This rule may be extended to govern the construction of sentences or periods. A sentence or period in language ought to express one entire thought or mental proposition; and different thoughts ought to be separated in the expression by placing them in different sentences or periods. It is therefore offending against neatness, to crowd into one period entire thoughts which require more than one; for this is conjoining in language things that are separated in reality; and consequently rejecting that uniformity which ought to be preserved betwixt thought and expression. Of errors against this rule take the following examples.
Cæsar, describing the Suevi:
Atque in eam se consuetudinem adduxerunt, ut locis frigidissimis, neque vestitus, præter pelles, habeant quidquam, quarum, propter exiguitatem, magna est corporis pars operta, et laventur in fluminibus.
Commentaria, l. 4. prin.
Burnet, in the history of his own times, giving Lord Sunderland’s character, says,
His own notions were always good; but he was a man of great expence.
I have seen a woman’s face break out in heats, as she has been talking against a great lord, whom she had never seen in her life; and indeed never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth.
Spectator, Nº 57.
Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of Strada:
I single him out among the moderns, because he had the foolish presumption to censure Tacitus, and to write history himself: and your Lordship will forgive this short excursion in honour of a favourite author.