“The influences which Atterbury had fostered long lingered in the precincts.”—Stanley’s Westminster Abbey.
“The distinction between transcendental and transcendent, is observed by our elder divines and philosophers.”—Coleridge’s Biographia.
“The interruption of friendly relations between England and Spain was the fault . . . of the Emperor.”—Froude’s England.
The better method is to omit the comma, except in those cases where its insertion would prevent ambiguity; as in the quotation above, from Stanley, where there should have been a comma after “fostered”; {p79} as it stands, the word “long” may qualify either the word before or after it.
So, if you examine any number of volumes with reference to placing a comma before and, or, or nor, when three or more words, in the same category, are connected,—in some you will find “Faith, and hope, and charity”; in others, “Faith and hope and charity.” We have just met with the following lines in a well-known paper:
“Round and round the atoms fly,
Turf, and stone, and sea, and sky.”
Wilson’s example is (p. 38),—
“Let us freely drink in the soul of love and beauty and wisdom from all nature and art and history.”
In view of these and similar differences of practice, and contradiction of rules, one is tempted to say that it is of no moment whether the commas are inserted or not. But, leaving “style” out of the question, a proof-reader should endeavor to have a reason for every omission he allows, and for every insertion he makes. We advise him, then, in the first place to note which method seems required by the golden rule of elucidating the meaning; then consider, further, if the sentence already contains commas, whether inserting more would offend the eye. Let him decide each case on its own merits; leaning, when in doubt, in favor of such grammatical rule as he may have adopted. But use judgment; for the most precise grammarians lay down pages of exceptions; and Cobbett (Grammar, Letter XIV.) cannot be gainsaid when {p80} he writes, “It is evident, that, in many cases, the use of the comma must depend upon taste.”