[52]
For, if we have spoken well in the rest
of our speech, we shall now have the judges on our
side, and shall be in a position, now that we have
emerged from the reefs and shoals, to spread all our
canvas, while since the chief task of the peroration
consists of amplification, we may legitimately make
free use of words and reflexions that are magnificent
and ornate. It is at the close of our drama that we
must really stir the theatre, when we have reached
the place for the phrase with which the old tragedies
and comedies used to end, “Friends, give us your
applause.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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