Capitals.
INTRODUCTION.
It has been the custom among some writers to commence every important word with a capital, so that some printed productions have fairly bristled with capitalized words; as,—
“Modern authors have with unwearied Pains made many useful Searches into the weak Sides of the Ancients, and given us a comprehensive Lift of them.”—Swift.
“There were a Race of Men who delighted to nibble at the Superfluities and Excrescences of Books.”—Swift.
The custom of commencing all nouns with a capital is still prevalent among the Germans of the present day.
It is a somewhat interesting fact that the use and value of capitals has been subject to a rise and fall in the literary market, written productions during some centuries abounding in them, while in other centuries they have, in a great measure, been discarded, and have become comparative strangers in English composition.