I'm in the middle of reading Stanley Fish's 2011 book, How to Write a Sentence, and enjoying it very much. When I finish, I'll write a post on some of the things I learned from it, but for today, I just want to show you an example of Shakespeare's ability in regard to sentence writing. (By the way, Fish uses a couple of examples from Shakespeare in his discussions, to good effect.) The following comes from 1.3 of Henry IV, Part Two, a scene in which various rebels are discussing how to go about removing the title character from the throne, a task that seems increasingly difficult given the reversals suffered by their side, particularly at Shrewsbury at the end of Henry IV, Part One. Lord Bardolph calls for tempered action based on information and careful planning, and to make his case he compares a military campaign with the planning and construction of a building. Depending on whether or not you consider the semi-colon a sentence-ending mark of punctuation, the passage could be construed as having as few as two sentences. It certainly has no more than four. But any way you look at it, the writing is as carefully put together as what it describes:

When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection;

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices, or at last desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up, should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else

We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men:

Like one that draws the model of a house

Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,

Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds

And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.