SECTION XI.

THERE is another virtue bearing great affinity to the former, which they call Amplification; whenever (the topics, on which we write or debate, admitting of several beginnings, and feveral paufes in the periods) the great incidents, heaped one upon another, afcend by a continued gradation to a summit of grandeur (1). Now this Now this may be done to

enoble

(1) Lucan has put a very grand Amplification in the mouth of Cato:

Eftne dei fedes, nifi terra, & pontus, & aer,

Et cœlum, & virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra ? Jupiter eft, quodcunque vides, quocunque movebis. There is a very beautiful one in archbishop Tillotson's 12th fermon.

"'Tis pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is "to excel many others: 'Tis pleasant to grow better, be"cause that is to excel ourselves: Nay, 'tis pleasant even to "mortify and fubdue our lufts, because that is victory: 'Tis "pleasant to command our appetites and paffions, and to "keep them in due order, within the bounds of reafon and "religion, because this is empire."

But no author amplifies in so noble a manner as St. Paul. He rifes gradually from Earth to Heaven, from mortal Man to God himself. "For all things are yours, whether Paul, "or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or "things prefent, or things to come: all are yours; and ye "are Christ's, and Chrift is God's." See alfo Rom. viii. 29, 30. and 38, 39.

I Cor. iii. 21, 22.

enoble what is familiar, to aggravate what is wrong, to increase the ftrength of arguments, to fet actions in their true light, or skilfully to manage a paffion, and a thousand ways befides. But the orator must never forget this maxim, that in things however amplified, there cannot be perfection, without a fentiment which is truly fublime, unless when we are to move compaffion, or to make things appear as vile and contemptible. But in all other methods of Amplification, if you take away the fublime meaning, you feparate as it were the foul from the body. For no fooner are they deprived of this neceffary support, but they grow dull and languid, lose all their vigour and nerves.

What I have faid now differs from what went immediately before. My defign was then to fhew, how much a judicious choice and an artful connexion of proper incidents heighten a subject. But in what manner this fort of Sublimity differs from Amplification, will foon appear, by exactly defining the true notion of the latter.

SEC

SECTION XII.

I CAN by no means approve of the definition, which writers of rhetoric give. of Amplification. Amplification (fay they) is a form of words aggrandizing the fubject. Now this definition may equally ferve for the Sublime, the Pathetic, and the application of tropes, for thefe alfo inveft difcourfe with peculiar airs of grandeur. In my opinion, they differ in these refpects: Sublimity confists in loftiness, but Amplification in number; whence the former is often vifible in one fingle. thought; the other cannot be difcerned, but in a feries and chain of thoughts rifing one upon another.

"Amplification therefore (to give an exact. idea of it) is fuch a full and complete "connexion of all the particular circum"ftances inherent in the things themselves, as gives them additional strength, by dwelling fome time upon, and progreffively heightning a particular point.' from Proof in a material article, end of a Proof is to establish the debate *

It differs

fince the

matter in

[The remainder of the author's remarks on Amplification is loft. What comes next is imperfect, but it is evident from what follows, that Longinus is drawing a parallel between Plato and Demofthenes.] *

(Plato) may be compared to the ocean, whose waters, when hurried on by the tide, overflow their ordinary bounds, and are diffufed into a vast extent. And in my opinion this is the cause, that the orator (Demofthenes) ftriking with more powerful might at the paffions, is inflamed with fervent vehemence, and paffionate ardour; whilft Plato always grave, fedate, and majeftic, tho' he never was cold or flat, yet fell vaftly fhort of the impetuous thundering of the other.

And it is in the fame points, my dear Terentianus, that Cicero and Demofthenes (if we Grecians may be admitted to speak our opinions) differ in the Sublime. The one is at the fame time grand and concife, the other grand and diffufive. Our Demofthenes, uttering every fentence with fuch force, precipitation, strength, and vehemence, that it feems to be all fire, and bears down every thing before it, may justly be resembled to a thunderbolt or

an

(1) To leave this digreffion.] Thefe words refer to what

Lon

an hurricane. But Cicero, like a wide conflagration, devours and fpreads on all fides; his flames are numerous, and their heat is lafting; they break out at different times in different quarters, and are nourished up to a raging violence by fucceffive additions of proper fuel. I must not however pretend to judge in this cafe fo well as you. But the true feafon of applying fo forcible and intense a Sublime, as that of Demofthenes, is, in the ftrong efforts of discourse, in vehement attacks upon the paffions, and whenever the audience are to be' ftruck at once, and thrown into confternation. And recourse must be had to fuch diffufive" eloquence, as that of Cicero, when they are to be footh'd and brought over by gentle and foft infinuation. Befides, this diffufe kind of eloquence is most proper for all familiar topics, for perorations, digreffions, for eafy narrations or pompous amusements, for history, for short accounts of the operations of nature, and many other forts.

SECTION XIII.

(1) TO leave this digreffion. Tho' Plato's ftile particularly excels in fmoothness, and an

eafy

Longinus had faid of Plato in that part of the preceding fec

H 2

tion,