The poet I last mentioned is incomparable in this figure.
A waving sea of heads was round me spread,
And still fresh streams the gazing deluge fed[1].
Here is a waving sea of heads, which by a fresh stream of heads grows to be a gazing deluge of heads. You come at last to find, it means a great crowd.
How pretty and how genteel is the following!
Nature's confectioner
Whose suckets are moist alchymy:
The still of his refining mould
Minting the garden into gold[2].
What is this but a bee gathering honey?
Little Syren of the stage,
Empty warbler, breathing lyre,
Wanton gale of fond desire,
Tuneful mischief, vocal spell[3].
Who would think, this was only a poor gentlewoman, that sung finely?
We may define amplification to be making the most of a thought: it is the spinning-wheel of the bathos, which draws out and spreads it into the finest thread. There are amplifiers, who can extend half a dozen thin thoughts over a whole folio; but for which, the tale of many a vast romance, and the substance of many a fair volume, might be reduced to the size of a primer.
In the book of Job are these words, "Hast thou commanded the morning, and caused the day-spring
