But as the liberty of inversion is a capital point in handling the present subject, it will be necessary to examine it more narrowly, and in particular to trace the several degrees in which an inverted style recedes more and more from that which is natural. And first, as to the placing a circumstance before the word with which it is connected, I observe, that it is the easiest of all inversion, even so easy as to be consistent with a style that is properly termed natural. Witness the following examples.
In the sincerity of my heart, I profess, &c.
By our own ill management, we are brought to so low an ebb of wealth and credit, that, &c.
On Thursday morning there was little or nothing transacted in Change-alley.
At St Bride’s church in Fleetstreet, Mr Woolston, (who writ against the miracles of our Saviour), in the utmost terrors of conscience made a public recantation.
The interjecting a circumstance betwixt a relative word and that to which it relates, is more properly termed inversion; because, by a violent disjunction of words intimately connected, it recedes farther from a natural style. But this liberty has also degrees; for the disjunction is more violent in some cases than in others. This I must also explain: and to give a just notion of the difference, I must crave liberty of my reader to enter a little more into an abstract subject, than would otherwise be my choice.
In nature, though a substance cannot exist without its qualities, nor a quality without a substance; yet in our conception of these, a material difference may be remarked. I cannot conceive a quality but as belonging to some subject: it makes indeed a part of the idea which is formed of the subject. But the opposite holds not. Though I cannot form a conception of a subject devoid of all qualities, a partial conception may however be formed of it, laying aside or abstracting from any particular quality. I can, for example, form the idea of a fine Arabian horse without regard to his colour, or of a white horse without regard to his size. Such partial conception of a subject, is still more easy with respect to action or motion; which is an occasional attribute only, and has not the same permanency with colour or figure. I cannot form an idea of motion independent of a body; but there is nothing more easy than to form an idea of a body at rest. Hence it appears, that the degree of inversion depends greatly on the order in which the related words are placed. When a substantive occupies the first place, we cannot foresee what is to be said of it. The idea therefore which this word suggests, must subsist in the mind at least for a moment, independent of the relative words afterward introduced; and if it can so subsist, that moment may without difficulty be prolonged by interjecting a circumstance betwixt the substantive and its connections. Examples therefore of this kind, will scarce alone be sufficient to denominate a style inverted. The case is very different, where the word that occupies the first place, denotes a quality or an action; for as these cannot be conceived without a subject, they cannot without greater violence be separated from the subject that follows. And for that reason, every such separation by means of an interjected circumstance belongs to an inverted style.
To illustrate this doctrine examples being necessary, I shall begin with those where the word first introduced does not imply a relation.
—————— Nor Eve to iterate
Her former trespass fear’d.
———— Hunger and thirst at once,
Powerful persuaders, quicken’d at the scent
Of that alluring fruit, urg’d me so keen.