If by any one it shall be thought, that the objections here are too scrupulous, and that the defect of perspicuity is easily supplied by accurate punctuation; the answer is, That punctuation may remove an ambiguity, but will never produce that peculiar beauty which is felt when the sense comes out clearly and distinctly by means of a happy arrangement. Such influence has this beauty, that by a natural transition of feeling, it is communicated to the very sound of the words, so as in appearance to improve the music of the period. But as this curious subject comes in more properly afterward, it is sufficient at present to appeal to experience, that a period so arranged as to bring out the sense clear, seems always more musical than where the sense is left in any degree doubtful.
A rule deservedly occupying the second place, is, That words expressing things connected in the thought, ought to be placed as near together as possible. This rule is derived immediately from human nature, in which there is discovered a remarkable propensity to place together things that are in any manner connected[90]. Where things are arranged according to their connections, we have a sense of order: otherwise we have a sense of disorder, as of things placed by chance. And we naturally place words in the same order in which we would place the things they signify. The bad effect of a violent separation of words or members thus intimately connected, will appear from the following examples.
For the English are naturally fanciful, and very often disposed, by that gloominess and melancholy of temper which is so frequent in our nation, to many wild notions and visions, to which others are not so liable.
Spectator, Nº 419.
Here the verb or assertion is, by a pretty long circumstance, violently separated from the subject to which it refers. This makes a harsh arrangement; the less excusable that the fault is easily prevented by placing the circumstance before the verb or assertion, after the following manner:
For the English are naturally fanciful, and, by that gloominess and melancholy of temper which is so frequent in our nation, are often disposed to many wild notions, &c.
For as no mortal author, in the ordinary fate and vicissitude of things, knows to what use his works may, some time or other, be applied, &c.
Spectator, Nº 85.
Better thus:
For as, in the ordinary fate and vicissitude of things, no mortal author knows to what use, some time or other, his works may be apply’d.