Exercise 3.

Correct the errors in the following:

THE PROGRESS OF ENGLAND.

in the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded race have become the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw, have spread their dominion over every quarter of the globe, have scattered the seeds of mighty empires and republics over vast continents of which no dim intimation had ever reached ptolemy or strabo, have created a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the navies of tyre, athens, carthage, venice, and genoa together, have carried the science of healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every manufacture, everything that promotes the convenience of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical, have produced a literature which may boast of works not inferior to the noblest which greece has bequeathed to us, have discovered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, have speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations of the human mind, have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political improvement.

the history of england is the history of this great change in the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of our own island. there is much amusing and instructive episodical matter, but this is the main action. to us, we will own, nothing is so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which the england of the domesday book, the england of the curfew, has thus changed.

Exercise 4.

Correct the errors in the following:

EXTRACT FROM THE ESSAY ON MAN.

heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, all but the page prescribed, their present state; from brutes what men, from men what spirits know,

or who could suffer being here below?

the lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
and licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
o blindness to the future! kindly given,
that each may fill the circle marked by heaven;
who sees with equal eye, as god of all,

a hero perish or a sparrow fall;

atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

and now a bubble burst, and now a world.
hope humbly, then, with trembling pinions

soar;

wait the great teacher, death; and god adore.
what future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
but gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
hope springs eternal in the human breast;
man never is, but always to be blest;
the soul, uneasy and confined from home,
rests and expatiates in a life to come.

lo the poor indian, whose untutored mind
sees god in clouds, and hears him in the wind;
his soul proud science never taught to stray
far as the solar walk, or milky way;

yet simple nature to his hope has given,

behind the cloud-topped hill, a humbler heaven; some safer world in depth of woods embraced, some happier island in the watery waste,

where slaves once more their native land behold.

Exercise 5.

Correct the errors in the following:

THE HEBREW RACE.

in consequence of what transpired at madrid, i went straight to paris, to consult the president of the french council; i beheld the son of a french jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the lord of hosts?" and is soult a hebrew?" "yes, and several of the french marshals, and the most famous; massena, for example, — his real name was manasseh. but to my anecdote. the consequence of our consultations was, that some northern power should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. we fixed on prussia, and the president of the council made an application to the prussian minister, who attended a few days after our conference. count arnim entered the cabinet, and i beheld a prussian jew. so you see, my dear coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. favored by nature and by nature's god, we produced the lyre of david; we gave you isaiah and ezekiel; they are our olynthiacs, our philippics. favored by nature we still remain; but in exact proportion as we have been favored by nature we have been persecuted by man. after a thousand struggles, — after acts of heroic deeds courage that rome has never equalled, of divine patriotism that athens and sparta and carthage have never excelled, - we have endured fifteen hundred years of supernatural slavery; during which every device that can degrade or destroy man has been our destiny.

as,

CHAPTER IV.

PUNCTUATION.

RULES.

1. SENTENCES.

1. A declarative sentence takes a period at its close;

The work is completed.

2. An interrogative sentence takes an interrogation point at its close; as,

Who discovered America?

3. An exclamatory sentence takes an exclamation point at its close; as,

What a hero he is!

4. An imperative sentence takes a period at its close; as,

John, close the door.

2. MEMBERS.

5. If any member of a compound sentence contains a semicolon, a colon should be used to separate the members; as,

NOTE.

Our hearts you see not: they are pitiful;
And pity to the general wrong of Rome
Hath done this deed on Cæsar.

The principles of punctuation can best be learned from Bigelow's Handbook of Punctuation (Boston, Lee & Shepard), a treatise equally valuable as a text-book and as a book of reference.

6. If any member of a compound sentence contains a comma, a semicolon should be used to separate the members; as,

But speak all good you can devise of Cæsar,
And say you do 't by our permission;

Else shall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral.

7. Members slightly connected in thought are separated by semicolons; as,

Yet stay awhile;

Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse

Into the market-place.

8. Members closely connected in thought are separated by commas; as,

The sun has risen, his rays gild the mountain tops.

EXCEPTION.Short members which are very closely connected in thought may omit the comma, and the members of an interrogative sentence may be separated by an interrogation point; as,

The wind blew and the rain fell.

Who has seen him? who has heard of him?

3. CLAUSES.

9. Clauses should be separated from one another, and from the rest of the sentence, by commas; as,

The wicked flee, when no man pursueth.

If this is your excuse, you should be ashamed.

EXCEPTION 1.-Clauses that are closely connected with the words they modify, are not separated by commas from the words which they modify. This exception applies most frequently to restrictive relative clauses, to clauses introduced by as and than in comparisons, and to single object clauses introduced by the conjunction that; as,

The man that lies loses the respect of his fellows.

He is better than he seems.

He said that he should sail the next day.