P. 34. In this last chapter on Punctuation, which the author styles
"of Distinctiones," no mention whatever is made of the "semicolon,"
though it occurs frequently in the MS., as, for instance, p. 30, cap.
6. This stop, according to Herbert, was first used by Richard Grafton
in _The Byble_ printed in 1537: it occurs in the Dedication. Henry
Denham, an English printer who flourished towards the close of the
sixteenth century, was the first to use it with propriety.
P. 34 (6). The explanation of the mode of pronouncing the comma "with
a short _sob_" is odd.[5]
[Footnote 5: It will be here as well to mention that as the
punctuation in the MS. is extremely unsystematic, it has been
dispensed with whenever the meaning was confused by it.]
The author continually uses a singular verb to a plural noun; for
instance, "of this we, as the latines, hes almost no use" (p. 22),
though on p. 20 he writes, "in our tongue we have some particles."
With regard to the Manuscript, there are two corrections in it worth
noting. At p. 10 (6), in the phrase, "the auctours _whole_ drift," the
word had been originally written _hael_, but is marked through, and
_whole_ substituted for it in the same handwriting.
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