4®8

VISION.

L e c t. figurative forms of Speech , which rhetoriciansXVII. have enumerated among the Beauties of Elo-quence. They are beautiful, or not, exadly inproportion as they are native expreffions ofthe fentiment or paffion intended to be heightened r

by them. Let nature and paffion always fpeaktheir own language, and they will fuggeft figuresin abundance. But when we feek to counterfeita warmth which we do not feel , no figureswill either fupply the defed , or conceal theirnpofture.

There is one Figure (and I ffiall mention nomore ) of frequent ufe among all public fpeakers,particularly at the bar, which Quindilian infillsupon conliderably , and calls Amplification. Itconftfts in an artful exaggeration of all thecircumftances of fome object or adion which S

we want to place in a flrong light, either agood or a bad one. It is not fo properly oneFigure , as the fkilful management of feveralwhich we make to tend to one point. It may becarried on by a proper ufe of magnifying orextenuating terms, by a regular enumeration ofparticulars, or by throwing together, as into onemafs, a crowd of circumftances; by fuggeftingcompanions alfo with things of a like nature.

But the principal inftrument by which it works,

is by a Climax, or a gradual rife of one circum- c

fiance above another, till our idea be railed to

the utmoft. I fpoke formerly of a Climax in

found; a Climax in fenfe', when well carried on,

is a figure which never fails to amplify ftrongly.