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cause_n	body_n	part_n	soul_n	2,761	5	5.3627	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49887	Monsieur Bossu's treatise of the epick poem containing many curious reflexions, very useful and necessary for the right understanding and judging of the excellencies of Homer and Virgil / done into English from the French, with a new original preface upon the same subject, by W.J. ; to which are added, An essay upon satyr, by Monsieur D'Acier ; and A treatise upon pastorals, by Monsieur Fontanelle.; Traité du poème épique. English	Le Bossu, René, 1631-1680.; W. J.; Dacier, André, 1651-1722. Essay upon satyr.; Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757. Of pastorals.	1695 (1695)	Wing L804; ESTC R10431	296,769	336

Oh Jupiter What Shall this Stranger go off so c. But these Motions were very well prepar'd Dido entertains thoughts of her Death before Aeneas left her She spent her Night in nothing else but disquietude and such distracting thoughts as these her fears possess'd her with Soon as the Dawn began to clear the Sky Down to the Shore the sad Queen cast her Eye Where when she doth the empty port survey And now the Fleet with mings display'd at Sea Her hands held up her Golden tresses torn Must we says she of force indure this scorn Can we not have recourse to arms nor meet This fraud with fraud not burn this wicked Fleet Hast fly pursue row and let every hand Snatch up with speed some swift revenging brand Englished by Edm. Waller and Sidney Godolphin Esquires This is no surprize to the Hearers They are so well prepared for it that they would have wonder'd if the Beginning of this Speech had been less passionate The Practice of Seneca is quite contrary If he has any Recital to make which ought to imprint some great Passion or other he takes away from both his Personages and his Audience all the inclinations they might have towards it If they are possess'd with the Sorrow fear and expectation of some dreadful thing He will begin by some fine and elegant Description of some place or other which only serves to shew the Copiousness and the poignant bloomy Wit of a Poet without Judgment In the Troad Hecuba and Andromache were disposed to hear of the violent and barbarous death of their Son Astyanax whom the Grecians had thrown from the top of an high Tower It mightily concern'd them indeed to know that among the croud that flock'd from all parts to that sad sight Some there were who stood upon the ruins of the old decay'd Buildings others whose legs trembled under them because they were mounted a little too high c. People that have the patience to speak or hear such idle stuff are so little inclin'd to weep that they had need have notice as the mercenary Mourners of old had when 't is time to set up their Whine The Second thing we think necessary for the well managing the Passions and to make the Auditors sensible of them is to insert them in the Poem pure and disengag'd from every thing that may hinder them from producing their due Effect 'T is necessary then to avoid the vicious Multiplicity of Fables where there are too many Stories too many Fables too many Actions the Adventures too much divided and hard to be remembred and such Intrigues as one can't easily comprehend All this distracts the Mind and requires so much attention that there is nothing left for the Passions to work upon The Soul should be free and disengag'd to be the more sensible of them We destroy our true sorrows when we divert our thoughts another way And how contrary will these troublesome Applications be to the Fictions and Movement of Poems Of all the obstacles that destroy the Passions the Passions themselves are not the least They fight with and destroy one another And if a Man should mix together a Subject of Joy and a Subject of Sorrow he would make neither of them sink deep Horace informs us that no Poetical License will allow of this sort of mixture The very nature of these Habits impose this Law The Blood and Animal Spirits cannot move so smoothly on in their usual way at quiet if at the same time they are stop'd and retarded by some Violence such as Admiration causes Nor can they be in either of these two Motions whilst Fear contracts them from the external parts of the Body to make them rally about the Heart Or whilst Anger sends them into the Muscles and makes them act there with a Violence so contrary to the operations of Fear A Poet then should be acquainted with both the Causes and the Effects of the Passions in our Souls 'T is there we are more sensible of them and know them better than in the Blood and the Animal Spirits This Knowledge and the justness of his Genius will make him manage them with all the force and the effects they are capable of And here we will propose two Examples of that which we have said concerning the Simplicity and the Disengagement of each Passion The Admirable must needs be predominant in the Warlike Vertues of a Maid and this is the Passion Virgil makes use of in the Episode of Camilla And on the contrary he has made Pity to reign in that of Pallas This passion agrees very well with this young Prince who is one of the Heroe's Party But the Poet does not mix these two Passions together He only shows in Pallas all that ordinary Courage that a young Man is capable of He fights Turnus but did not go out to attack him He does not so much as wound him nor put him in the least danger he only attends his coming and speaks to him more like one that fear'd not death than one who expected to kill him He is kill'd at the first blow and there is nothing extraordinary in it But there is something more than ordinary in the Lamentation which Aeneas and the unhappy Evander made upon his Death Camilla on the contrary made her self admir'd by a Valour becoming a Hero but she dies without being pitied That which Diana says upon the Subject deserves not the name of a Lamentation in comparison to that which Aeneas and Evander made for Pallas Besides the Speech of Diana is said before her Death and is not in a place where it might have any great effect In short Camilla is kill'd she is reveng'd and nothing more said about it How many Poets are there that would have bestow'd a Lover or two upon her and endeavour'd to make an Episode as moving as that of Clorinda and Tancred This Beauty did not escape Virgil's view He says that several Italian Dames courted her for their Sons This Reflection shews us that his thoughts were upon every thing and that it was not without choice and judgment that he omitted that which would have appear'd so beautiful to other Poets But he was not willing to spoil the Vnity of the Passion nor put a stop to its effects CHAP. X. How the Narration ought to be Active THE Epick Narration ought to be Active This Qualification is so necessary to it that Aristotle's Expression herein seems to confound the Epopéa with the Tragedy 'T is by this he begins to lay down Rules for this first sort of Poem 'T is requisite says he that the Epick Fables be Dramatick like those that are in Tragedy Now that which makes Tragedy Dramatick and upon the account of which it has the Name which signifies to Act is that the Poet never speaks in it and that every thing is represented by the Personages that are introduc'd and who alone Act

the Vnity of the Epick Action CHAP. IX Of the Integrity of the Action ARistotle not only says that the Epick Action should be One but he adds that it should be Entire Perfect and Compleat And for this purpose it must have a Beginning a Middle and an End Herein these Actions differ from those of Aesop's Fables for there is no necessity that these last should be Entire and Compleat Witness the Fable of the meager hunger-starved Fox who convey'd himself thro a very small hole into a Granary full of Corn. When he had cram'd his Guts he was for marching the same way out again but he found himself too Corpulent A Weezel at a distance seeing him in such a quandary tells him he came empty in and must go as empty out Now there 's no necessity of finishing this Action Reynard is very regularly left in this place without telling what happened to him afterwards and without troubling ones head whether he was kill'd upon the spot or pinched his Guts to save his Carcass or whether he escaped at some other Hole This Action then is not a Whole because it has only a Beginning and Middle but not an End These three parts of a Whole are too Generally and Universally denoted by the Words Beginning Middle and End We may interpret them more precisely and say That the Causes and Designs which one takes for doing an Action are the Beginning of this Action That the Effects of these Causes and the Difficulties that are met with in the Execution of these Designs are the Middle of it and that the Unraveling and Resolution of these Difficulties are the End of the Action This End and this Unravelling may happen after different ways and so form several sorts of Actions For sometimes the Action ends by the discovery of some person who was unknown before as in the Tragedy of Oedipus This Prince thought himself the Son of Polybus and Meropa King and Queen of Corinth And he discovers himself to be a Theban the Son of Laius and Jocasta Sometimes without any Discovery there is a great change of Fortune in some person or other who thinking himself happy all on a sudden falls into a Misery he never dream'd of or else on the contrary becomes from a miserable a very happy person beyond all Expectation The first of these was Agamemnon's Case after the Ruine of Troy who thinking himself in quiet Possession of his acquired Glory was miserably butchered by his Wife These Changes or Alterations from one kind of Fortune to the Contrary are called by a Greek Name Peripetias Sometimes likewise there is neither a Discovery nor a Peripetia but the Action ceases and passes if I may so say from Motion to Rest after a simple Manner without any Incident but such as might be expected in the Ordinary course of Affairs Thus in the Troad of Seneca Hecuba and the Trojans appear at first as in Captivity and under a long series of Afflictions which made them complain with their Tongues and despair in their Hearts The Ghost of Achilles requires Polixena should be Sacrificed to him and before they part Calchas would make them kill Astyanax too Both are put in Execution and so the Tragedy ends These different ways make two sorts of Action or Fable The One Simple the Other Complex The Simple Actions are such as End without a Discovery and a Peripetia The Complex have either a Discovery or a Perpetia or Both. The Integrity of the Action comprehends all these things Let us now take a particular View of them CHAP. X. That the Action ought to be a Whole THis Proposition seems contrary to what Aristotle teaches us when he says That the War of Troy is a just and perfect Whole That Homer has taken but a part of it That therein he was very Judicious and that those who instead of Imitating him have taken this Whole for the Subject of their Poems have taken too much Matter and have been very indifferent Artists Does he pretend by this Doctrine and by these Instances to overthrow what we have cited out of that very treatise of Poetry Would he teach us that the Subject and Matter of a Poem ought not to be a Whole and an Entire and Compleat Action but only a part of an Action Sure 't is not likely he should contradict himself thus We may reconcile this that appears so contradictory in the Terms by making this Reflection That one and the same Action may be consider'd as in the Fable where the Poet makes use of it or else as in the History whence he took it When the Poet is upon the search after Matter for his Fable he lights upon several sorts of Actions Some have several parts which may be regularly connected in one Body and then he may take one of these Actions entire as it is But there are others whose parts are so independent to one another that a Man cannot with any probability joyn them together so as they shall seem to be the Causes and the Consequences of each other And this is what Aristotle condemns under the Name of Many-limb'd Fables To which he opposes those which have but one only part He does not absolutely forbid the Multiplicity of Parts but he commonly takes such sorts of Words in the worst Sense which might of themselves be understood in a more favourable one Thus we observ'd that he condemned the vicious Plurality of Fables and Episodes under the Terms of Polymythia and Episodical altho' a Man may lawfully put several Fables into a Poem and there is none but has several Episodes in it Therefore 't is in this Sence that he condemns the Plurality of the Parts in an Epick Action We are not to suppose that he condemns it absolutely and that this Action made use of cannot be a Whole He explains his own meaning sufficiently in the following Words As says he in other Imitations that which a Man Imitates is one single thing So likewise The Fable being the Imitation of an Action 't is requisite that this Action be One Entire and a Whole and that the parts be so joyn'd to and dependent on each other that one cannot so much as remove any one out of its Place either to transpose or retrench it quite without making a Change in the whole For whatever can be so placed or omitted that one cannot perceive the Alteration can by no means be a part of the Action So then 't is only the Plurality of parts in this last Sence which Aristotle condemns And he has commended Homer for having taken only a Part of all that passed in the Trojan War But yet we are to take special notice that this Retrenchment of all the other parts does not hinder the Anger of Achilles which is only retain'd from being a Whole in the Poem 'T is only a Part with respect to the whole War and in the History whence Homer took it But 't

Homer and Virgil. This Objection is duly stated and fully answer'd by Mr. Dryden in his Dedication before the Translation of Juvenal There he tells us That our Religion does indeed debar the Poet from making use of Jupiter Juno Minerva Venus or any others of the Heathen Deities But that this is made up to the Poet another way that 't is not contrary to Christianity to believe that there are good and bad Spirits which have some sort of influence over humane Affairs And that the Poet may form as just Machines out of these as the Ancients did out of their Divinities This is what Blackmore has done even to Admiration and his Practice and Conduct has put it beyond all dispute that we may very safely and regularly make use of Machines provided they are such as are suited to the Notions and Religion of our times These are the principal Objections I thought fit to mention which are not such solid Reasons as some may imagine I shall now according to my promise propose some others which I think to be more substantial but withal I must reserve to my self my first Caution namely that I design to dictate nothing herein but to lay down my Thoughts as plainly and as clearly as possible and to refer all to the Verdict of better Judgments First then I say that one great Reason of that genetal Disesteem which Epick Poetry lies under and of its declining state among the Moderns seems to be the Degeneracy of the present Age. We are fall'n at last into such unhappy times wherein Men are as averse to the Precepts of Morality which the Epick Poet writes as they are to the Lessons of Divinity which the Preacher every Day inculcates We do indeed read Homer and Virgil but then 't is not with a design like the Bee to suck the Honey out of them but in imitation of more sordid Creatures to extract all the Venom we can in order to corrupt our Manners and give a Gust to our Debaucheries We are glad to find any passage in them that may seem to favour our Licentiousness and even those that are design'd to be our Physick we like Men of a Sick Stomach turn all into rank Poyson Now no wonder if when our Palates are thus vitiated we have no Relish for the wholesome Instructions of Epick Poetry Poets then to please the Humour of the Age are forced to write in their way especially such of them as have not Souls great enough to stem the Torrent of so universal a Vice Hence it comes to pass that we have so many vile Plays Acted on the Stage wherein Vice is set off with all the Lustre and recommended with all the Endearments that a corrupted Poet's Wit can invent or the most loose Debauché could have desir'd Thus both Poets and Audience by an unheard of Complaisance contribute to the Ruine and Corruption of each others Manners Another great Reason of the declining State of Epick Poetry and of the Degeneracy of all other sorts of Poetry is the want of due Encouragement This is the true Ground of all our Grievances and till this be provided against 't is to be fear'd nothing that is Great Noble Vertuous and truly Good will ever be produc'd by our Modern Poets Athens and Rome made their Poets the Pensioners of their State and maintain'd them honourably out of the Publick Treasury Hence it was they never ventur'd at least not in the most Primitive times of Poetry to write any thing which might reflect upon the Government they liv'd under or upon the Gods they Worship'd But now with us the Poet meets with no Encouragement and only One Lawreat is maintain'd at the publick Charge Upon this account it is that Men of Large Souls who cannot condescend to humour the Vulgar in their Licentiousness turn the bent of their Studies another way and fly Parnassus as they would the most dangerous Contagion Others of a more pliable Temper take up with the Stage and that they may receive some Profit themselves study not to profit so much as they do to please their Audience and that in their lewd way too But is it not a burning shame that such a Noble Genius as Dryden and others that seem to be made for greater designs should be forc'd to a fatal Dilemma either to truckle to a Playhouse for the uncertain Profit of a third Day or to starve for want of other reasonable Encouragement But 't is hop'd on all hands that under the Reign of one that may truly be term'd another Augustus and under the Patronage of one that may as justly be stil'd a Second Mecoenas Poetry will regain its ancient Privileges and Epick Poets receive that publick and due Encouragement they really deserve The third and last Reason I shall mention for the declining State of Epick Poetry among the Moderns is their notorious neglect of following the Rules which Aristotle and Horace have prescrib'd This and not want of Genius has been the true Cause why several of our English Epick Poets have succeeded so ill in their Designs Rymer urges this very strongly against Spencer himself whom at the same time he acknowledges to have had a large Soul a sharp Judgment and a Genius for Heroick Poesie perhaps above any that ever writ since Virgil. For no question but his following an unfaithful Guide his Rambling after Marvellous Adventures his making no conscience of Probability and almost all his other faults proceeded from one and the same Cause namely his neglect of following the Rules of Poetry The same may be said of Sir William D' Avenant and Mr. Cowley For all the Defects Rymer charges them with are wholly owing to the same Cause 'T is likewise upon this very account that the Pieces of our Dramatick Poets which are reckon'd to be the best performances of the present Age can scarce any of them stand the Test of a Judicious Eye And a Man of sense that knows the Art of Poetry and has read the Performances of former Ages cannot but pity the conceited Ignorance and perverse Pride of our Modern Poets who scorn to be confin'd to the Rules of Art They have been told of this often and often but they think their own Wit is the best Judge in the Case and as long as 't is so there is no hopes of any Amendment or of any great Productions in Poetry I know they bring several Objections against Writing according to the Rules but they are so trifling that I think it not worth while to examine them here Besides all their Objections at least the weightiest of them have been stated examin'd and refuted in the Preface before the last Translation of Terence ' s Comedies so that I am sufficiently excus'd from that needless Task I shall shut up all that has been said on Epick Poetry with giving you the Thoughts of a very eminent Person of Quality of this present Age and Nation who seems to have comprehended all that has

Love the Ambition and the Valour of Turnus This last supply'd him with a great many Episodes being the Cause of all the War Aeneas met with in Italy It begins at the seventh Book and is not over till the End of the Poem 'T is thus that the Episodes of the Aeneid are deduc'd from the Fable and the very Essence of the Action The second Thing we said was necessary for the Vnity of the Action is the Unity and the Connexion of the Episodes with one another For besides that Relation and Proportion which all the Members ought to have with one another so as to constitute but one Body which should be homogeneous in all its parts 't is requir'd farther that these Members should be not contiguous as if they were cut off and clap'd together again but uninterrupted and duly connected Without this the natural Members would not make up that Union which is necessary to constitute a Body The Continuity and Situation of Episodes is not exact when they only follow one another but they should be plac'd one after another so as the first shall either be necessarily or probably the Cause of that which follows Aristotle finds fault with Incidents that are without any Consequence or Connexion and he says that the Poems wherein such sorts of Episodes are offend against the Vnity of Action He brings as an Instance of this Defect the Wound which Vlysses receiv'd upon Parnassus and the Folly he counterfeited before the Grecian Princes because one of these Incidents could not have happen'd as a Consequence of the other Homer could not have given them a necessary Connexion and Continuity nor has he spoil'd the Vnity of the Odysseïs by such a Mixture But he gives us a compleat Instance of the Continuity we speak of in the Method whereby he has connected the two parts of his Iliad which are the Anger of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Anger of the same Hero against Hector The Poet would not have duly connected these two Episodes if before the Death of Patroclus Achilles had been less inexorable and had accepted of the Satisfaction Agamemnon offer'd him This would have made two Anger 's and two Revenges quite different from and independent of one another And though both had been necessary and essential to the Fable to make it appear what Mischiefs Discord and what Advantages Concord is the Cause of Yet the Vnity would have been only in the Fable but the Action would have been double and Episodical because the first Episode would not have been the Cause of the second nor the second a Consequence of the first These two parts of the Ilaid are joyn'd together very regularly If Achilles had never fell out with Agamemnon he would have fought in person and not have expos'd his Friend singly against Hector under those Arms that were the cause of this Young man's Rashness and Death And besides the better to joyn these two parts with one another the second is begun a great while before one sees what Event the first ought to have All the Articles of the Reconciliation are propos'd and one might say that this Reconciliation with respect to Agamemnon is made before the Death of Patroclus and even before it was ever thought of exposing him to a Battel There was nothing more wanting but Achilles's Consent and since that was not given till the Death of Patroclus had made him resolve upon that of Hector it may be truly affirmed that the Anger and the Revenge of Achilles against Hector which is nothing else but the second part of the Poem is the only cause of the Reconciliation which finish'd the first part But for the Vnity of a Body it is not enough that all its Members be natural and duly united and compacted together 't is farther requisite that each Member should be no more than a Member an imperfect Part and not a finish'd compleat Body This is the third Qualification we said was necessary to preserve the Vnity of the Epick Action For the better understanding of this Doctrine we must take notice that an Action may be entire and compleat two ways The first is by perfectly compleating it and making it absolutely entire with respect to the principal Persons that are interested therein and in the principal Circumstances which are employ'd about it The second way is by compleating it only with respect to some Persons and in some Circumstances that are less principal This second way preserves the Action in its regular Vnity the other destroys it We will give you an Instance of each The Greeks were assembled together to revenge the Affront offer'd to Menelaus and to force the Trojans to restore him his Wife whom Paris had stollen away There happens a Difference between Agamemnon and Achilles This last being highly incens'd abandons the Common Cause and withdraws himself so that in his Absence Agamemnon's Army was worsted by the Trojans But the Boldness of the King of Kings puts him upon engaging the Enemy without Achilles Away he marches to give them a general Assault with all his Forces The Fight began with the Duel between Menelaus and Paris They sight without Seconds upon Condition that Helen should be the Conquerour's and the War decided by this Combat Tho' the Anger of Achilles was the Cause of this Combat and whatever Interest he might have therein yet 't is plain that Menelaus Paris and Helen are so far the principal Personages concern'd that if this Action had been finished with respect to them it would have been quite finish'd it would not have made a part of the Action and of the Revenge of Achilles but a compleat Action which would have put an End to the Revenge and render'd the Anger of this Hero ineffectual Therefore Homer has not finish'd this Action Paris being hard put to it escapes and Menelaus is wounded with a Dart by Pandarus by this means Achilles begins to be reveng'd and this Incident becomes an exact Episode Virgil has manag'd the Episode of Dido another way He has finish'd it so that the Vnion of his main Action is as Regular as the Art of Poetry requires The Address of this great Poet consists in ordering it so that Dido in whom this Incident is compleat was not the chief Personage and her Marriage was only a simple Circumstance of an Action that is not finish'd and yet is the Soul and the only Foundation of this particular Action in a word Aeneas is the Hero of this Episode which is only invented to retard the Settlement of this Hero in Italy This is manifest if we would but reflect on what the Skill and Care of the Poet has left us about it Juno who carried on all this Intrigue was very little concern'd for Dido's Happiness If she had lov'd her so well she should have diverted the Trojan Fleet from her Coasts upon which place she her self did cast them which was the only Cause of this Queens Miseries

morrow he begins a Ship and in twenty Days finishes it the twenty fifth he sets Sail and after a Voyage of twenty Days is cast upon the Island of Corfu There he tarries three Days with Alcinous All this makes one and fifty Days from the first opening of the Poem to the Arrival of Vlysses in his own Country Eight and twenty of them he spent with Calypso reckoning the four that preceded the building of his Ship three and twenty Days more he is upon his Journey part of which he spent at Sea and part with Alcinous A night after he arrives in Ithaca Four Days he remains incognito at Eumeus's Country House On the fifth he went to his own Palace where he was in disguise two Days taking an account of what had happen'd and squaring his Actions accordingly The next night he kills his Rivals and on the morrow makes an end of discovering himself and re-adjusting all his Affairs Therefore adding these seven Days to the one and fifty before the Duration of the Narration in this Poem amounts to eight and fifty Days As for the Seasons of the Year the Poet gives us an occasion to guess something about it In the Iliad where there is more Action and Violence the Days are longer than the Nights and the Season very hot And on the contrary Homer has assign'd longer and cooler Nights to the Prudence of Vlysses placing the Maturity of Autumn in the Odysseis as he has the Contagious heats of the Summer in the Iliad The Practice of Homer then is without doubt to reduce the Duration of the Epick Narration into the Compass of a Campaign of a few Months But the Difficulty of knowing the design and intention of Virgil is the reason why 't is question'd whether one might not advance it to the Compass of a whole Year or more and whether the Winter season ought in reason to be excluded thence I found my self insensibly ingag'd in the Examen of this particular question I found it a great deal larger than I imagin'd and I have discours'd very amply upon it from whence several things may be deduc'd that in my mind are of no small use for the understanding of the Aeneid I here propose this Question about the time by way of Problem and freely leave others to determine and judge what they please But yet I say that in this Uncertainty two Reasons rather incline me to a single Campaign than a whole Year The first is the Practice of Homer which the Latin Poet commonly proposes as his Exemplar and who by wise men has been esteemed the most excellent Model for Poets to imitate This Reason makes so much the more for me in this Treatise of the Epick Poem because 't is founded upon that Relation that is observable between the Practice of Virgil and that of Homer the Rules of Horace and those of Aristotle The other Reason is still more to my purpose and that is that this reducing of it to one single Campaign is more conformable to that Idea I have proposed concerning the Fable and the Design of Virgil in this Poem We have already considered Aeneas as a Legislator and Founder of the Romans Religion He is so exact in observing all the Ceremonies which were performed for the Dead that there is not the least colour he should omit one so considerable as is that of Mourning especially for the Death of his Father for which he spares no cost This high Veneration he has for him makes one of the principal Qualities of his Character and almost throughout the whole regulates the general Character of the Poem Now the Mourning of the Romans consisted in two things the one is its Duration which lasted ten Months the other is that the Romans in this ominous and inauspicious time never undertook any thing of consequence How then could Aeneas dare to undertake his Settlement in Italy which was then a business of the highest Consequence to him So then he was oblig'd to stay in Sicily full ten Months after the Death of his Father and having stay'd less than two Months at Carthage he returned to Sicily to celebrate the Anniversary of his Death on the same day he arriv'd there This agrees very well with the Expressions of the Poet which we have already cited For the Anniversary happens at the end of the seventh Summer a little more than a Month after the Solstice and rising of Orion Aeneas then leaving Sicily in Summer during the Rising of this Constellation which rais'd the Tempest in the first Book he could not leave it the same Summer Anchises died but must needs have left Sicily the Summer following which is the seventh as the Poet says and the same in which he returns to the Anniversary By this means he must needs have pass'd the Autumn the Winter and the Spring in Sicily and have tarried there more than nine Months before his parting for Carthage but he went out and came back again to it the same Summer In the other Opinions I neither find the Conformity of Virgil with Homer nor the Observation of the Roman Mourning to which I really think Aeneas was oblig'd as much as he was to the other Ceremonies in which he was so punctual But these Reasons which make for me may not perhaps make for others I only propose them as I was oblig'd 'T is for Philosophers and Criticks to examine things to propose Reasons and to make them intelligible and 't is for the Reader to draw his Inferences Monsieur Bossu's Treatise OF THE EPICK POEM BOOK IV. Concerning the Manners of the Epick Poem CHAP. I. Concerning the Manners in General UNder the name of Manners we comprehend all the natural or acquired inclinations which carry us on to good bad or indifferent actions This Definition contains three things The first is the Manners themselves which we call Inclinations whether they have their source and origin in our Souls such as the Love of Sciences and Vertue or whether they proceed from the constitution of the Body as Anger and the Rest which we have in common with the Brutes The second thing is the cause of those Manners which is either Nature or our Choice and Industry according as they are either natural or acquir'd The third thing is the effect of the Manners namely Actions whether good as that of Aeneas or bad as that of Achilles or indifferent as that of Vlysses Those Manners are good which incline us to Vertue and Vertuous Actions those Bad which incline us to Vice and Sin and those are Indifferent which incline us to indifferent Qualities and Actions A right distinction should be made between Real Vertues and those that appear such and are only mere Qualities The Real Vertues such as Piety Prudence and the like make those who are Masters of them Good Praise-worthy and Honest-men But Real Vices such as Impiety Injustice Fraud and the like corrupt and vitiate those who are tainted with them