An Essay on Punctuation With Incidental Remarks on Composition

An Essay On Punctuation With Incidental Remarks On Composition by F. Francillon. This early 19th-century treatise surveys the art of punctuation, defining punctuation as marks that guide readers and listeners by indicating pauses and relationships between sentences. The work traces the history of pointing from Greco-Roman scribal practices to the advent of printing, noting how periods, colons, semicolons, commas, and parentheses evolved and how their signs came to be used as mere signs rather than the objects they denote. Francillon argues that the proper function of points is to indicate the structure of a sentence rather than to form it, a distinction he supports with quotations from Lowth, Campbell, Vossius, and others. The book is structured in four parts, discussing pre-printing pointing, early printing, and a detailed treatment of each instrument (period, colon, semicolon, comma, parentheses, interrogation, interjection, dash), followed by an appendix offering examples, authorities, and notes. It presents a rigorous, stylistic approach to punctuation, insisting on clarity and caution against overuse while supplying historical context and practical guidance.