CHAPTER VI.—FOR WRITING.
EXERCISES IN PROSODY.
☞[When the pupil can readily answer all the questions on Prosody, and apply the rules of punctuation to any composition in which the points are rightly inserted, he should write out the following exercises, supplying what is required, and correcting what is amiss. Or, if any teacher choose to exercise his classes orally, by means of these examples, he can very well do it; because, to read words, is always easier than to write them, and even points or poetic feet may be quite as readily named as written.]
EXERCISE I.—PUNCTUATION.
Copy the following sentences, and insert the COMMA where it is requisite.
EXAMPLES UNDER RULE I.—OF SIMPLE SENTENCES.
"The dogmatist's assurance is paramount to argument." "The whole course of his argumentation comes to nothing." "The fieldmouse builds her garner under ground."
EXC.—"The first principles of almost all sciences are few." "What he gave me to publish was but a small part." "To remain insensible to such provocation is apathy." "Minds ashamed of poverty would be proud of affluence." "To be totally indifferent to praise or censure is a real defect in character."—Wilson's Punctuation, p. 38.
UNDER RULE II.—OF SIMPLE MEMBERS.
"I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame." "They are gone but the remembrance of them is sweet." "He has passed it is likely through varieties of fortune." "The mind though free has a governor within itself." "They I doubt not oppose the bill on public principles." "Be silent be grateful and adore." "He is an adept in language who always speaks the truth." "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong."
EXC. I.—"He that has far to go should not hurry." "Hobbes believed the eternal truths which he opposed." "Feeble are all pleasures in which the heart has no share." "The love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul."—Wilson's Punctuation, p. 38.
EXC. II.—"A good name is better than precious ointment." "Thinkst thou that duty shall have dread to speak?" "The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns."
UNDER RULE III.—OF MORE THAN TWO WORDS.
"The city army court espouse my cause." "Wars pestilences and diseases are terrible instructors." "Walk daily in a pleasant airy and umbrageous garden." "Wit spirits faculties but make it worse." "Men wives and children stare cry out and run." "Industry, honesty, and temperance are essential to happiness."—Wilson's Punctuation, p. 29. "Honor, affluence, and pleasure seduce the heart."—Ib., p. 31.
UNDER RULE IV.—OF TWO TERMS CONNECTED.
"Hope and fear are essentials in religion." "Praise and adoration are perfective of our souls." "We know bodies and their properties most perfectly." "Satisfy yourselves with what is rational and attainable." "Slowly and sadly we laid him down."
EXC. I.—"God will rather look to the inward motions of the mind than to the outward form of the body." "Gentleness is unassuming in opinion and temperate in zeal."
EXC. II.—"He has experienced prosperity and adversity." "All sin essentially is and must be mortal." "Reprove vice but pity the offender."
EXC. III.—"One person is chosen chairman or moderator." "Duration or time is measured by motion." "The governor or viceroy is chosen annually."
EXC. IV.—"Reflection reason still the ties improve." "His neat plain parlour wants our modern style." "We are fearfully wonderfully made."
UNDER RULE V.—OF WORDS IN PAIRS.
"I inquired and rejected consulted and deliberated." "Seed-time and harvest cold and heat summer and winter day and night shall not cease."
EXERCISE II.—PUNCTUATION.
Copy the following sentences, and insert the COMMA where it is requisite.
EXAMPLES UNDER RULE VI.—OF WORDS PUT ABSOLUTE.
"The night being dark they did not proceed." "There being no other coach we had no alternative." "Remember my son that human life is the journey of a day." "All circumstances considered it seems right." "He that overcometh to him will I give power." "Your land strangers devour it in your presence." "Ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity!"
"With heads declin'd ye cedars homage pay;
Be smooth ye rocks ye rapid floods give way!"
