notice of a very common mistake of printers, which is, annexing the note of interrogation to fuch fentences as are not really interrogative, and which include a queftion only imperatively. Such are the following:

Prefumptuous man! the reafon would'st thou find,
Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and fo blind?
Firft, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs.
Afk of thy mother, earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's fatellites are lefs than Jove?

Pope's Effay on Man, Ep. i. v. 35. In this paffage we find the first couplet very properly marked with the note of interrogation, and the fecond couplet as properly left without it. But the third couplet, which is no more a queftion than the fecond, has a note of interrogation annexed to it; and the fourth, which is perfectly fimilar to the third, is marked with a note of interrogation likewife.

Exclamation.

This note is appropriated by grammarians to indicate that fome paffion or emotion is contained in the words to which it is annexed; and it may, therefore, be looked upon as effentially diftinct from the reft of the points; the office of which is commonly fuppofed to be that of fixing or determining the fenfe only. Whether a point that indicates paffion or emotion, without determining what emotion or paffion is meant, or if we had points expreffive of every paffion or emotion, whether this would, in common ufage, more affift or embarrass the elocu

tion of the reader, I fhall not at present attempt to decide; but when this point is applied to fentences which, from their form, might be fuppofed to be merely interrogative, and yet really imply wonder, surprise, or aftonishment; when this use, I fay, is made of the note of exclamation, it must be confeffed to be of no small importance in reading, and very justly to deferve a place in grammatical punctuation.

Thus the fentence, How myfterious are the ways of Providence! which naturally adopts the exclamation, may, by a speaker who denies these mysteries, become a queftion, by laying a stress on the word how, and subjoining the note of interrogation; as How myfterious are the ways of Providence? Upon hearing a piece of mufic, we may cry out with rapture, What harmony is that! or we may use the fame words to inquire WHAT harmony is that? that is, what kind of harmony. The very different import, then, of these sentences, as they are differently pointed, fufficiently fhew the utility of the note of exclamation.

So little, however, is this diftinction attended to, that we seldom fee a fentence commencing with the interrogative words marked with any thing but the note of interrogation, however diftant the meaning of the fentence may be from doubt or inquiry.

Thus Mr. Addison, fpeaking of the neceffity of exercise, fays

The earth must be laboured before it gives its increafe; and when it is forced into its feveral products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use? Spec. N° 115. And this paffage, in all the editions of the Spectator I have feen, is marked with a note of in

terrogation. Another writer in the Spectator, fpeaking of the grandeur and beauty of heaven, fays

How great must be the majesty of that place, where the whole art of creation has been employed, and where God has chosen to show himself in the moft magnificent manner? Ibid. N° 580.

Inftances of this mistake are innumerable; and yet it is as clear as any thing in language, that these paffages ought not to be marked with the interrogation, but with the exclamation point.-It may be urged, indeed, in extenuation of this fault, that the note of interrogation is not always very easy to be diftinguished from the note of exclamation; and when this is the case, a mistake is not of any great importance to the reader; for we may be fure that question which may be mistaken for an exclamation, whatever tone of paffion it may demand, can never require any inflexion of voice on the last word, but that which the question itself requires, which is the falling inflexion.—It will, however, be neceffary to take notice of an exception to this rule, which is, when the exclamation comes immediately after a question, and, as it were, repeats it; for, in this cafe, the re-peated question, which is really an exclamation, affumes the rifing inflexion.

EXAMPLE.

Will you for ever, Athenians, do nothing but walk up and down the city, asking one another, What news? What news! Is there any thing more new than to fee a man of Macedonia become mafter of the Athenians, and give laws to all Gréece?

Demofthenes' First Philippic. Rollin.

In this paffage we find the firft question including the laft, and, being formed without the interrogative words, requires the rifing inflexion;

and as the sentence of admiration, What news! immediately follows, it exactly imitates the object it ironically admires. This inflexion of the note of admiration is not confined to the repetition of this inflexion in the foregoing queftion; for if a question is afked with the interrogative words, and, confequently, with the falling inflexion, if we immediately echo the question, and turn it into an admiration, the voice neceffarily adopts the rifing inflexion before defcribed. Thus when Pope inquires into the place where happiness refides, he says

Plant of celeftial feed, if dropp'd below,

Say in what mortal foil thou deign'ft to grow:
Fair op'ning to fome courts propitious fhine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twin'd with the wreaths Parnaffian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?

Where gróws? where grows it not? if vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the foil.

Pope's Effay on Man, b. iv.

Here the phrafe, where grows, affumes the rifing inflexion, and ought to be marked with the note of exclamation.

It may not be entirely useless to take notice. of a common error of grammarians; which is, that both this point and the interrogation require an elevation of voice. The inflexion of voice proper to one fpecies of question, which, it is probable, grammarians may have mistaken for an elevation of voice, it is presumed has been fully explained under that article: By the elevation of voice they attribute to this point, it is not unlikely that they mean the pathos or energy with which we ufually exprefs paffion or emotion; but which is, by no means, inseparably connected with elevation of voice;

were we even to fuppofe, that all paffion or emotion neceffarily affumes a louder tone, it muft ftill be acknowledged this is very different from a higher tone of voice, and therefore that the common rule is very fallacious and inaccu

rate.

The truth is, the expreffion of paffion or emotion confifts in giving a distinct and specific quality to the founds we use, rather than in increafing or diminishing their quantity, or in giving this quantity any local direction upwards or downwards: Understanding the import of a fentence, and expreffing that fentence with paffion or emotion, are things as diftinct as the head and the heart: This point, therefore, though useful to diftinguish interrogation from emotion, is as different from the reft of the points as Grammar is from Rhetoric; and whatever may be the tone of voice proper to the note of exclamation, it is certain the inflexions it requires are exactly the fame as the reft of the points; that is, if the exclamation point is placed after a member that would have the rifing inflexion in another fentence, it ought to have the rifing in this; if after a member that would have the falling inflexion, the exclamation ought to have the falling inflexion likewife; or if exclamation is mingled with a queftion, it requires the fame inflexion the queftion would require, unless, as we have formerly observed, the question with the interrogative words is an echo of another question of the fame kind, which, in this cafe, always requires the rifing inflexion: And this exception, it may be obferved, is perfectly agreeable to the general rule; for a repetition of a queftion