Closely associated with the part of our subject we have just treated of
is that excellence of writing which is called amplification, when a
writer or pleader, whose theme admits of many successive starting-points
and pauses, brings on one impressive point after another in a continuous
and ascending scale.
2
Now whether this is employed in the treatment of a commonplace, or in
the way of exaggeration, whether to place arguments or facts in a strong
light, or in the disposition of actions, or of passions--for
amplification takes a hundred different shapes--in all cases the orator
must be cautioned that none of these methods is complete without the aid
of sublimity,--unless, indeed, it be our object to excite pity, or to
depreciate an opponent's argument. In all other uses of amplification,
if you subtract the element of sublimity you will take as it were the
soul from the body. No sooner is the support of sublimity removed than
the whole becomes lifeless, nerveless, and dull.
3
There is a difference, however, between the rules I am now giving and
those just mentioned. Then I was speaking of the delineation and
co-ordination of the principal circumstances. My next task, therefore,
must be briefly to define this difference, and with it the general
distinction between amplification and sublimity. Our whole discourse
will thus gain in clearness.