Posts tagged readability

For though the narration and description, which is made by a great man with you;

• that the descendants of Neptune planted there;
• and of
  • the magnificent temple, palace, city, and hill;
  • and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, (which as so many chains environed the same site and temple);
  • and the several degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had been a scala coeli,

be all poetical and fabulous: yet so much is true, that

• the said country of Atlantis,
• as well as that of Peru, then called Coya,
• as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel,

were mighty and proud kingdoms in arms, shipping and riches; so mighty, as at one time (or at least within the space of ten years) they both made two great expeditions;

• they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the Mediterrane Sea;
• and they of Coya through the South Sea upon this our island;

and for the former of these, which was into Europe, the same author amongst you (as it seemeth) had some relation from the Egyptian priest whom he cited.

Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, The Echo Library, 2005, p. 11. Bacon’s words, my layout. (Though if I did it properly I wouldn’t use bullets on the lists.) The original is simply one long sentence, which I’ve broken up into lists.