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._
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.
From whence we may date likewise the rivalship of the house of France, for we may reckon that of the Valois and that of Bourbon as one upon this occasion, and the house of Austria, that continues at this day, and has oft cost so much blood and so much treasure in the course of it.
_Letters on history, vol. 1. letter 6. Bolingbroke._
It cannot be impertinent or ridiculous therefore in such a country, whatever it might be in the Abbot of St Real’s, which was Savoy I think; or in Peru, under the Incas, where Garcilasso de la Vega says it was lawful for none but the nobility to study--for men of all degrees to instruct themselves in those affairs wherein they may be actors, or judges of those that act, or controllers of those that judge.
_Letters on history, vol. 1. letter 5. Bolingbroke._
If Scipio, who was naturally given to women, for which anecdote we have, if I mistake not, the authority of Polybius, as well as some verses of Nevius preserved by Aulus Gellius, had been educated by Olympias at the court of Philip, it is improbable that he would have restored the beautiful Spaniard.
If any one have a curiosity for more specimens of this kind, they will be found without number in the works of the same author.
A pronoun, which saves the naming a person or thing a second time, ought to be placed as near as possible to the name of that person or thing. This is a branch of the foregoing rule; and with the reason there given, another concurs, _viz._ That if other ideas intervene, it is difficult to recal the person or thing by reference.