolete, new words 
 are elbowing their way into notice, and new T 
 spellings insist on being adopted. The conflict 
 of conservatism and progress embraces the mi- 
 nutiae of language no less than the important 
 affairs of state. 
 
 In this chapter we have mainly to do with a 
 class of words on whose orthography no great 
 party has agreed, and which may often be found 
 spelt in more than one way in the same printed 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 103 
 
 or written document. We intend to exhibit a 
 correct spelling of these words, in a form con- 
 venient for reference. Proof-readers, compos- 
 itors, and all who desire uniformity in their work, 
 will, we trust, find the following lists, and their 
 arrangement, adapted to their wants. We pro- 
 pose no innovation, except that of so limiting 
 the significations of ensure and insure, enure and 
 inure, that each of these words in en shall be- 
 come a distinct word, instead of being as now a 
 various spelling. 
 
 WORDS IN EN 
 
 Encage 
 Enchant 
 
 Enjoin 
 Enlard 
 
 Enchase 
 Encircle 
 
 Enlarge 
 Enlighten 
 
 Enclose 
 
 Enlist 
 
 Encroach 
 
 Enroll 
 
 Encumber 
 
 Enshrine 
 
 Endamage 
 
 Endear 
 
 Endow 
 
 Enfeeble 
 
 Enfoeff 
 
 Enfranchise 
 
 Ensure 
 
 [To make sure, certain, or safe; 
 " How to ensure peace for any term 
 of years." To insure is to con- 
 tract, for a consideration, to secure 
 against loss; as to insure houses, 
 ships, lives.] 
 
 Entail 
 
 Engender 
 Engorge 
 
 Entangle 
 Enthrone 
 
 Enhance 
 
 Entice 
 
104 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Entire 
 
 Entitle 
 
 Entomb 
 
 Entrance 
 
 Entrap 
 
 Entreat 
 
 Enure 
 [" To serve to the use or benefit 
 of"; as, a gift of land enures to the 
 benefit of the grantee.] 
 
 WOKDS in im 
 
 Inclasp 
 
 Incrust 
 
 Indict 
 
 Indite 
 
 Indorse 
 
 Indue 
 
 Infold 
 
 Ingraft 
 
 Ingrain 
 
 Ingulf 
 
 Inquire 
 
 Insnare 
 
 Insure 
 [To underwrite; "to covenant, 
 for a consideration, to indemnify 
 
 for loss of anything specified »'; as, 
 to insure houses against fire, etc.] 
 
 Interlace 
 
 Interplead 
 
 Inthrall 
 
 Intrust 
 
 Intwine 
 
 Inure 
 
 [To accustom; as, a man inures 
 his body to heat and cold; a soldier 
 to blood inured.] 
 
 Inveigle 
 Inwheel 
 Inwrap 
 Inwreathe 
 
 WORDS IN ABLE. 
 
 A certain class of words which have long been 
 hesitating between able and ible, or rable and 
 rribUy and which have much exercised the die- 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 105 
 
 tionaries, may, without occasioning the least 
 trouble to anybody, take shape as words in able. 
 And with this class we shall insert a few words 
 from which, in proof-sheets, we often strike out 
 a superfluous e before able. 
 
 Approvable 
 
 Ratable 
 
 Blamable 
 
 Referable 
 
 Conversable 
 
 Reprovable 
 
 Dilatable 
 
 Salable 
 
 Dissolvable 
 
 Solvable 
 
 Incondensable 
 
 Tamable 
 
 Inferable 
 
 Tenable 
 
 Intenable 
 
 Transferable 
 
 Manifestable 
 
 Unsalable 
 
 Movable 
 
 Untamable 
 
 Provable 
 
 Untenable 
 
 WORDS ENDING IN 0. 
 
 Errors sometimes occur in forming the plural 
 of nouns in o. We frequently see frescoes, 
 motlos, — both wrong. The general rule is, If 
 the final o has a vowel before it, form the plural 
 by adding s: as "cameo, cameos"; if a conso- 
 nant precede the final o, add es. We subjoin 
 such of these words as are exceptions to the 
 rule. 
 
106 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Albino 
 
 Armadillo 
 
 Bravo 
 
 Canto 
 
 Cento 
 
 Domino 
 
 Duodecimo 
 
 Fresco 
 
 Grotto 
 
 Halo 
 
 Inamorato 
 
 Junto 
 
 Lasso 
 
 Limbo 
 
 Memento 
 
 Merino 
 
 Octavo 
 
 Portico 
 
 Proviso 
 
 <Juarto 
 
 Rotundo 
 
 Salvo 
 
 Sirocco 
 
 Solo 
 
 Tyro 
 
 Virtuoso 
 
 Zero 
 
 Albinos 
 
 Armadillos 
 
 Bravos 
 
 Cantos 
 
 Centos 
 
 Dominos 
 
 Duodecimos 
 
 Frescos 
 
 Grottos 
 
 Halos 
 
 Inamoratos 
 
 Juntos 
 
 Lassos 
 
 Limbos 
 
 Mementos 
 
 Merinos 
 
 Octavos 
 
 Porticos 
 
 Provisos 
 
 Quartos 
 
 Rotundos 
 
 Salvos 
 
 Siroccos 
 
 Solos 
 
 Tyros 
 
 Virtuosos 
 
 Zeros 
 
 Form other plurals regularly; as, "mottoes,' 
 " mosquitoes," " tomatoes," u buffaloes," etc. 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 107 
 
 WORDS ENDING IN ISE. 
 
 Words ending with the sound of ize are vari- 
 ously spelled ise or ize. Of this class the cor- 
 rect spelling of the following words is ise ; 
 nearly if not quite all others take ize. 
 
 Advertise 
 
 Advise 
 
 Affranchise 
 
 Apprise 
 
 Catechise 
 
 Chastise 
 
 Circumcise 
 
 Comprise 
 
 Compromise 
 
 Criticise 
 
 Demise 
 
 Despise 
 
 Devise 
 
 Disfranchise 
 
 Disguise 
 
 Divertise 
 
 Emprise 
 
 Enfranchise 
 
 Enterprise 
 
 Exercise 
 
 Exorcise 
 
 Franchise 
 
 Merchandise 
 
 Misprise 
 
 Premise 
 
 Reprise 
 
 Revise 
 
 Supervise 
 
 Surmise 
 
 Surprise 
 
 EI AND IE. 
 
 Many persons find it difficult or impossible to 
 recollect the relative position of e and i 9 in such 
 words as receive, believe, etc. If they will bear 
 
108 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 in mind the following rule, it may save them 
 the trouble of referring to a dictionary for this 
 point. 
 
 When the derivative noun ends in tion, the 
 verb is spelled with ei : thus, — 
 
 Conception 
 
 Conceive 
 
 Deception 
 
 Deceive 
 
 Reception 
 
 Receive 
 
 But when the noun does not end in tion, the 
 verb is spelled with ie : as, — 
 
 Belief Believe 
 
 In closing our chapter on Orthography, we 
 subjoin a few words, some of which the diction- 
 aries leave in doubt, and others which, for some 
 cause, are often misspelled. If printed as in 
 the list below, they will always be presentable. 
 Some may think it presumptuous, that, while 
 our best lexicographers insert two or more waj^s 
 of spelling a word, and perhaps declare them- 
 selves unable to indicate a preference, we should 
 venture to express one which we advise authors, 
 printers, and publishers to follow. Our an- 
 swer is, that the dictionaries have room and 
 suitable columns to exhibit various spellings ; 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 109 
 
 but author, compositor, and proof-reader can 
 exhibit but one, We give below that one mode 
 which we think will be most generally accept- 
 able. We have not inserted "hippocras" 01 
 "hippocrass," nor many other words, of various 
 spelling, which an ordinary man would not be 
 likely to meet with more than once in a life- 
 time. 
 
 THE PROPER ORTHOGRAPHY OE WORDS DIEEI- 
 CULT OR DOUBTFUL. 
 
 Abatis 
 Abettor 
 Abutter 
 Accessary 
 [Arts ; as, the accessaries of a pic- 
 ture.] 
 
 Accessory 
 
 [Law ; as, accessory before the fact.] 
 
 Agriculturist 
 [Not Agriculturalist.] 
 
 Anotta 
 
 [This word is also spelled arnotta, 
 arnotto^annotta^annotto^amatto.] 
 
 Apostasy 
 Appall 
 Appanage 
 Appraisal 
 Appraise 
 [To appraise an estate.] 
 
 Appraisement 
 Apprise 
 ("To inform.] 
 
 Ascendant 
 [Law: his ascendants and descend- 
 ants.] 
 
 Ascendency 
 Ascendent 
 [Superior- as, an ascendent duty.] 
 Attar 
 
 [The aromatic principle; as, attar 
 of roses. If written ottar, com- 
 positor should follow copy.] 
 
 Balk 
 
 Bandanna 
 
 Bauble 
 
 [Low Latin, baubellum, Sometimes 
 written bawble^ — follow copy.] 
 
 Befall 
 
 Behoove 
 
 Benefited 
 
 Bequeath 
 
 Bestrew 
 
110 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Bestrewn 
 
 [Webster, however, has bestrown.] 
 Bigoted 
 Blouse 
 Boil 
 
 [A tumor.] 
 
 Bowlder 
 Bramin 
 Brier 
 Brooch 
 
 [Noun: a jewelled clasp; a paint- 
 ing of one color. In any other 
 sense, to be spelled broach.] 
 
 Brooch 
 [To adorn with brooches or jewels. 
 In any other meaning, to be 
 spelled broach.] 
 
 Bumblebee 
 [If copy have humblebee, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Burrstone 
 
 [But if, in copy or proof, buhrstone 
 or burrhstone, let it stand.] 
 
 Butt 
 
 [A hinge • the larger or blunt end 
 of a plank, etc. In compounding, 
 write but-end.] 
 
 Caliber 
 
 Calipers 
 
 Calk 
 
 Camomile 
 [If written chamomile, follow copy.] 
 
 Canvas 
 [Cloth for sails, for paintings, etc.] 
 
 Canvass 
 [To examine opinions of voters, be- 
 fore an election.] 
 
 Caraway 
 
 Carcass 
 
 Carnelian 
 
 Cassimere 
 [If written kerseymere, do not 
 change it.] 
 
 Castana (-nut) 
 Caster 
 
 [A vial for the table ; as a pepper- 
 caster: a small wheel; the casters 
 of a table.] 
 
 Casters 
 
 [A stand or frame with bottles of 
 oil, vinegar, etc.] 
 
 Castor 
 
 [A beaver ; a hat ; a drug.] 
 
 Catchup 
 
 Cayman 
 
 Centiped 
 [Follow spelling of biped, quadru- 
 ped.] 
 
 Cesspool 
 
 [The dictionaries have cesspool and 
 sess-pool; but one way is enough.] 
 
 Champagne (wine) 
 
 Champaign 
 [Flat, open country. Deut. xi. 30.] 
 Chestnut 
 
 Chimb (of a cask) 
 Chime (of bells) 
 Chine 
 
 Cimeter 
 [We adopt this form, as best ap- 
 proved of the many in use; name- 
 ly, cimeter, cimiter, cymetar, scym- 
 itar, scymetar, scimiter, scimitar* 
 simitar.'] 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Cion 
 
 [This spelling seems now preferred 
 to scion ; but if written with an s, 
 follow copy.] 
 
 Clarinet 
 
 Cleat 
 
 [A strip of wood in joiner's work.] 
 
 Clew 
 
 [This spelling- is now fixed; but, if 
 a writer insist, give him a clue to 
 the obsolete.] 
 
 ClodpolT 
 
 Cullender 
 [But if written colander, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Colter 
 
 [Part of a plough or plow.] 
 
 Collectible - 
 
 Contemporary 
 
 Cony 
 
 Cosey 
 
 Cotillon 
 
 [This spelling prevails at present; 
 but if' written cotillion, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Councillor 
 
 [A member of a Council.] 
 
 Counsellor 
 [One who gives advice; a barrister.] 
 Curtesy 
 
 [At common law, and by statute in 
 Massachusetts, the estate of a 
 husband, after issue, in the lands 
 of his deceased wife.] 
 
 Courtesy 
 
 [Elegance of manners; the act of 
 civility, respect, or reverence, per- 
 formed by a woman.] 
 
 Crumb 
 [The final o has been for some time 
 
 endeavoring to withdraw from 
 this " silent" partnership. At 
 no distant day we hope it can be 
 gratified.] 
 
 Cue 
 
 Cuneiform 
 
 Cupel 
 
 Decrepit 
 Deflour 
 
 Dependant 
 [One who is subordinate; a vassal.] 
 
 Dependence 
 Dependent 
 
 [Hanging down; as, a dependent 
 leaf: relying upon; as, " depend- 
 ent on charity": subject to the 
 disposal of ; as, we are dependent 
 on the providence of God.] 
 
 Depositary 
 
 [The person with whom anything 
 is deposited.] 
 
 Depository 
 
 [The place where anything is de- 
 posited.] 
 
 Desiccate 
 
 Despatch 
 
 Detecter 
 
 Detractor 
 
 Devest 
 
 [Law : to deprive of, or alienate, an 
 estate.] 
 
 Dexterous 
 
 Disinthrall 
 
 Disk 
 
 Diversely 
 
 Divest 
 
 [To deprive or strip of any thing that 
 
112 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 covers, surrounds, or attends. — 
 Webster.] 
 
 Domicile 
 
 [Webster and Worcester agree on 
 domicile. Some attorneys insist 
 on domicil, in their briefs. If so 
 written, follow copy.] 
 
 Draft (noun) 
 [A drawing of men to form or com- 
 plete a military corps; an order 
 by which one person draws on 
 another for money ; an allowance 
 in weighing; a written sketch (as, 
 a draft of a petition). In any 
 other sense than these four, use 
 draught.'] 
 
 Draft (verb) 
 
 [To draw, detach, or select, as men 
 from any company or society : to 
 prepare a writing; as, to draft 
 resolutions. For all other mean- 
 ings, use draught.] 
 
 Dram 
 
 [A small quantity ; a weight.] 
 
 Draught 
 [To determine the use of this word, 
 see draft.] 
 
 Drier (he who, or that 
 which, dries) 
 
 Ecstasy 
 
 Embed 
 
 Embower 
 
 Empale 
 
 Empan[n]el 
 
 [We insert this word to show pref- 
 erence of the initial e rather than 
 i. One wis Worcester style; two 
 n's, Webster.] 
 
 Equivoke 
 Estoppel 
 
 Excellences 
 
 [Plural of excellence. Excellency, 
 a title, has Excellencies ; as, their 
 Excellencies the Ambassadors 
 were present.] 
 
 Eyry 
 
 Faecal 
 
 Fseces 
 
 Farther 
 [So spelled when space or time is 
 indicated; as, " St. Paul is farther 
 north than Boston," — " The tin- 
 der-box is farther from our time 
 than the lucifer match. " In other 
 cases, further should be used; as, 
 " Let us further consider the ten- 
 dency of such conduct." A simi- 
 lar rule applies to the adjectives 
 farther and further, farthest and 
 furthest.] 
 
 Felly (rim of a wheel) 
 Felspar 
 
 [But if written feldspar, feldspath t 
 or felspath, follow copy.] 
 
 Ferrule 
 [A rifetallic ring put round anything 
 to strengthen it.] 
 
 Ferule 
 
 [An instrument once deemed essen- 
 tial in school discipline, by com- 
 mittees and teachers; but now, 
 happily, laid aside.] 
 
 Fleam 
 
 [Some of our older readers will 
 scarcely recognize this word as 
 the equivalent of phleme.] 
 
 Flocculent 
 Flugelman 
 Forestall 
 Foretell 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 113 
 
 Forray 
 
 Foundery 
 [In book-work of the higher kinds, 
 and in scholarly and historical 
 works, spell this word as we have 
 placed it in the column ; but, to 
 avoid making 1 corrections, spell 
 foundry in bill-heads, circulars, 
 advertisements, and actual busi- 
 ness matters. Foundery is no 
 doubt right; but who can point 
 us to an iron foundery, or brass 
 foundery, or even a type foundery? 
 We do not know of one.] 
 
 Frenetic 
 [If written phrenetic, follow copy. 
 Frantic is the form of this word, 
 most commonly used.] 
 
 Fuse 
 
 [A tube charged for blasting, etc. 
 If copy has fuze, put in the z.] 
 
 Galiot 
 
 Galoche 
 
 Gantlet 
 
 [To run the gantlet; a military pun- 
 ishment.] 
 
 Gauge (measure) 
 Gauntlet 
 
 [A kind of glove.] 
 
 Gayety 
 
 Gayly 
 
 Gerfalcon 
 
 Gibe (to scoff) 
 
 Girt 
 [To bind with a girth; to encom- 
 pass.] 
 
 Girth 
 
 [The band or strap with which a 
 
 8 
 
 burden is fastened on a horse's 
 back.] 
 
 Gnarled 
 Godspeed 
 
 [No hyphen between syllables ; and 
 use lower-case g, unless it begins 
 a sentence.] 
 
 Good-by 
 
 Gormandize 
 
 Gourmand 
 
 Gray 
 
 Guarantee 
 
 Gypsy 
 
 -Halyards 
 Halloo 
 [This word is used conventionally 
 in books as a familiar call, or a 
 form of greeting.] 
 
 Handiwork 
 
 Harebrained 
 
 Harslet 
 
 Hatehel 
 
 Hawser 
 
 Hibernate 
 
 Hinderance 
 [If written hindrance, follow copy.] 
 
 Hollo 
 
 [Halloo is often met with in books ; 
 but hollo (pron. hullo) greets the 
 ear every day. If spelled holloa f 
 follow copy.] 
 
 Hominy 
 
 Hoarhound 
 [If written horehoundj follow copy.] 
 
 Hostler 
 
114 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Imbitter 
 
 Imb order 
 
 Imbosom 
 
 Imb ox 
 
 Imparlance 
 
 Innuendo 
 
 Install 
 
 Jail 
 
 Jailer 
 
 Janty 
 
 Jaunt 
 
 Jetty (small pier) 
 
 Jibe (nautical term) 
 
 Jingle 
 
 Jostle 
 
 Judaea 
 
 [If written Judea, follow copy.] 
 
 Judgment 
 
 Lacquer 
 Lama 
 
 [The sovereign pontiff of the Asi- 
 atic Tartars.] 
 
 Lanch 
 
 [To throw, as a dart or lance.] 
 
 Launch 
 [To slide a ship into the water.] 
 
 Leach (to leach ashes) 
 Leech 
 
 [A blood-sucker; part of a sail; i 
 physician.] 
 
 Lickerish 
 Liliputian 
 
 Lily 
 
 Llama 
 
 [A Peruvian animal.] 
 
 Loath (reluctant) 
 Lodgment 
 
 [We advise proof-readers and com- 
 positors to follow copy, if this 
 word is spelled lodgement; but as 
 all other words of this class have 
 dropped the e, let us drive that 
 letter from its lodg[e]ment in 
 this, as soon as we can.] 
 
 Longe 
 
 [If written lunge, follow copy.] 
 
 Luthern 
 
 [A window in the roof of a build- 
 ing; often barbarously written 
 and printed Lutheran.] 
 
 Lye (from ashes) 
 
 Maladministration 
 
 Malcontent 
 
 Malfeasance 
 
 Malformation 
 
 Malpractice 
 
 Maltreat 
 [Tn the above six words in mal } 
 Worcester inserts the silent e; 
 as, maladministration, malecon- 
 tent, etc., — preferring, however, 
 maltreat to maletreat. We have 
 often marked in the e, and, as a 
 general thing, have noticed that 
 'the author has marked it out 
 again. Webster omits the e. We 
 do not undertake to say which is 
 the better form; what we do say 
 is, that if the proof-reader passes 
 these words as we have given 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 115 
 
 them above^ foity-nine writers 
 out of fifty will be content.] 
 
 Mall 
 
 [An instrument used in driving 
 wedges. If written maul, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Mandatary 
 
 Mandrel 
 [Part of a lathe.] 
 Manikin 
 Marten 
 
 [A carnivorous animal. J 
 
 Martin (a bird; 
 
 [If written marten, follow copy.] 
 
 Martingale 
 Mattress 
 
 [A kind of bed.] 
 
 Meter 
 
 [He who, or that which, measures; 
 as, coal-me^er, gas-meter, etc.] 
 
 Metre 
 
 [Measure as applied to verse; a 
 French linear measure.] 
 
 Mileage 
 
 Milleped 
 
 Millionnaire 
 
 Millrea 
 
 Miscall 
 
 Mistle 
 
 [To rain in small drops. We do 
 not spell this word misle, because 
 in that case its imperfect, misled, 
 might be mistaken for the imper- 
 fect tense of mislead, the orthog- 
 raphy being the same. Mizzle is 
 a low term for running away.] 
 
 Mistletoe 
 Modillion 
 
 Moneyed 
 
 [If you find it monied, do not follow 
 copy, except in " Exhibits,'' or 
 facsimile work.] 
 
 Mortgager 
 
 [One who grants an estate as secu- 
 rity for debt. This is the correct 
 spelling, when the accent is placed 
 on the first syllable.] 
 
 Mortgageor 
 
 [The correct spelling when the ac- 
 cent is placed on the last syllable; 
 i. e. when used with reference to 
 mortgagee. We insert this spell- 
 ing in hopes it may find favor with 
 our legal friends. Mortgagor i3 
 an excuseless barbarism. When 
 so written we have frequently 
 marked in the e ; but, with scarce- 
 ly an exception, every attorney 
 for whom we have read a brief, 
 has insisted on mortgagor} — cit- 
 ing the General Statutes. The 
 compositor and proof-reader may 
 as well economize labor and pa- 
 tience by spelling the word mort- 
 gagor in the first place. But if 
 the printer should, by any possi- 
 bility, happen to find mortgager 
 or mortgageor in the copy, let 
 him be sure to follow it.] 
 
 Mosquito 
 [To add to the trouble this insect 
 causes, there are twelve allowable 
 modes of spelling its name.] 
 
 Mullein 
 
 [Webster has mullen and mullein'; 
 Worcester, p. xxxii, seems to 
 prefer mulliii, but that spelling is 
 not given in his columns, while 
 mullein is.] 
 
 Multiped 
 
 Muscle 
 [An organ of motion.] 
 
116 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Mussel 
 [A bivalve shell-fish.] 
 Mussulmans 
 
 [This word is the plural of mussul- 
 man. Mussulmans are follow- 
 ers of Mahomet. This word is 
 often thoughtlessly written mus- 
 sulmen. In this case, do not fol 
 low copy.] 
 
 Mustache 
 
 Naught 
 
 Net (as, net profits) 
 Nobless 
 [But, if written noblesse, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Nozzle 
 
 O (in the vocative) 
 [As, "O Thou to whom." « O 
 Baal, hear us."] 
 
 Oh (exclamation) 
 [Oh, dear ! Oh ! I'm frightened ! 
 oh ! no nearer, pray !] 
 
 Pacha 
 Palette 
 
 [Used by painters.] 
 
 Pallet 
 
 [A small bed : a wooden tool used 
 by potters ; a tool used in gilding : 
 a term in heraldry: part of a 
 clock or watch.] 
 
 Palmiped 
 Panel 
 
 Pantagraph 
 | If written pantograph, follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Pantile 
 Pappoose 
 Parcenary 
 Parol 
 
 [Law. An adjective; as, parol evi- 
 dence. As a noun it signifies, — 
 a word spoken ; word of mouth ; 
 pleadings in a suit.] 
 
 Parole 
 
 [Word of promise. In military af- 
 fairs, a promise made by a pris- 
 oner, when released, to reappear 
 when wanted; also, a pass- word 
 to distinguish friends from ene- 
 mies.] 
 
 Parsnip 
 
 [If written parsnep, which is Web- 
 ster's spelling, follow copy.] 
 
 Paten 
 
 Paver (one who paves) 
 [But if written pavier or pavior, 
 follow copy.] 
 
 Pawl 
 
 [Of a windlass, etc.] 
 
 Pedler 
 Pewit 
 Philibeg 
 
 [But if written filibeg or fillibeg 
 (there is authority for both), fol- 
 low copy.] 
 
 Philter 
 
 [A potion or charm to excite love. 
 From the Greek phileo, to love ; 
 and must not be confounded with 
 filter.] 
 
 Plain 
 [A level surface.; a field of battle.] 
 
 Plane 
 [This spelling obtains in matters 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 11^ 
 
 of science and the arts. " Planes 
 are often used for imaginary sur- 
 faces supposed to cut and pass 
 through solid bodies." Plane 
 sailing is finding the ship's posi- 
 tion, on the supposition that the 
 earth's surface is a plane.] 
 
 Pliers 
 
 Plumiped 
 
 Pommel 
 
 Postilion 
 
 [Webster has postillion. Cotillion 
 and modillion have two Vs respec- 
 tively: all agree in spelling ver- 
 milion with one.] 
 
 Preterit 
 
 [So Walker and Webster; Worces- 
 ter has preterite, — follow copy.] 
 
 Preventive 
 [Avoid the common blunder of 
 writing preventative. ,] 
 Purlin, purlins 
 Pygmy 
 
 Quartet 
 
 [This word is often written quar- 
 tette] in such case, follow copy: 
 but quartett is inadmissible.] 
 
 Quay 
 Quinsy 
 
 Ratan 
 
 [But if written rattan, follow copy.] 
 
 Raze (to subvert) 
 
 Recall 
 
 Re -enforce 
 
 [Reinforce is going out of use.] 
 
 Reglet 
 
 [Used in printing.] 
 
 Re-install 
 
 Relieve 
 
 Relief 
 
 Resin 
 [Among the resins are common 
 rosin, guaiacum, lac, sandarac, 
 mastic, etc.] 
 
 . Rosin 
 [The resin left after distilling off 
 the oil of turpentine.] 
 
 Restive 
 
 Restiveness 
 
 Reverie 
 
 [This word is written indifferently 
 reverie or revery. The former 
 seems, however, to be more com- 
 monly used, for which reason we 
 have so inserted it in our columns. 
 Dr. Johnson spells the word with 
 y, and Walker approves that 
 mode. Webster and Worcester 
 give both forms.] 
 
 Rhomb 
 [Rhombus; lozenge.] 
 
 Rhumb 
 [A circle on the earth's surface 
 making an angle with the merid- 
 ian at any given place.] 
 
 Ribbon 
 Riveted 
 Rodomontade 
 
 [If spelled rhodomontade, it may 
 save trouble to leave the h in.] 
 
 Sag 
 
 [The same with sivag, to bend by 
 the .weight. Sag is now the pre- 
 ferred spelling, and in keeping 
 with the pronunciation in general 
 use.] 
 
118 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Saic 
 
 Sainfoin 
 
 Sandarac 
 
 flf spelled sandarach, follow copy.] 
 
 Sat (pret. of sit) 
 [Avoid the old spelling, sate.] 
 
 Satchel 
 
 [Our principal dictionaries allow 
 two ways of spelling this word 
 — satchel and sachet; but as the 
 compositor is limited to one way, 
 we insert that which seems gen- 
 erally preferred.] 
 
 Satinet 
 Saviour 
 
 [This word retains, when applied to 
 Jesus Christ, its ancient form. 
 In all other cases, spelled savior.] 
 
 Scath 
 Sceptic 
 
 [But if Webster is to be followed, 
 spell skeptic] 
 Sciagraphy 
 Sciomancy 
 
 Scirrhus 
 [If a corresponding adjective is ad- 
 missible, it should be spelled scir- 
 rhous; as, a scirrhous tumor.] 
 
 Scotfree 
 
 Seamstress 
 
 Sear (withered) 
 
 Secrecy 
 
 Seethe 
 
 Seize 
 
 Seizin 
 [Often written seisin : follow copy.] 
 
 Selvage 
 
 Semitic 
 
 [If written Shemitic, follow copy.] 
 
 Sennight 
 
 [Contracted from sevennight, as 
 fortnight is from fourteennight.] 
 
 Set (a complete series) 
 
 Shakespearian 
 
 Show 
 
 Sheathe (verb) 
 
 Showbread 
 
 Sieve 
 
 Silicious 
 
 Siphon 
 
 Siren 
 
 Sirup 
 
 Sley (a weaver's reed) 
 
 Smooth (verb or adj.) 
 
 Solder 
 
 Soliped 
 
 Summerset 
 
 Soothe (verb) 
 
 Spinach 
 
 Sprite 
 [Sometimes written spright, — fol- 
 low copy.] 
 
 Spurt 
 Stanch . 
 Steadfast * 
 Strap 
 
 [But a strip of leather or cloth for 
 sharpening razors is frequently 
 spelled strop. Strap, however, 
 is preferable.] 
 
 Strew 
 Stupefy 
 
ORTHOGRAPHY. 
 
 119 
 
 Subtile 
 [Thin, delicate, piercing-.] 
 Subtle 
 
 [Sly, artful, cunning-.] 
 
 Suit 
 
 [In the sense of retinue, this word 
 is often written suite, and pro- 
 nounced sweet. The English word 
 is better.] 
 
 Sumach 
 
 Surloin 
 [A case of unsettled orthography, 
 — sirloin is often written: follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Surname 
 
 Swale (to waste away) 
 
 [If written sweat, follow copy.] 
 Swath 
 
 [The sweep of a scythe.] 
 Synonyme 
 
 [This *' is a modern word : it was 
 not inserted by Johnson in his 
 dictionary; and with respect to 
 its orthography, usage is divided. 
 In the .... principal English dic- 
 tionaries it is spelled synonyme; 
 and of the different authors who 
 have written works on English 
 synonymes, Blair, Crabb, Platts, 
 Booth, Graham, and Carpenter 
 spell the word with the final e, — 
 synonyme\ and Taylor, Whately, 
 and Mackenzie, synonym." The 
 words homonyme, pseudonyme, 
 etc., are spelled with the final e 
 in Worcester's dictionary; but in 
 "Webster's, the final e is dropped. 
 Follow copy.] 
 
 T aline ss 
 
 Tambour 
 [A small drum: a species of em- 
 
 broidery. This word retains the 
 termination our; but it has, by 
 some, been written tambor.] 
 
 Tarpaulin 
 
 [But tarpauling is preferred by 
 Worcester. Follow copy.] 
 
 Thrash 
 [Written thrash or thresh indiffer- 
 ently. The former agrees with 
 the common pronunciation, and 
 we give it the preference.] 
 
 Tidbit 
 
 Tollbooth 
 
 Ton 
 
 [So spelt for 20 cwt. ; a space in a 
 ship; or a measure of timber.] 
 
 Tun 
 
 [A large cask; a wine measure.] 
 
 Tonnage 
 
 Touchy 
 [Sometimes written techy, — follow 
 copy.] 
 
 Tranquillity 
 
 [But whether we shall spell tran- 
 quillize or tranquilizer tranquil- 
 lizer or tranquilizer, is a question 
 of style.] 
 
 Transferrence 
 
 Treadle 
 
 Treenail 
 
 Trestle 
 
 Tumbrel 
 
 Turkois 
 [The French spelling, turquoise, is 
 much used.] 
 
 Unroll 
 Vaudevil 
 
120 
 
 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Veil 
 
 Vender (one who sells) 
 
 Vendor 
 [So spelled in law; correlative of 
 vendee.] 
 
 Vermilion 
 
 Vertebra (pi. vertebrae) 
 • Vial 
 
 [A small bottle; often written, but 
 seldom pronounced, phial. Spell 
 vial, unless phial is absolutely re- 
 quired.] 
 
 Vise 
 
 [A mechanical instrument.] 
 
 Villain 
 
 Villanous 
 
 Villanously 
 
 Villanousness 
 
 Villany 
 
 Visitorial 
 [We think this decidedly preferable 
 to visitatorial. 1 
 
 Wagon 
 Warranter 
 Warrantor 
 [In law, correlative of warrantee."} 
 
 Warwhoop 
 
 Weir 
 
 [An enclosure for catching fish. If 
 written wear, wier, or tvere, you 
 can safely follow copy.] 
 
 We as and 
 
 Welsh 
 
 Whippletree 
 
 [Often written and spoken whiffle- 
 tree, — follow copy.] 
 
 Whippoorwill 
 [We think this the most usual or- 
 thography of this word. Webster 
 has it whippowil'. Worcester has 
 whippoorwill, and says it is also 
 written whippowill.] 
 
 Whoop 
 
 Whooping-cough 
 [In hospital reports, if diseases are 
 arranged alphabetically, you may 
 find this word under H, spelled 
 hooping-cough : if so, follow copy, 
 and adhere to that spelling when- 
 ever the word occurs in the same 
 report.] 
 
 Withe 
 Wreathe (verb) 
 
 Yeast 
 
 Yelk (of an egg) 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 READING GREEK. 
 
 As Greek words often occur in proof-sheets, 
 we shall here present the Greek letters and char- 
 acters, with such practical directions as may- 
 enable the copy-holder and reader to acquit 
 themselves, in this branch of their profession, 
 without discredit. A few hours' attention will 
 suffice to fix in the memory as much knowledge 
 of Greek as will serve for the mechanical follow- 
 ing of the copy. 
 
 The Greek alphabet consists of twenty-four 
 letters. 
 
 NAMES. 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 ENGLISH, 
 
 Alpha 
 
 A a 
 
 a 
 
 Beta 
 
 B $ 6 
 
 b 
 
 Gamma 
 
 r r 
 
 g 
 
 Delta 
 
 z/ J 
 
 d 
 
 Epsilon 
 
 E e 
 
 e 
 
 Zeta 
 
 z i 
 
 z 
 
 Eta 
 
 H rj 
 
 e 
 
 Theta 
 
 e # e 
 
 th 
 
 121 
 
122 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Iota 
 
 J V 
 
 l 
 
 Kappa 
 
 K x 
 
 k 
 
 Lambda 
 
 A I 
 
 1 
 
 Mu 
 
 M fi 
 
 m 
 
 Nu 
 
 IV v 
 
 n 
 
 Xi 
 
 S S 
 
 X 
 
 Omicron 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 Pi 
 
 n rt 
 
 p 
 
 Rho 
 
 P g 
 
 r 
 
 Sigma 
 
 2 a, final g 
 
 s 
 
 Tau 
 
 T T 
 
 t 
 
 Upsilon 
 
 Y v 
 
 u 
 
 Phi 
 
 Cp 
 
 pfa 
 
 Chi 
 
 X X 
 
 ch 
 
 Psi 
 
 W xp 
 
 ps 
 
 Omega 
 
 SI (0 
 
 o 
 
 In reading Greek, mention each letter by its 
 English equivalent. 
 
 E is read, "cap. short e" ; e, "short e"; H is 
 read, "cap. long e"; *?, "long e." 
 
 O is read, "cap. short o"; o, "short o"; SI is 
 read, " cap. long o " ; w, " long o." 
 
 There are three accents, — the acute (' ), the 
 grave (/ ) , and the circumflex ( ~ ) . 
 
 i> is read, "acute u"; I is read, "grave i"; a is 
 read, "circumflex a." 
 
 Over every vowel or diphthong beginning a 
 word, is placed one of two characters, called 
 
HEADING GREEK. 123 
 
 breathings, which, for the purpose of reading, 
 we may designate as the smooth ( ' ) and the 
 rough ( e ) . 
 
 & is read, " smooth a " ; I is read, " rough i." 
 
 When two marks appear over a letter, both 
 should be mentioned by the copy-holder. 
 
 $ is read, "smooth, acute u " ; 6 is read, "rough, 
 acute, short o "; o, "rough, grave, short o"; S, 
 " circunitlex, smooth, long o." 
 
 Obs. The compositor and proof-reader should be careful 
 that accented letters are used according to the copy, as in 
 many cases the difference of accentuation serves also to mark 
 the difference of signification. Thus, vaog signifies new; vebg, 
 afield: tov, a violet ; ibv, going. 
 
 a, y, o), are diphthongs ; their second vowel 
 (*), being silent, is placed underneath, or sub- 
 scribed. These should be read thus : ty, "a 
 subscript"; $, "long e, subscript"; o>, "long o, 
 subscript." 
 
 In Greek, only four points or stops are used : 
 the comma ( , ) ; the note of interrogation ( ; ) ; 
 the colon, or point at top ('); and the full 
 stop (.). These should be mentioned as they 
 occur. 
 
124 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 EXAMPLE FOR READING. 
 
 EPIGRAM ON THEMISTOCLES. 
 
 *Avxl r&cpov "KiTOiO S'sg c ElMdct, &&g d' £ni raixav 
 dotigaja, @aQ@aQt,xag avftfiola vavy&OQlag, 
 
 Kal ri^fta XQTjmda neqlyqacps IJegaixdv "Aqtj 
 Kal Sbq^i]v* TOToioug &utcts Qs/uiaTOitlia. 
 
 2xala d' & 2ala[ilg imxelasTai,, sgya liyovcra 
 Td/ud* xl fits a/Lilxgolg xbv peyav IvtItQets ; 
 
 The method of reading will, we think, be suf- 
 ficiently exemplified if we give but one line. 
 We select the third, which should be read by 
 the copy -holder, as follows : 
 
 Cap. K, a, grave i; t, acute n, m, b, long o 
 subscript; k, r, long e, p, circumflex i, d, a; p, 
 short e, r, acute i, g, r, a, ph, short e ; cap. P, 
 short e, r, s, i, k, grave short o, n; cap. smooth 
 acute A, r, long e. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TECHNICAL TEEMS USED IN THIS WORK. 
 
 Case. A frame divided into boxes, or compartments, 
 for holding types. The upper case contains capitals ; 
 the lower case, small letters. 
 
 Chase. An iron frame in which the pages of matter 
 are locked up. 
 
 Doublet. A portion of a take, repeated by the com- 
 positor. For instance : "It is of no use to lament our 
 misfortunes, of no benefit to grieve over past mistakes." 
 Suppose the compositor to have set up as far as the sec- 
 ond "no" inclusive, — he then glances at his copy for 
 the following words, but his eye catches the first " no," 
 and he resets what is already in his stick. Of course the 
 proof will read thus : u It is of no use to lament our 
 misfortunes, of no use to lament our misfortunes, of no 
 benefit to grieve over," etc. 
 
 Form. The pages of matter enclosed in the chase. 
 
 Galley. A frame which receives the contents of the 
 composing-stick. When the stick is full, it is emptied 
 upon a galley. 
 
 Impose. To lay the made-up pages of matter on the 
 
 125 
 
126 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 stone, and fit on the chase in order to carry the form to 
 press. 
 
 Indention. The blank space at the beginning of a 
 common paragraph, or of a line of poetry, etc. When 
 the first line is not indented, while the following lines of 
 the paragraph have a blank space before them, the para- 
 graph is said to be set with a " hanging indention.'' 
 
 Specimen of Hanging Indention. * 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, 
 in General Court assembled, and by the authority of 
 the same. 
 
 Justify. To insert spaces between the words of a 
 line of type, so that the line shall exactly fit the width 
 of the stick. 
 
 To Lock up a Form is to drive quoins (wedges) 
 in such a manner as to hold the type firmly in the 
 chase. 
 
 To Make up is to adjust the matter in pages of equal 
 length, as nearly as may be, for imposition. 
 
 Matter. Types set up, so as to form a word or 
 words. When it is to be distributed (put back into 
 the cases), it is known as "dead" matter. If not yet 
 printed, or if destined for further use, it is called "live" 
 matter. 
 
 Out. A portion of a take, accidentally omitted by a 
 compositor. An "out" is generally referable, as in the 
 case of the " doublet," to the recurrence of some word, 
 or sequence of letters, For instance : a take had in it, 
 " He injured his foot, by wearing a tight boot." The 
 proof had, only, " He injured his foot.'' The compositor 
 
TECHNICAL TERMS. 127 
 
 had the whole sentence in his mind ; and, having set the 
 final letters u oot," referred these to the last word, 
 " boot," and thought he had set the whole sentence. 
 
 Quaere, or Query, variously abbreviated, as Qu. Qy. 
 or Qr., and sometimes represented by an interrogation 
 point, is written in the margin of the proof-sheet, to 
 draw the author's attention to some passage about which 
 the proof-reader is in doubt. 
 
 Revise. The second proof is a revise of the first, the 
 third is a revise of the second, etc. To Revise is to 
 compare the second, or any subsequent proof, with a 
 preceding one, to see whether the proper corrections have 
 been made. 
 
 Signature. A letter or figure at the bottom of the 
 firsf page of every sheet. It denotes the proper order of 
 the sheets in binding. 
 
 Space. If a line of type be divided by vertical planes 
 into exact squares, each of these squares occupies the 
 space of an em, or em-quadrat. Ems are used to indent 
 common paragraphs, and to separate sentences in the 
 same paragraph. The next thinner space is the en, or 
 en-quadrat, which is one half of the em. The next is 
 one third of the em, and is called the three-em space ; 
 next, one fourth of the em is the four-em space ; then, 
 one fifth of the em is the five-em space. Thinner than 
 any of these is the hair-space. The three-em space is 
 generally used in composition ; the other sizes are needed 
 in justifying. 
 
 Stick (Uomposing-Stick). A frame of iron or steel, 
 in which the compositor sets up the type. By means of 
 a movable slide, it can be adjusted to the required length 
 of line. 
 
128 PENS AND TYPES. 
 
 Stone. A table of marble, or other stone, on which 
 forms are imposed, and on which they are placed for cor- 
 rection. 
 
 Take. That portion of copy which the compositor 
 takes to put in type (or "set up") at one time. 
 
VARIOUS SIZES OF ROMAN LETTER. 
 
 This Is a line of Diamond. 
 
 This is a line of Pearl. 
 
 This is a line of Agate. 
 
 This is a line of Nonpareil. 
 
 This is a line of Minion. 
 
 This is a line of Brevier. 
 
 This is a line of Bourgeois. 
 
 This is a line of Long Primer. 
 
 This is a line of Small Pica. 
 
 This is a line of Pica. 
 
 This is a line of English. 
 
 This is a line of Great Primer 
 
 9 129 
 
SPECIMEN OF FIRST PROOF. 
 
 f~| A We can imagine how up to a certain point, «*. c. ,1 
 
 a-^g^a, whatever ill may result from it, may man, 
 
 u>l give Ap the direction of his temporal affairs cv^ , 
 
 ^ to a^noutward authority. j# 
 
 / /> A J V? 
 
 no 'tea / ^r e can conceive a notion of thatxphiloso- JT 
 
 teaa >p^ er w jj w hen one told him that his was on $cu6e 
 
 I A 
 
 £. • fire, said, '* go and tell my wife; I never medd- 
 
 &. ~Te) with house-hold affairs » [But when our ^^j / 11 
 
 4€et conscience, -©tt^ thoughts, -a»d- intellectual ex- ona 
 
 ■UcU. istence are at stake — to give up thi gover- el m 
 
 I I a ' / 
 
 S^~" & ment of one'sjself, to deliver over one?s very w 
 
 *-^ soul to the authority ofa stranger, is indeed rfc X 
 
 ■"■__— -i — :^T7ie T ~is indeed 4G0O- times worse ^ mowd-cmd 
 £]moraA_3^r--^- _^ 
 
 _____ r^r+ride — I to /than\ become a ^ I w. if. 
 
 -^I^-Tervitu V_/ 
 
 than < 
 
 of the soil. 
 
 izot. <u/ /«/. 
 
 Guizot 
 
 130 
 
t 
 
 MARKS USED IN CORRECTING PROOFS. 
 
 | | Insert an era-quadrat. 
 ^■~~ Dele, take out; expunge. 
 y^ Insert space. 
 *~** Less space. 
 s_^ Close up entirely. 
 *^T $* Pete some type, and insert a space in lieu of what is 
 
 removed. 
 
 g^ >^/ Dele some type, and close up. 
 
 X Broken or battered type. 
 
 Push-down a space or quadrat. 
 | Plane down a letter. 
 • • • • Placed under erased words, restores them. 
 G$ie£ Written in the margin, restores a cancelled word or 
 passage, or such portions of erased text as have 
 dots under them. 
 ^f Begin paragraph. 
 C or L Remove to left. 
 D or J Remove to right. 
 
 i — i Carry higher up on page, 
 i — i Carry down. 
 
 z=z Three lines subscript, denote capitals. 
 = Two lines subscript, denote small capitals. 
 — One line subscript, denotes italics. 
 w. jf. Wrong font. 
 
 ti. Transpose. ( • ) Period. f : j Colon. 
 
 /. c. Lower-case. rf, c. Small capitals. 
 
 ££u,. or ^ii. or ? calls attention to some doubtful word or sentence. 
 Several other marks are used, which need no explanation. 
 
 131 
 
NEW AND ATTRACTIVE PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 LEE & SHEPARD, 
 
 PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS, 
 BOSTON. 
 
 LEE, SHEPAED & DILLINGHAM, New York. 
 
 "A Grand Success." 
 
 THE AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. By Miss Adeline 
 Trafton. Illustrated. $1.75. 
 
 " A bright, merry-hearted girl, ' off on a good time,' and she and her 
 readers nre decidedly of the opinion that the journey was a great success. " 
 — Liberal Christian. 
 
 "A delightful Book, original and enjoyable." 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER.' By Sophie May. Illus- 
 trated. 1.50. 
 
 " So lovable and so genuine that she takes one's heart by storm." — 
 New York Republican. 
 
 " A Book every Girl will be delighted with." 
 
 SALLY WILLIAMS, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL By Mrs. 
 
 Edna D. Cheney. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 " Mrs. Cheney's stories have all the charm of romance, and better than 
 that, 'a power to do good by their wholesome unobtrusive teachings." 
 
 "Another of the Girlhood Series." 
 
 ONLY GIRLS, By Miss Virginia F. Townsenp, Author of 
 " Deering Farm," " Daryll's Gap," &c. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 Miss Townsend *" charming writer, and this one of her very best 
 productions. 
 
Lee &* Shefard^s Publications. 
 
 NEW JUVENILE BOOKS. 
 
 AMONG THE BRIGANDS. By Prof. James De Mille. 
 i6mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 "We don't know that we need say any more of this book than to announce 
 its author, and everybody will know at once that it is written in a wide-awake, 
 dashing style. This tale is full of exciting scenes and hair-breadth escapes, 
 the location of which is in Italy, and the details of which afford an insighl 
 into the characters to be found there, and the strange things to be seen, — 
 the brigands, the beggars, ruined and burned cities, &c, &c." — Lewiston 
 Journal. 
 
 FIRE IN THE WOODS. By Prof. James De Mille. 
 Uniform in style and price with "The B. O. W. C," "The 
 Boys of Grand Pre School," "Lost in the Fog," &c. 
 i6mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 "This book is the fourth in the B. O. W. C. series, and is fully equal to 
 the preceding volumes. The readers of Prof. De Mille's books may be as- 
 sured at the outset that they will find no dull chapters to be waded through 
 or skipped, as shall best please each reader." — Meadville Journal. 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE CASCO. By Elijah Kellogg. 
 
 i6mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 "This volume is full of interesting and exciting adventures on sea and 
 land, with enough of fun to make it spicy and inviting. The story illus- 
 trates how easily good persons may fall into bad company, and the influence 
 - they exert when among those who are in the wrong path. Hence it teaches 
 an excellent moral lesson. " — Webster Times. 
 
 THE TURNING WHEEL By Paul Cobden, author of 
 "Who Will Win?" and "Going on a Mission." i6mo. 
 Illustrated. $1.25. 
 
 "This is a volume of the 'Beckoning Series.' It has a preface at once 
 unique and suggestive. ' There is a wheel that is always turning. It never 
 stands still. To some, in its unceasing motion, it brings good; to others, 
 evil. That it may bring to all the readers of this story what they most need, 
 is the earnest wish of the writer. ' These few words explain the title, and give 
 the hint to the story. It charmingly describes the turning of the wheel for its 
 own circle of characters, with the good and ill it brought." -7- Albany Jour. 
 
 AUNT MADGE'S STORY. By Sophie May, author of 
 
 "Little Prudy Stories," "Dotty Dimple Stories," &c 
 
 Illustrated. 75 cents. 
 
 "The works of this writer for children have met with a hearty reception 
 from those for whom they were intended; she knows just how to talk to the 
 little ones, and her style is remarkably adapted to their comprehension. 
 Aunt Madge's story is the third volume in ' Little Prudy's Flyaway Series,* 
 which is to be completed in six volumes, and every little one who has read or 
 heard read 'Little Prudy' and the 'Dotty Dimple' stories, will be delighted 
 with this." — Nation t Boston. 
 
Illustration to 
 AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE & SHEPARD. 
 
 By the Author of " My Paris." 
 
 KENTUCKY'S LOVE; Or, Roughing it Around Paris. 
 By Ei)WAED King. 12iiio. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 u t My Paris ' found a host of delighted readers, who will find here a 
 capital companion." 
 
 All sorts of .Life and all Classes of People." 
 
 THREE GENERATIONS. By Sarah A. Emery. 8vo. 
 Paper, $1 ; cloth, $1.50. Illustrated by Miss L. B. Humphrey. 
 
 A series of pictures of old folks, connected by a story which contains 
 much curious information about the men and women of whose society 
 our own is the direct product. 
 
 A Special Favorite." 
 
 RUBY DUKE. By Mrs. H. R. Potwin. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 " This book has more and higher excellency than anything of the kind 
 that we have met with for many a day." — Whitney's Musical Guest. 
 
 *' The whole goes with a buzz." 
 
 UNDER THE CEDARS; or, What the Years Brought. 
 
 By Alice J. Hatch. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50. 
 
 " There is a freshness and vivacity in this tale which makes it very 
 pleasing. The narrative is bright and racy, the dialogues crisp and 
 sparkling. * Buzz-buzz-buzz ' is the first line, and the whole goes with a 
 4 buzz.' The story is full of beauty, and the effect exhilarating. It creates 
 enthusiasm, and is remembered with satisfaction." — Albany Journal. 
 
 11 The Stage at Home." 
 
 THE DRAWING-ROOM STAGE. A new Collection of 
 Amateur Dramas, Comedies, Parces, &c. By George M. 
 Baker, Author of " Amateur Dramas," "The Mimic Stage," 
 " The Social Stage," "A Baker's Dozen Humorous Dia- 
 logues." 12mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 Mr. Baker's plays are admitted to be the best ever prepared for amateur 
 theatres. 
 
 " Gathering of the "Wits." 
 
 HUMOROUS READINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE. By 
 
 Prof. L. B. Monroe. $1.50. 
 
 In this gathering of the wits some of " the best things " of the best 
 humorous writers will be found. 
 

 Illustration to 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE &> SHE PA ED. 
 
 By Oliver Optic. 
 
 THE YACHT CLUB SERIES. By Oliver Optic: To be 
 completed in 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 1. LITTLE BOBTAIL. 
 
 2. THE YACHT CLUB. (In press.) 
 
 Each story complete in itself, and all in Oliver Optic's best vein. 
 
 By B. P. Shillaber. 
 
 PARTINGTONIAN PATCHWORK. 
 
 BLIFKINS THE MARTYR; or, The Domestic Trials of a 
 Model Husband. 
 
 THE MODERN SYNTAX: Dr. Spooner's Experience in Search 
 of the Delectable. 
 
 PARTINGTON PAPERS; Strippings of the Warm Milk of 
 Human Kindness. 
 
 NEW AND OLD THINGS FROM AN UNPRETENDING INK- 
 STAND. Humorous, Sentimental, Rhythmical. By B. P. Shilla- 
 ber (Mrs. Partington). 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. $1.75. 
 
 The genial author of this volume has packed it full of bright and 
 Witty things. 
 
 By Elijah Kellogg. 
 
 THE WHISPERING PINE SERIES. By Elijah Kellogg. 
 To be completed in 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. THE SPARK OF GENIUS. 
 
 2. THE SOPHOMORES OF RADCLIFFE. 
 
 3. WINNING HIS SPURS. 
 
 4. THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. (In press.) 
 
 Mr. Kellogg presents some admirable characters among his college 
 boys, and every volume of this series is brimful of fun and adventure. 
 
 " Nothing better ever written." 
 
 THE PLEASANT COVE SERIES. By Elijah Kellogg. 
 To be completed in 6 volumes. Per vol., $1.25. 
 
 1. ARTHUR BROWN, THE YOUNG CAPTAIN. 
 
 2. THE YOUNG DELIVERERS. 
 
 3. THE CRUISE OF THE CASCO. 
 
 4. THE CHILD OF THE ISLAND GLEN. 
 
 11 The Elm Island Stories," by this author, are deservedly popular. 
 " The Pleasant Cove Series " deals with many of the same characters. 
 
Illustration to 
 SALLY WILLIAMS. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE & SHE PAR J?. 
 
 Sophie May's ]>Tew Books. 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S FLYAWAY SERIES. By Sophie Mat. 
 To be completed in 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., 75c. 
 
 1. LITTLE FOLKS ASTRAY. 
 
 2. PRUDY KEEPING HOUSE. 
 
 3. AUNT MADGE'S STORY. 
 
 4. LITTLE GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 " There are no more popular books than those written by Sophie May. 
 All the Sabbath schools indorse them, and all the good, kind parents buy 
 them for their children." 
 
 Prof. De Milled Books. 
 
 THE YOUNG DODGE CLUB. By James De Mille. 
 To be completed in 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 1. AMONG THE BRIGANDS. 
 
 2. THE SEVEN HILLS. 
 
 " Prof. De Mille is one of the* most versatile writers for the young of 
 the day. His stories abound in fun, adventure, and information." 
 
 A Favorite Series. 
 
 THE B. 0. W. C. STORIES, By James "De Mille. 
 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $1.50. 
 
 1. THE B. O. W. C. 
 
 2. THE BOYS OF GRAND PRE SCHOOL. 
 
 3. LOST IN THE FOG. 
 
 4. FIRE IN THE WOODS. 
 
 5. PICKED UP ADRTFT. 
 
 6. THE TREASURE OF THE SEAS. 
 
 By a Pleasing "Writer. 
 
 DICK TRAVERS ABROAD. By Miss Adelaide F. Sam- 
 uels. 4 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., 50c. 
 
 1. PALM LAND. 
 
 2. THE LOST TAR. 
 
 3. ON THE WAVE. 
 
 4. LITTLE CRICKET. 
 
 By the author of " Dick and Daisy Series." 
 

 
 
 
 
 Illustration to 
 . THE LITTLE CANARY. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE & SHEPARD. 
 " One hundred and twenty Selections." 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS READINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE. 
 
 By Prof. L. B. Monroe. $1.50. 
 
 *■} Some of the best things of current literature may be found gathered 
 here.'' — Boston Advertiser. 
 
 " For Social Amusements." 
 
 SOCIAL CHARADES AND PARLOR OPERAS. By M. T. 
 
 C alder, Author of " College Ned," &c. 16mo. Cloth, 75c; 
 
 fancy bound, 60c. 
 
 lt These charades and operas, prepared for private representation, have 
 been received with great favor by those requiring exhibition pieces." 
 
 Underwood's American Authors. 
 
 HAND-BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Intended for 
 
 the use of High Schools, as well as a Companion and Guide 
 for Private Students, and for General Readers. (American 
 Authors.) By F. H. Underwood, A. M. Crown 8vo. Cloth. 
 
 $2.50. 
 
 It is confined to American authors, and includes the most prominent 
 writers in the three periods which cover our entire national history. 
 
 » 
 
 Underwood's British Authors. 
 
 HAND-BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. -Intended for 
 
 the use of High Schools, as well as a Companion and Guide 
 for Private Students, and for General Headers. (British 
 Authors.) By Francis H. Underwood, A. M. Crown 8vo. 
 
 Cloth. $2.50. 
 
 Mr. Underwood's Biographical Notices, which precede the selections 
 from prominent authors, are admirable in construction, gems of literary 
 work, attractive and valuable. 
 
 The Young Voyagers again. 
 
 YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. By Oliver Opptc. To be 
 completed in G volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., $ 1.50. 
 
 1. UP THE BALTIC. 
 
 2. NORTHERN LANDS. 
 
 3. CROSS AND CRESCENT. 
 A librarv of romantic travel and adventure. 
 
NEW PUBLICATIONS OF LEE &> SHE PA ED. 
 
 DICK AND DAISY SERIES. By Miss Adelaide F. Sam- 
 uels. 4 volumes. Illustrated. Per volume, 50c. 
 
 1. ADRIFT IN THE WORLD. 
 
 2. FIGHTING THE BATTLE. 
 
 2. SAVED FROM THE STREET. 
 4. GRANDFATHER MILLY'S LUCK. 
 By the author of '* Dick Travers Abroad." 
 
 " Four Charming Canaries." 
 
 LITTLE CANARY SERIES. By Mrs. M. A. Osgood. 
 4 volumes. Illustrated. Per vol., 75c. 
 
 1. LITTLE CANARY'S DAISY. 
 
 2. LITTLE CANARY. 
 
 3 LITTLE CANARY'S COUSIN EUGENE. 
 4. LITTLE CANARY'S BLACK CATO. 
 
 This set of juvenile stories are not only interesting to readers, but they 
 are particularly bright and attractive in appearance. 
 
 A New Volume just added. 
 
 THE CHARLEY ROBERTS SERIES. By Mrs. L. M. 
 Thurston. To be completed in 6 volumes. Illustrated. Per 
 vol., $1. 
 
 1. HOW CHARLEY ROBERTS BECAME A MAN. 
 
 2. HOW EVA ROBERTS GAINED HER EDUCATION. 
 
 3. CHARLEY AND EVA'S HOME IN THE WEST. 
 
 4. THE CHILDREN OF AMITY COURT. 
 
 Charley and Eva Roberts have lots of young friends, who will be de- 
 lighted to learn that a new volume has just been added to their history. 
 
HP