Enormous length of each Sentence from containing the whole

Preamble as one member only occasioned by the introductory form of

— "Whereas" the Attention finding no pause is wearied out

before it gets to the end, & loses the beginning the Clause is

protracted to an immeasurable length breaks at last with

it's own weight. To remedy this if a Preamble is necessary

& is to be inserted (which should only be when the reason of

enactment is not obvious) It should precede in a separate Sentence in

the assertive not Parenthetical Style.

There are some conceptions so constituted, as not to have — wind

enough if one may so say, to go through many a Period that occurs in the

Statute Book — To change the Metaphor— Of such length

in many instances is the thread of the discourse as to break by

it's own with them weight before they can wind it off

— I speak feelingly on this Article: but I believe I am not

singular: use may have succeeded practice and the habit of in

making that only difficult, which only to some to others is

impossible — I do conceive, let others judge whether it is a

vain imagination, that there are periods which from this very circumstance,

many thousands of those whom they concern are under an utter incapacity of

apprehending: — periods of which, if resolved into others in

greater number but of a moderate length, they might be perfect masters.

We may have by a kind of stealth, (as every transaction of those

— who are in trust for us, transpires to us for whom they

are in trust by a kind of stealth), a composition which all men will

be ready to acknowledge for a model of Style, a few because they understand

it's, & the rest because they know the Author. I

mean the opinion of the Court of King's — Bench in the case of

the King against Woodfall, deliver'd by the L. d Ch: Justice at the Table of the House of

Lords. note London Chronicle Dec r 18-20.

1770 & to be met with in the Magazines of that —

month I should be glad to know whether that composition has

less of dignity, for being depurated from all Technical dross

& distributed into short and manageable sentences, nervous

collected, simple [elegant] & concise.

Yet this is even argumentative. Where the business is to command &

not to argue concision conciseness is still more requisite &

— still more easily easy to be obtained

COMPOSIT. Stat. as Discourse

There is nothing to hinderBut what ever modifications are thought

proper to be annexed to a proposition may be as well distributed into

several sentences where the number of them grows unw

ieldy as — piled up upon it in one. The Logical connection may subsist unimpaired,

tho' the Grammatical be dissolved.

A Statute 3.G.2.c.14 relative to the E. India Company has a Sentence

in it which fills

3 of Ruffhead's pages: all recital but 16 lines. This is but a

trifle in comparison of another 22.G.2.52 disposing of the

estates of certain rebels for the benefit — of Greenwich

Hospital: no fewer than 13 of the same — enormous pages are

occupied by a single sentence.

BR Length of Sentences.