Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/30

24 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.

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.

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.

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 to