But, tho’ the several articulate sounds are pretty fully and exactly marked by Letters of known and determinate power; yet the several pauses, which are used in a just pronunciation of discourse, are very imperfectly expressed by Points.
For the different degrees of connexion between the several parts of sentences, and the different pauses in a just pronunciation, which express those degrees of connexion according to their proper value, admit of great variety; but the whole number of Points, which we have to express this variety, amounts only to Four.
Hence it is, that we are under a necessity of expressing pauses of the same quantity, on different occasions, by different points; and more frequently of expressing pauses of different quantity by the same points.
So that the doctrine of Punctuation must needs be very imperfect: few precise rules can be given, which will hold without exception in all cases; but much must be left to the judgement and taste of the writer.
On the other hand, if a greater number of marks were invented to express all the possible different pauses of pronunciation; the doctrine of them would be very perplexed and difficult, and the use of them would rather embarass than assist the reader.
It remains therefore, that we be content with the Rules of Punctuation, laid down with as much exactness as the nature of the subject will admit; such as may serve for a general direction, to be accommodated to different occasions, and to be supplied where deficient by the writers judgement.
The several degrees of Connexion between Sentences, and between their principal constructive parts, Rhetoricians have considered under the following distinctions, as the most obvious and remarkable: the Period, Colon, Semicolon, and Comma.
The Period is the whole Sentence, compleat in itself, wanting nothing to make a full and perfect sense, and not connected in construction with a subsequent Sentence.