My enquiry into the use of stops in the early days of typography will, if it prove nothing else, show that the Tablet of Memory is not an authority to be depended upon on that subject. I have arranged the authorities which I have consulted in chronological order.
1480. Epistola F. Philelphi ad Sextum IV., printed at Rome.
1493. Politian's Latin translation of Herodian, printed at Bologna.
In both these books the colon and period are used, but neither the comma nor semicolon.
1523. Dialogi Platonis, printed at Nuremberg.
Here I find the comma and period, and also the note of interrogation, but not the colon or semicolon.
1523. Ascensius declynsons, with the playne Expositor, without date, place, or printer's name.
This publication is ascribed by Johnson to Wynkyn de Worde, and therefore printed between 1493 and 1534. I find in it the following amusing passage relative to the ancient art of punctuation:—
"Of the Craft of Poynting.
"There be fiue maner poynts, and divisions most uside with cunnyng men: the which, if they be wel usid, make the sentens very light, and esy to understond both to the reder and the herer, and they be these: virgil, come, parenthesis, playne poynt, and interrogatif. A virgil is a sclender stryke: lenynge forwarde this wyse, betokynynge a lytyl, short rest without any perfetnes yet of sentens: as betwene the five poyntis a fore rehersid. A come is with tway tittels this wyse: betokynynge a longer reste: and the sentens yet either is imperfet: or els, if it be perfet: ther cummith more after, longyng to it: the which more comynly cannot be perfet by itself without at the lest summat of it: that gothe a fore. A parenthesis is with tway crokyd virgils: as an olde mone, and a new bely to bely: the whyche be set theton afore the begynyng, and thetother after the latyr ende of a clause; comyng within an other clause: that may be perfet: thof the clause, so comyng betwene: wer awey, and therfore it is sowndyde comynly a note lower, than the utter clause. Yf the sentens cannot be perfet without the ynner clause, then stede of the first crokyde virgil a streght virgil wol do very wel; and stede of the later must nedis be a come. A playne poynt is with won tittel this wyse. and it cumeth after the ende of al the whole sentens betokynynge a longe reste. An interrogatif is with tway tittels, the upper rysing this wyse? and it cumeth after the ende of a whole reason: wheryn ther is sum question axside. the whiche ende of the reson, triyng as it were for an answere: risyth upwarde. we have these rulis in englishe: by cause they be as profytable, and necessary to be kepte in every mother tonge, as in latyn. Sethyn we (as we wolde to god: every precher wolde do) have kept owre rulis both in owre englishe, and latyn: what nede we, sethyn owre own be sufficient unogh: to put any other exemplis."