3. A point of interrogation is improper after fentences, which are not QUESTIONS, but only expreffions of ADMIRATION, or some other emotion. EXAMPLES. HOW many inftances have we or chastity in the fair fex * ? How finely has the fon of Sirath described the art of gaining friends? With what prudence does he caution us in the choice of our companions? With what strokes of nature has he described the behaviour of a treacherous friend +? * Spect. N° 73. + Ibid. No 68. 4. The 4. The generality of writers use a note of interrogation, when they only inform us, that a question has been asked, and do not employ the very words, which form the queftion. YOUR father enquired, when I had heard from Madras? Your fifter afked me, when I thought you would be in town? The Cyprians asked me, why I wept ? I asked him, wherein the authority of the, king confifted? Question. Whether anger ought to be fuppreffed entirely, or only to be confined within the bounds of moderation * ? Afk your learned friend, why the Greeks. joined a verb of the fingular number, to a plural noun of the neuter gender? * ENFIELD's Speaker, b. iv. c. I. F 2 5. The 5. The foregoing sentences are not interrogative, and therefore fhould be terminated by a period. To give them the interrogative form, they should be expreffed in this manner: YOUR father faid to me, When have you heard from Madras ? When, faid your fifter, do you think my brother will be in town? The Cyprians faid to me, Why do you weep ? I propofed this queftion to him: Wherein does the authority of the king consist ? Question. Whether ought anger to be fuppreffed entirely, or only confined within the bounds of moderation * ? * See LowTH's Grammar, p. 144. edit. 1783, where a very proper diftinction is made between explicative, or declarative, and interrogative fentences. Defire your learned friend to answer this queftion: Why did the Greeks join a verb of the fingular number to a plural noun of the neuter gender? In this form the foregoing sentences are direct questions, and require a point of interrogation after them. 6. Though the former mode of expreffion is more ufual, and perhaps more eafy and familiar, it is very obfervable, that the latter is the form, conftantly employed by the facred writers. EXAMPLE. THIS is the record of John, when the Jews fent priests and Levites from Jerufalem, to ask him, who art thou? And he confeffed, and denied not; but confeffed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he faith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he anfwered, No *. * John i. 19, 20, 21. This |