His sensibility and taste in this direction was probably one of the bonds of the close intimacy, which existed between himself and David Garrick.
We find among his works, numerous instances of his peculiar and artistic punctuation. Sometimes he continues an exclamation by means of dashes for three lines. Sometimes, by way of pause, he leaves out a whole page, and the first time he does this he humorously adds:—"Thrice happy book! thou wilt have one page which malice cannot blacken." One of the chapters of Tristram begins—
"And a chapter it shall have."
"A sermon commences—Judges xix. 1. 2. 3.
"'And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite sojourning on the side of Mount Ephraim, who took unto himself a concubine.'
"'A concubine! but the text accounts for it, for in those days 'there was no king in Israel!' then the Levite, you will say, like every other man in it, did what was right in his own eyes; and so, you may add, did his concubine too, for she went away.'"
"'It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.'—Eccl. vii. 2.
"That I deny—but let us hear the wise man's reasoning for it:—'for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to his heart; sorrow is better than laughter, for a crack-brained order of enthusiastic monks, I grant, but not for men of the world.'"
Of course, he introduces this cavil to combat it, but still maintains that travellers may be allowed to amuse themselves with the beauties of the country they are passing through.