Hero It seems as if he alone were more properly the Subject-matter of the Poem than all the rest Homer names Achilles particularly and adds Agamemnon to him as we hinted in the former Chapter Vlysses and Aeneas are not nam'd but only implied and that in such general terms that we should not know them had we not Information otherways that they are the Persons For what does the Proposition of the Odysseïs say concerning the Return of Ulysses from the Ruin of Troy but what might be in the Proposition of a Poem that treated of the Return of Diomedes This Practice might have perhaps some Respect to the primary Invention of the Poet who ought at first to feign his Action without Names and relates not the Action of Alcibiades as Aristotle says nor consequently the Actions of Achilles Vlysses Aeneas or any other in particular but of an Universal General and Allegorical person But since Homer has done otherwise in his Iliad and has mention'd Achilles by his own name and that of his Father too one cannot condemn the practice of naming the Persons in the Proposition Besides the Character which the Poet would give his Hero and all his Work is taken notice of likewise by Homer and Virgil. All the Iliad is nothing else but Heat and Passion and that is the Character of Achilles and the first thing the Poet begins with The Odysseïs in the first Verse presents us with the Prudence Dissimulation and Artifice that Vlysses made use of to so many different Persons And in the Beginning of the Latin Poem we see the Meekness and Piety of Aeneas These Characters are kept up by another such like Quality namely that of a Warriour The Proposition of the Iliad says that the Anger of Achilles cost a great many Heroes their lives That of the Odysseïs represents Vlysses as Victor of Troy from the Destruction of which he came And that of the Aeneid begins with Arms I have already observed that Horace speaks of Wars and Generals in the Subject Matter of the Epopéa As for the way of making the Proposition Horace only prescribes Modesty and Simplicity He would not have us promise too much nor raise in the Reader 's Mind too large Ideas of what we are going to Relate His words are these Begin not as th' old Poetaster did Troy's famous War and Priam ' s Fate I sing In what will all this Ostentation end The Mountains labour and a Mouse is born How far is this from the Maeonian Stile Muse speak the Man who since the Siege of Troy So many Towns such change of Manners Saw One with a flash begins and ends in smoke The other out of Smoak brings glorious light And without raising expectation high Surprizes us with Dazling Miracles The bloody Lestrygons in humane Feasts With all the Monsters of the Land and Sea How Scylla bark'd and Polyphemus roar'd Horace's Art of Poetry english'd by Roscommon And in truth what can be more Simple and Modest than the Proposition of the Odysseïs which does not promise us any great Action of this Hero but only the dangers and the continual Fatigues of his Voyages and the loss of his miserable Companions We shall find the very same Simplicity and Modesty in the Proposition of the Aeneid The Poet does not say his Hero had done much but only that he had suffered much Thô he speaks of Alba and the Roman Empire yet he proposes neither as parts of his Matter but as Consequences which other Heroes had brought to Perfection a great while after So Homer in his Odysseïs has spoken of the destruction of Troy but withal as an Action already done and which his Readers were not to expect would be rehears'd in the sequel of the Poem The Proposition of the Iliad is something more lofty in that it mentions the Deaths of so many Heroes But this is so far the Matter of this Poem that it seems as if it could not have been wholly omitted And besides Art might oblige the Poet to make some kind of Conformity between the Character of the Proposition and that of the whole Poem which is nothing else but a long series of Heat and Violence But to conclude the Poet acquitted himself of these Obligations with so much Simplicity and Modesty that one cannot charge upon him the Transgressing of Horace's Rule For he does not say that these Heroe's Deaths were the Effect of his Heroe's Valour and Courage He only says that he sings the Anger of Achilles which had brought so many disasters upon the Greeks and had been the Cause of the Death of so many Homes who were exposed as a Prey to Birds and Beasts Certainly if there is any thing of Grandeur here 't is not so much in any Glory or Splendor as in that Trouble and smoke which will scarce let us see it Beside this sort of Bombast which things proposed with too much glazing produce or which arises from the Dignity of the Personages that at the very first are praised unseasonably and set off with too great Ideas there is yet another that respects the Person of the Poet. He should speak as Modestly of himself as of his Hero or his Subject Virgil in plain terms says that he sings the Action of Aeneas Homer begs his Muse to inspire the Action into him or to sing it for him this was all Claudian has not followed these Exemplars He says his Song shall be full of Boldness That the Poetical Fury and the whole Divinity of Apollo had so swell'd his Mind and possess'd his Senses that they had not left any thing Human about him That the rest of mankind were profane whose conversation he could no longer endure With a great deal of such like stuff These Raptures well manag'd would look well enough in an Ode a Pastoral or some such Piece that is short enough to preserve them to the last and where we may suppose them to have been uttered all in a Breath But a Poem so long as an Epopéa admits not these Rhapsodical Propositions from a Poet that is well in his Wits This is Horace's Doctrine who would have the Proposition of the Epick Poem be simple and Modest and yet he sticks not in one of his Odes to do what Claudian does in the Proposition we cited This Poem of Claudian that begins so ill justifies the Rule which Horace has drawn from the Practice of Homer One may even there observe that those who are so daring in what they propose are so more out of Lightness and Vanity than out of any knowledge of their Abilities and Art and that commonly they are the least able to keep up to it Claudian was not able to carry the Terrors which he proposed as the Subject of his Poem any farther than the middle of his first Book And that Internal Darkness which should have eclipsed the light of the Sun could not take off from the lustre of the
Misfortunes of Kings And the Moral instruction that was most in Vogue at that time was such a one as did beget in Men an Aversion to Monarchy and a love to Democracy which they call'd liberty What the Poets feign'd of Oedipus contain'd all these things and was very proper to prevent the Grandees from Aspiring to Tyranny and to inspire others with a Resolution never to endure it This Fable being thus conceiv'd has very naturally these five parts The first comprehends the Misfortunes of the People The second is the Enquiry into the Cause and the Remedy of these Misfortunes The third is the Discovery thereof The fourth is the Effect of this Discovery and the performance of what the Gods requir'd namely the punishing those Crimes that had been the Cause of the Ills which the People suffer'd And the fifth is the Cure and Joy that ought to be the Consequence of the Repentance and Punishment of Oedipus But this last part was very improper for the Theatre The Calm and Languishing Passions of which the spectators upon this occasion were hardly capable would have enervated and spoil'd the Beauty of those violent Passions so proper to Tragedy and with which the Audience were to be inspir'd The Poet then was not to make an exact Episode of this last part On the other hand he has divided the second part into two and has supply'd his five Acts in the following Method 1. The Plague rag'd in the City of Thebes and brought so many Miseries and dreadful Deaths upon them that King Oedipus touch'd with the Misfortune of his Subjects would freely have left the Kingdom But he hopes for some Relief from the Oracle he has sent to consult and attends its Answer 2. Creon brings him the Answer and informs him That the Cause of the Thebans Misfortunes is the Murder committed upon the person of his Predecessor King Laïus And that the Remedy is the punishing of the Murderer Oedipus sets himself upon his duty of punishing the Offence And to discover who this Murderer was whom no body as yet knew he orders Tiresias to be sent for This Priest began by a Sacrifice but that made no discovery of the thing in question 3. He then had recourse to more powerful means He calls up from the shades below the Ghost of Laïus who discovers to him that King Oedipus is the Assassin that ought to be punished and moreover that this Prince who thought himself innocent was at the same time guilty of Incest and Parricide But Oedipus inform'd of this only by Creon and supposing he was born at Corinth Son to King Polybus and Queen Meropa is very confident of his own Innocence and gives no Credit to the Report Creon made him He is perswaded 't is a Falshood invented to out him of the Kingdom to which Creon was next Heir 4. But at last he understands that he did kill Laïus and was his Son and Jocasta's whom he had ignorantly married 5. He punishes himself severely plucks out his own eyes goes into Exile and so restores Health and Quietness to his People CHAP. IV. Of the several sorts of Episodes and what is meant by this Term. THE Word Episode passing from the Theatre to the Epopéa did not change its Nature all the Difference Aristotle makes between them is that the Episodes of Tragedy are shortest and the Episodes in these great Poems are by much the longest So slight a Difference should be no hinderance to our speaking of both after the same manner This Word according to Aristotle is capable of three distinct Meanings The first arises from that Enumeration of all the parts of Tragedy which we mention'd For if there are only four parts viz. The Prologue the Chorus the Episode and the Epilogue it follows that the Episode in Tragedy is whatever does not make up the other three and that if you substract those three the Episode necessarily comprehends all that remains And since in our times they make Tragedies without either Chorus Prologue or Epilogue this Term Episode signifies all the Tragedy which is made now-a-days So likewise the Epick Episode will be the whole Poem There is nothing to be substracted thence but the Proposition and the Invocation which are instead of the Prologue In this sense the Epopéa and Tragedy have each of them but one single Episode or rather are nothing else but an Episode and if the Parts and Incidents of which the Poet composes his Work have an ill Connexion together then the Poem will be Episodical and defective as we hinted before But as all that was sung in Tragedy was according to Aristotle's Expression call'd the Chorus in the Singular Number and yet its being in the Singular was no reason why each part when it was divided into several should not be call'd the Chorus too and so several Chorus's be introduc'd just so in the Episode each Incident and each part of the Fable and the Action is not only stil'd a part of the Episode but even an Entire Episode 'T is in this sense that Aristotle said the Madness of Orestes and his Cure by Expiatory Sacrifices were two Episodes This Term taken in this sense signifies each part of the Action exprest in the Model and first Constitution of the Fable such as the Absence and Travels of Vlysses the Disturbance of his Family and his Presence which re-adjusted all things Aristotle tells us of a third sort of Episodes when he says that whatever is comprehended and exprest in the first Platform of the Fable is Proper and the other Things are Episodes This is what he says just after he had propos'd the Model of the Odysseïs We must then in the Odysseïs it self examine what this third sort of Episode is the better to know wherein it differs from the second We shall see how the Incidents he calls proper are absolutely necessary and how those which he distinguishes by the Name of Episodes are in one sense necessary and probable and in another sense not at all necessary but such as the Poet had liberty to make use of or not After Homer had laid the first Ground-work of the Fable and prepar'd the Model such as we have observ'd it to be it was not then at his Choice to make or not make Vlysses absent from his Country This Absence was Essential Aristotle stiles and places it among those things that are proper to the Fable But the Adventure of Antiphates that of Circe of the Sirens of Scylla of Charybdis c. he does not call such The Poet was left at his full liberty to have made choice of any other as well as these things So that they are only probable and such Episodes as are distinct from the main Action to which in this sense they are neither proper nor necessary But now let us see in what sense they are necessary thereto Since the Absence of Vlysses was necessary it follows that not being at home he
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
Troy because it was taken by the Greeks and is King of the Trojans because Priam was dead and he elected in his room But if the taking of Troy be the Consequence of a ten Year's Siege should not this War have been related as the necessary Cause of the taking and ruine thereof This is what the Poet has admirably provided for by bringing it about that neither the War nor the long and tedious Siege should be the Cause of the taking of this City Therefore he says at first that the Greeks were worsted that they utterly despaired of being Masters of the City by any of those Measures they had hitherto taken and that so many Years spent in the War was but so much time lost So that the Taking of Troy depends not upon any thing that went before The Greeks form another Design which is an exact Beginning of an Action for it supposes nothing before it The Poet gives it likewise the other Qualification of a Beginning which is the requiring Something after it Before ever the Grecians became Masters of the City and before ever King Priam was kill'd Aeneas is destin'd to re-establish a more noble Religion and a more illustrious Empire elsewhere Wherefore the Burning of Troy is not an entire Action nor the Downfall of an Empire but the Cause and the first Part of the Alteration of a State and it requires a new Establishment to succeed it The Shipping off of Aeneas his Voyages his Battels and all the Obstacles he met with compose a just Middle they are a Consequence of the Destruction of Troy and of the Choice they made of him to transport them into Italy and these same Incidents require an End The End comprehends the Death of Amata that of Turnus the Change of Juno's Mind and the Terms of the Peace which contain'd all that Aeneas pretended to for his Establishment But for the better judging of the Vnity and Integrity of the Action of which we have already spoke we must add that there are two sorts of Designs The first sort have no manner of Consequence but end with the Action the others beside the Action have likewise some necessary Consequences And in this last Case these Consequences must be related if one would have the Poem be as Entire and as Compleat as it ought to be Our Poets furnish us with Instances of both these Designs The Anger and Revenge of a Man requires necessarily nothing more after it when it is satisfied and over all is at an end When Achilles was reveng'd when he had receiv'd Satisfaction for the Affront put upon him and when he was once quiet a Man never enquires what becomes of him afterwards 'T is the same case with the Return of a Prince into his own Country when he is come thither has put an End to those Disorders which his Absence had caused and enjoys Peace again the Reader is satisfied Nor has Homer made any Episode that has transgressed these Bounds Virgil's Practice has been otherwise because he undertook a Design of another Nature The Establishment of any State does of necessity draw great Consequences after it If the Poet had taken them all for his Action it would have been of a monstrous Extent because the Roman Government was not fully settled till after the Ruin of Carthage which had so long disputed with it for Empire and Liberty and this very State arrived not to its Grandeur and Perfection till under Augustus who was its last as Aeneas was its first Founder Therefore Virgil has not taken this for the Matter of his Poem but he relates it by such Recitals as Homer makes use of in his Odysseïs when he tells us of the Wound Vlysses receiv'd on the top of Parnassus Upon this Account we observed that the Poet may relate such Incidents as were necessary to the Matter of his Poem but which notwithstanding were not the Matter thereof 'T is thus that Virgil practices in the Machines making Jupiter in the first and Anchises in the sixth Book to make these Prophetical Recitals There is something still more Noble in the Episode of Dido where by an Allegory and a Conduct which one can never sufficiently admire he brings into the Body of his Action all the succeeding History of Carthage and this so naturally too that one would think the Poet should have made Dido say and act just as she did though there had never been any Quarrel between these two States and though there had never been such a Man as Hannibal CHAP. XII Of the Causes of the Action AN Historian does not make his Subject-Matter himself he speaks nothing but what he knows and in the Conduct of a State we often see Effects whose Causes are never known Those who act in it keep all things in private and the more they do so the greater Politicians are they accounted So that on one side the Historian is obliged to declare all the Causes he knows because these Circumstances are very instructive but on the other hand he is justly dispensed from relating several Causes because he cannot come to any Knowledge of them A Poet has the same Reasons to tell all the Causes of his Action and he is likewise more oblig'd to it than an Historian since 't is more proper and essential for Poetry to instruct than 't is for History But the Poet has not the same Reasons to excuse his Omission of any Cause whatever He makes his Matter himself and if he takes any thing from History 't is but so far as History suits thereto He must feign whatever is not there or else change what is not suited to his purpose If 't is propose that some Things may lie concealed from him because no Man can know every thing he then is instructed by the Gods who do know every thing Virgil is my Warrant in the Case before us he invokes a Deity that he may come to the Knowledge of the Causes of his Action and he relates such things as he could never know but by Revelation since he says they happen'd to Dido alone and which she never made any one no not so much as her Sister acquainted with Thus is the Poet oblig'd to tell all the Causes not only that he may instruct as we hinted before but likewise that he may please for without doubt this is very grateful There are three sorts of Causes some are more general and undetermin'd such as the Humours of any one for 't is upon Humour that every one commonly regulates his Conduct and acts upon Occasion Others are more precise such as the Interests of those that Act. And lastly there are others which are more immediate such as the Designs which one takes to promote or hinder any thing These different Causes of an Action are likewise frequently the Causes of one another every one taking up those Interests which his Humour engages him in and forming such Designs as his Humour and
of Humours makes these Conjunctions and presides o'er the choice of Friends the Companions of Aeneas are good sage and pious Persons Japis his Physician prefers his Skill in Physick beyond the Glory of Arms even in that only design of prolonging the life of his old Father Education depends likewise on the Government and the State under which one is brought up One conceives quite different Sentiments under a Monarchy than one should do under a Common-wealth This Point was of some moment to our Poet who was willing to change the Inclinations of his Audience 'T is upon this account that the Inclinations of all the Personages in the Aeneid are unanimously for a Monarchy And though the Thuscans who were used cruelly by Mezentius revolt from him and drive him thence yet this is not as the first Brutus did to change the Face of the State by banishing both the King and his Power together but in order to submit themselves to a more just Monarch We may take into the number of mixed Causes the Riches the Dignities the Alliances and the other Goods of Fortune which we possess upon which I will only make this Reflection That a King or General of an Army do not always act in that Character Achilles was both But he preserves nothing of his Sovereignty but that Independency by which he refuses to obey Agamemnon as otherwise he ought The Fable requires only this and Homer has said no more of it His Achilles is rather a private Man and a single Voluntier who only fights in his own Quarrel than a King or a General So that nothing of all the good that is done any where else but where he is present is owing either to his Valour or his good Conduct Virgil's Hero is quite of another make He never divests himself of his Dignities he acts in the full Character of a General And this advances his Martial Atchievements to a higher pitch of Glory than those of Achilles The Absence of both these Heroes gives their Enemies great advantage against them and is an Evidence how great and necessary the Valour of both of them is But this is peculiar to Aeneas that whatever good is done in his Absence is owing to his Conduct Two things preserved the Trojans from the rage of Turnus The one is the Rampart and Fortifications of the Camp they were intrenched in Aeneas himself designed and over-looked these Works The other is the good order they observed to defend themselves And in this they did no more than what he ordered them at parting And here is a Glory which the Hero in the Iliad can make no pretensions to and if one would compare both together Achilles is a valiant Soldier and Aeneas a compleat Commander The last Causes of the Manners which we propounded are purely internal The chief and most general of these is the Complexion Poets place high Characters upon Bodies of the largest size and the finest make Virgil gives his Hero the Stature and Visage of a God And he observes * that Vertue is most charming when a good Soul is lodged in a Body that resembles it The Complexion varies according to the difference of Ages and Sexes Turnus is younger than Aeneas because Aeneas ought to be sage and prudent and Turnus furious and passionate like another Achilles I will not transcribe here what Horace has writ concerning the Manners that are proper to every Age. As for the Sex Aristotle says in his Poetry that there are fewer good Women than bad and that they do more mischief than good in the World Virgil is but too exact in copying this Thought Venus is the Mother and Protectress of Aeneas She seems to be good-natured through the whole Sibyl likewise favours him Cybele and Andromache are well-wishers to him and wish him no harm but they appear but little For this small number of good Women how many bad ones are there or at least such as bring a great deal of Mischief upon this Hero Juno is his profess'd Enemy and employs against him Iris Juturna and Alecto Dido thought of ruining him at Carthage and calls in to her aid her Sister a Nurse and an Inchantress The Harpies drive him out of their Island Helena is a Fury that ruines the Trojans and Graecians themselves The Trojan Women though his own Subjects set his Fleet on Fire Amata contemns the Order of the Gods and the Will of the King her Husband and with the Latin Women first blows the Trumpet to Rebellion Sylvia puts her upon it The Women that were most esteemed by this Hero brought insupportable Troubles upon his Head At the end of the Second Book one may see his Sorrow for Creüsa And the innocent Lavinia is the cause of all the Miseries he suffers in the six last Books Camilla bears Arms against him but she gives us an occasion to make a more particular Reflection Virgil in her has given us a pretty Example of the Inconstancy of the Sex It seems as if this courageous Damosel was brought in to fight only to teach other Women that War is none of their Business and that they can never so far divest themselves of their natural Inclinations There still remains something in them which will prove the ruine of themselves and which is a great prejudice to those who relie upon them The Poet does admirably apply this Point to the Manners of that Sex and makes use of this Heroine in the case who seems to be wholly of another make In the heat of the Battel she perceives a Warriour with rich Amour She was presently for having the Spoils of this Enemy and the Motives the Poet gives her are looked upon as a Woman 's greedy Desire This levity of the Sex makes Camilla forget her Dignity and the taking care of her safety and 't is followed with very mischievous Effects She is killed the Cavalry routed and Aeneas preserved from an Ambuscado he was just falling into The Passions likewise are the internal Causes of the Manners If we love any Person we love all we see in him even to his Failings If we hate any one we have an Aversion for even his Perfections So great a Power has Passion over us When Dido loves Aeneas this Hero in her Eye is nothing less than a God But is she incensed against him Then he is no longer one of Humane Race but some hard hearted Rock of Mount Caucasus is scarce good enough to be his Father But the most excellent of all the Causes of each Man's Manners is his own Actions This Cause imprints the strongest Habits 'T is that in which we have the greatest share 'T is that which creates to us the greatest Honour if the Manners it produces be good and which on the other hand is our greatest shame if they be bad Virgil has very divinely touched upon this Cause when he says that next after God Good Manners are the chiefest and
the best Recompence of Good Actions Ye brave young Men what equal Gifts can we What Recompence for such Deserts Decree The greatest sure and best you can receive The God's your Vertue and your Fame will give Englished thus by Mr. Dryden CHAP. III. Concerning the Manners of other Sciences besides Poetry GEography History Philosophy and Rhetorick teach nothing concerning the Manners but what the Poet should be acquainted with We will only here make a slight Application of it to our Subject The Geographers in the Tracts they write concerning the Situation of the Seas and Continent do likewise inform us of the diversity of States and Governments of the Employments the Inclinations the Customs of the People together with the Fashion of their Habits The Speech of Remulus in the Ninth Book of the Aeneid is all Geographical It contains the Education of the Italians and their War-like Manners adapted to every Age and it ends with an Antithesis wherein he reproaches the Trojans with the Effeminacy of their Clothing as a certain Sign that their Inclinations were opposite to those he had been describing There are several other Passages in the Aeneid where this Effeminacy of their Apparel is described and the Reproach of it cast upon Aeneas himself with some sort of Emphasis But Virgil very dexterously turns off from his Audience who were the Progeny of the Trojans this small Reproach which might else have reflected upon them He says that the Romans did not derive from their Fathers any of that effeminate Fashion But on the other hand that the Trojans accommodated themselves to the more manly and generous Customs of the Italians History as well as Geography describes the Manners and the Customs of States and People in general But History adds likewise thereto the Inclinations and Manners of particular Persons which it names Both of them treat equally of the Manners as indifferent writing with no other Design than to demonstrate them as they really are 'T is true the Notices they give serve for the Conduct of a Man's Life and each Man is to look upon the Examples he meets with as so many Precepts which teach him his Duty But this Application does not so much belong to these two Arts as to Moral Philosophy Poetry takes from History and Geography what both of them say concerning the Morals The Poet describes things in general as Geography does and usually it claps them under particular Names as in History Sometimes it joins both these two things together and makes the Application of them it self Virgil being about to describe the particular Manners of Sinon advertises his Readers that in the Villainy of this single Graecian one might discover the Wickedness of the whole Nation Moral Philosophy contains in it the simple knowledge of the Manners it suffers none that are either bad or indifferent It treats of them only with a design to render them good The Vertues are always good These it proposes that we may embrace them The Vices are always evil and it teaches how to avoid them The Passions in themselves are indifferent it corrects what is ill in them and puts us in a Method how to make a right use of them and bring them over to Vertue 's side There are some Inclinations that are so indifferent they cannot alter their Property Such are those of young Children before they are capable of Good or Evil. Philosophy looks upon them not to be so much Manners as the cause of future Manners We can produce an Instance of this without quitting our usual Guides Horace is no less a Philosopher than he is a Poet. 'T is worth taking notice what he relates concerning a Man of Canusium Servius Oppidius by Name He had a plentiful Estate left him by his Progenitors Before his Death he bequeaths two of his Lordships to his two Sons and gave them this Advice I have observed that you Aulus have managed your Play-things after a careless manner either gaming or giving them inconsiderately away And you Tiberius on the other hand are always counting your Trifles seem very anxious and look about for holes to hide them in This makes me afraid you will both ruine your selves by two contrary Vices The one by being as Prodigal as Numentanus The other as covetous as Cicuta Wherefore I charge you both and conjure you by the Guardian-Gods of our Family that you Aulus diminish nothing of the Estate I leave you and that you Tiberius never increase it but live contented with what Nature and your Father think sufficient for you This is the way Philosophy treats of the Inclinations of Children The Conclusion and all the Commands of this prudent Father are for riper Age. Virgil treats of the Doctrine of the Passions not only as a Moral but as a Natural Philosopher He renders a Reason of these things from the Matter whereof Bodies are composed and from the Manner whereby they are made and united to the Souls But he does it in a Poetical Way and very suitably to his Subject As Rhetorick proposes a different End to it self so likewise does it treat of the Manners after a different way The Orator's Design is not to render his Audience better than they are he is contented if they are but convinced of that he undertook to convince them of The better to effect this he sides with their Humour and their Interests as far as his Cause will bear He appears Modest Prudent and a Man of Probity that we may hearken to him with Delight that we may relie upon him and that we may believe that he neither designs to impose upon us or is in the wrong himself He gives us a quite contrary Idea of those he speaks against In a word he never troubles his Head with considering which are his own true Inclinations or what the Inclinations of others are but studies to represent them all such as they should be for him to gain his Cause The Poet should know all this that so he may the better make his Personages speak We might say that our Poets might look upon the Ancestors of their Audience as Orators do those in whose behalf they speak Besides Virgil might have considered Dido as his Enemy The Treachery of Hannibal and the Carthaginians would have dispensed a Roman Poet from some Civilities which else perhaps one might think were becoming him But the Fable does sufficiently regulate the Manners of all the Personages and 't is to this one should have the chiefest regard The Poet as well as the Orator has his Auditors All the difference I find is that they are not so few in number nor so fickle nor so subject to particular Passions and Inclinations The Poet writes for his whole Country he must be read every hour at all times and by sober Persons He has nothing then to do but to study in general the Humour of his own Nation and the good Inclinations of his Prince if he lives in a
above the Vulgar and in a Style that may in some sort keep up the Character of the Divine Persons he introduces To this end serves the Poetical and Figurative Expression and the Majesty of the Heroick Verse But all this being divine and surprizing may quite ruine all Probability Therefore the Poet should take special care as to that Point since his chief aim is to instruct and without Probability any Action is less likely to perswade To all this the Poets are oblig'd by the substance of the Things they propose to themselves as the subject Matter of their Poems and Instructions The manner of teaching them usefully and methodically has likewise oblig'd them to add several other Rules The Epopéa's business is with the Morals and Habitudes more than the Passions These rise on a sudden and their Heat is soon over but the Habitudes are more calm and come on and go off more leisurely Therefore the Epick Action cannot be contain'd in one single day as the Dramatick can It must have a longer and more just space allow'd it than that of Tragedy which is only allow'd for the Passions This Distinction makes the Tragedy and the Epopéa differ very much The violence of Tragedy requires a great deal more lively and brisk Representation than that of a Recital besides it is all Action and the Poet says never a Word as he does in the Epopéa where there are no Actors But if in this the Epopéa is inferiour to the Drama yet 't is superiour to both Philosophy and History because 't is a great deal more active than bare Philosophy and the Recitals of History And thô it does not present Actors to the Eyes of the Spectators yet it ought at least more frequently than Historians to break off the Thread of its Discourse by the Speeches of its Personages This Aristotle orders when he says that the Narration of the Epick ought to be Dramatick that is to say very active It has likewise its Passions which give it no small Advantage over Philosophy and History But in this it is inferiour to Tragedy For thô it has a mixture of all the Passions yet Joy and Admiration are the most essential to it These indeed contribute most towards the making us wise Men Admiration and Curiosity are the Cause of Sciences and nothing engages us so forcibly as Pleasure So that these two Passions must never be wanting to any invented Piece if we would be inform'd in what we are indispensibly oblig'd to know To conclude because the Precepts had need be concise that so they may be more easily conceiv'd and less burden the Memory and because nothing can be more effectual thereto than proposing one single Idea and collecting all things so well together that so they may be present to our Minds all at once the Poets have reduc'd all to one single Action under one and the same Design and in a Body whose Members and Parts should be homogeneous CHAP. III. The Definition of the Epick Poem THat which we have observ'd concerning the Nature of the Epick Poem gives us a just Idea of it which we may express thus The EPOPEA is a Discourse invented by Art to form the Manners by such Instructions as are disguis'd under the Allegories of some one important Action which is related in Verse after a probable diverting and surprizing Manner This here is the Definition of the Epopéa and not of Poetry it self For that is an Art of making all sorts of Poems of which the Epick is but a part The Epopéa then is not an Art but an artificial thing as 't is express'd in the Definition which says 't is a Discourse invented by Art It is likewise one sort of Poem as 't is intimated in the Definition by its being call'd a Discourse in Verse And the rest distinguishes it from all other sorts of Poems The Action of Comedy is not very important and besides the Poet says nothing but only the Persons he introduces say and act All just as in Tragedy For this reason both This and That is stil'd a Dramatick Poem And thus it is plain the Epopéa is neither Tragedy nor Comedy Nor is it a piece of Natural Philosophy as the Poems of Empedocles and Lucretius Nor a Treatise of Husbandry and the like as the Georgicks of Virgil Because these Pieces are not design'd to form Men's Manners and the Instructions contain'd in them are naked simple and proper without Disguise and Allegories This second reason which more especially concerns the Essence and Nature of Poesy does likewise exclude from the number of Epick Poems any Piece of Morality writ in Verse and a plain History such as Lucan's Pharsalia the Punick War of Silius Italicus and such like real Actions of some singular Persons without a Fable and in short every thing that is describ'd in Verse after this manner I shall not trouble my head to take notice how the Epopéa differs from the Satyr the Eclogue the Ode the Elegy the Epigram and other lesser Poems For this is self-evident But it will not be amiss to reflect upon what has been already said and from thence to conclude that the Epopéa has some relation to Four Things viz. to the Poem to the Fable to Moral Philosophy and to History It has a relation to History because as well This as That relates one or more Actions But the Actions of History are singular and true so that the Epopéa is neither a History nor a Species of History It has a necessary relation to Morality since both one and the other instructs Men in their Morals but the Action and the Allegories which are proper to it is the cause why properly speaking it is not Moral Philosophy although it may be stil'd a Species of it and in short it has a great deal more relation to this than to History But it belongs altogether to the Poem and the Fable since it is properly and truly a Poem and a Fable and is only distinguish'd from other Poems and Fables as several Species which equally partake of the same Genus are distinguish'd from one another Besides the Definition does exactly include both since a Poem is a Discourse in Verse and a Fable is a Discourse invented to form Men's Morals by Instructions disguis'd under the Allegories of an Action So that one might abridge the Definition we have given of the Epick Poem and only say that it is a Fable gracefully form'd upon an important Action which is related in Verse after a very probable and surprising manner CHAP. IV. Of the Parts of the Epick Poem The Division of this Treatise THE Parts of the Epick Poem contain'd in the former Definition are its Nature its Matter its Form and its Manner of proposing Things It s Nature is twofold for the Epopéa is both a Fable and a Poem But these two several Genus's agree very well together and compose a Body that is no Monster One may likewise
least Fancy And here the Comical Part might have been carried on very regularly even as the Poet pleas'd But to return The Fiction might be so disguis'd under the Truth of History that those who are ignorant of the Poet's Art would believe that he had made no Fiction But the better to carry on this Disguise search must be made in History for the Names of some Persons to whom this feign'd Action might either Probably or Really have happen'd and then must the Action be rehears'd under these known Names with such Circumstances as alter nothing of the Essence either of the Fable or the Moral as in the following Example In the War King Philip the Fair had with the Flemings in the Year 1302 he sent out his Army under the Command of Robert Earl of Artois his General and Ralph of Nesle his Constable When they were in the Plain of Courtray in sight of the Enemy the Constable says 'T was so easie to starve them that it would be advisable not to hazard the Lives of so many brave Men against such vile and despicable Fellows The Earl very haughtily rejects this Advice charging him with Cowardice and Treachery We will see replies the Constable in a rage which of us has the most Loyalty and Bravery and with that away he rides directly towards the Enemy drawing all the French Cavalry after him This Precipitation and the Dust they rais'd hinder'd them from discovering a large and deep River beyond which the Flemings were posted The French were miserably cast away in the Torrent At this Loss the Infantry were so startled that they suffer'd themselves to be cut in pieces by the Enemy 'T is by this means that the Fiction may have some Agreement with the Truth it self and the Precepts of the Art do not contradict one another though they order us to begin by feigning an Action and then advise us to draw it from History As for the Fiction and Fable it signifies little whether the Persons are Dogs or Oronics and Pridamont or Robert d'Artois and the Earl of Nesle or lastly Achilles and Agamemnon 'T is time we should now propose it in its just Extent under the two last Names in the Iliad It is too narrow for an Epopéa under the former Names CHAP. VIII Of the Fable of the Iliad THE Fable of the Iliad at the bottom is nothing else but that which I just now propos'd I will treat of it here at large because I cannot give you a greater light into this Doctrine than by the Practice of Homer 'T is the most exact Model of the Epopéa and the most useful Abridgment of all the Precepts of this Art since in truth Aristotle himself has extracted them out of the Works of this great Poet. In every thing which a Man undertakes with Design the End he proposes to himself is always the first thing which occurs in his Mind and upon which he grounds the whole Work and all its parts Thus since the Epick Poem was invented to form the Manners of Men 't is by this first View the Poet ought to begin The School-men treat of Vertues and Vices in general The Instructions they give are proper for all sorts of People and for all Ages But the Poet has a nearer Regard to his own Country and the Necessities he sees his own Nation lie under 'T is upon this account that he makes choice of some piece of Morality the most proper and fittest he can imagine and in order to press this home he makes less use of Reasoning than of the force of Insinuation accommodating himself to the particular Customs and Inclinations of his Audience and to those which in the general ought to be commended in them Let us now see how Homer has acquitted himself in all these Respects He saw the Grecians for whom he design'd his Poem were divided into as many States as they had Capital Cities Each was a Body Politick and had its Form of Government independent from all the rest And yet these distinct States were very often oblig'd to unite together in one Body against their common Enemies And here we have two very different sorts of Government such as cannot be very well comprehended in one Body of Morality and in one single Poem The Poet then has made two distinct Fables of them The One is for all Greece united into one Body but compos'd of Parts independent on one another as they in truth were and the Other is for each particular State consider'd as they were in time of Peace without the former Circumstances and the necessity of being united As for the first sort of Government observable in the Union or rather in the Assembling of many Independent States Experience has always made it appear That there is nothing like a due Subordination and a right Understanding between Persons to make the Designs that are form'd and carried on by several Generals to prosper And on the other hand an universal Misunderstanding the Ambition of a General and the Under-Officers refusing to submit have always been the infallible and inevitable Bane of these Confederacies All sorts of States and in particular the Grecians have dearly experienc'd this Truth So that the most useful and the most necessary Instructions that could be given them was to lay before their Eyes the Loss which both the People and the Princes themselves suffer'd by the Ambition and Discord of these last Homer then has taken for the Foundation of his Fable this great Truth viz. That a Misunderstanding between Princes is the Ruin of their own States I sing says he the Anger of Achilles so pernicious to the Grecians and the Cause of so many Heroes Deaths occasion'd by the Discord and Parting of Agamemnon and this Prince But that this Truth may be compleatly and fully known there is need of a second to back it For it may be question'd whether the ill Consequences which succeed a Quarrel were caused by that Quarrel and whether a right Understanding does re-adjust those Affairs which Discord has put out of Order that is to say these Assembled States must be represented first as labouring under a Misunderstanding and the ill Consequences thereof and then as United and Victorious Let us now see how he has dispos'd of these Things in one General Action Several Princes independant on one another were united against a Common Enemy He whom they had Elected their General offers an Affront to the most Valiant of all the Confederates This offended Prince was so far provok'd that he withdrew himself and obstinately refused to fight for the Common Cause This Misunderstanding gives the Enemy so much Advantage that the Confederates are very near quitting their Design very dishonourably He himself who is withdrawn is not exempt from sharing in the Misfortunes he brought upon his Allies For having permitted his intimate Friend to succour them in a great Necessity this Friend is kill'd by the Enemies General Thus being both made
of them for her Husband and indulge themselves in all these Violences so much the more because they were perswaded he would never return But at last he returns and discovering himself to his Son and some others who had continu'd Loyal to him he is an Eye-witness of the Insolence of his Enemies punishes them according to their deserts and restores to his Island that Tranquility and Repose which they had been strangers to during his absence As the Truth which serves as a Foundation to this Fiction and which with it makes the Fable is That the absence of a Person from his own Home or who has not an Eye to what is done there is the cause of great disorders So the principal Action and the most Essential one is the absence of the Hero This fills almost all the Poem For not only this bodily absence lasted several Years but even when the Hero return'd he does not discover himself and this prudent disguise from whence he reap'd so much advantage has the same effect upon the Authors of the Disorders and all others who knew him not as his real absence had so that he is absent as to them till the very moment he punish'd them After the Poet had thus compos'd his Fable and join'd the Fiction to the Truth he then makes choice of Vlysses the King of the Isle of Ithaca to maintain the Character of his chief Personage and bestow'd the rest upon Telemachus Penelope Antinous and others whom he calls by what names he pleases I shall not here insist upon the many excellent Advices which are as so many parts and natural Consequences of the Fundamental Truth and which the Poet very dexterously lays down in those Fictions which are the Episodes and Members of the entire Action such for instance are these Advices Not to intrude ones self into the Mysteries of Government which the Prince keeps secret to himself This is represented to us by the Winds shut up in a Bull-hide which the miserable Companions of Vlysses must needs be so foolish as to pry into Not to suffer ones self to be lead away by the seeming Charms of an idle and lazy life to which the Sirens Songs invite Men Not to suffer ones self to be sensualiz'd by pleasures like those who were chang'd into Brutes by Circe And a great many other points of Morality necessary for all sorts of People This Poem is more useful to the Vulgar than the Iliad is where the Subjects suffer rather by the ill Conduct of their Princes than through their own fault But in the Odysseïs 't is not the Fault of Vlysses that is the ruin of his Subjects This wise Prince did all he could to make them sharers in the Benefit of his Return Thus the Poet in the Iliad says He sings the Anger of Achilles which had caus'd the Death of so many Grecians and on the contrary in the Odysseïs he tells his Readers That the Subjects perish'd through their own fault Notwithstanding it is to be confess'd that these great Names of Kings Hero's Achilles Agamemnon and Vlysses do no less denote the meanest Burghers than they do the Caesars the Pompeys and the Alexanders of the Age. The Commonalty are as subject as the Grandees to lose their Estates and ruin their Families by Anger and Divisions by negligence and want of taking care of their business They stand in as much need of Homer's Lessons as Kings they are as capable of profiting thereby and 't is as well for the Small as the Great that the Morality of the Schools that of the Fable and that of the Chair deliver those Truths we have been just speaking of CHAP. XI Of the Fable of the Aeneid IN the Fable of the Aeneid we are not to expect that simplicity which Aristotle esteem'd so Divine in Homer But tho' the Fortune of the Roman Empire envied the Poet this Glory yet the vast extent of the Matter it furnishes him with starts up such difficulties as require more Spirit and Conduct and has put us upon saying that there is something in the Aeneid more Noble than in the Iliad These very difficulties we are to solve and they call upon us for our utmost care and attention There was a great deal of difference between the Greeks and the Romans These last were under no obligation as were the former either of living in separated and independent States or of frequent confederating together against the common Enemy If in this respect we would compare our two Poets together Virgil had but one Poem to make and this ought to be more like the Odysseïs than the Iliad since the Roman State was govern'd by only one Prince But without mentioning the Inconveniences the Latin Poet might meet with in forming a Fable upon the same Foundation which the Greek had laid before him the Roman State furnish'd him with Matter different enough to help him to avoid treading in the footsteps of him that went before him and to preserve to him the glory of a primary invention Homer in the Odysseïs spoke only for States already establish'd and the Roman Empire was but of a new date It was the change of a Commonwealth to which Caesar's Subjects had been always extreamly biggoted into a Monarchy which till then they could never endure Thus the Instructions which the Poet ought to give both to Prince and People were quite different from those Homer left his Countrymen He ought to instruct Augustus as the Founder of a great Empire and to inspire into him as well as his Successors the same Spirit and Conduct which had rais'd this Empire to such a Grandeur A very expert Roman and a great Politician no less than Cicero himself informs us That good Humour and Humanity was so far Essential to this State that it was predominant even in the very midst of War and that nothing but an absolute Necessity could put a stop to its good effects And he adds That when this Conduct was lost and this Genius which gave life to the State was gone there was nothing left but bare Walls and what in propriety of Speech might be term'd a dead Carcase In short he shews the Advantages which a mild and moderate Government has over a cruel and severe Conduct which inspires Men with nothing but a slavish fear This then is the Instruction Virgil would give the Roman Emperors who began in the Person of Augustus to be settled upon the Throne This Instruction has two parts as each of Homer's had The first comprehends the Misfortunes which attend a Tyrannical and Violent Reign And the second the Happiness which is the Consequence of a mild Government Homer has plac'd both the parts of each Fable in one and the same Person Achilles at first is at variance with the Confederates and afterwards is reconcil'd to them Vlysses is absent from home and at last returns thither and in all this there is nothing of difficulty But Virgil
could not represent in one and the same Person a Hero who by his Violence and Impiety was the Ruin of his Country and who afterwards by his Piety and Justice restor'd it to its former Glory This inequality of Manners and Conduct would have been intolerable and especially in that Brevity which the Recital of an Epick Poem requires besides such a sudden change is never to be rely'd on Men would think it Hypocritical and fear a very quick return of the old Tyranny The Poet then is oblig'd to make use of two different Personages to maintain the two parts of his exemplary instruction Besides several weighty Reasons did indispensibly oblige him to put Humanity and Good-Nature in the Manners of his Hero and to make Piety his predominant Quality and the very Soul of all his Vertues One of these great Reasons is the desire and necessity he lay under of pleasing his chief Auditor who alone was more considerable than all the rest Augustus Caesar did nothing to settle himself upon the Throne but what his Piety put him upon undertaking or at least he had a mind the World should think so This is the Judgment which the most Prudent past upon him even after he was dead when he was no longer the subject of Mens Flatteries or their Fear This Cornelius Tacitus informs us of The Reasons why the Poet spoke thus of the new Establishment were owing to the Subjects of Augustus who made up the other part of the Audience and the second Object of his Morality He was oblig'd to make them lay aside the old Antipathy they had to Monarchy to convince them of the Justice and the legal Prerogative of Augustus to divert them from so much desiring to oppose his designs and to raise in them a Love and Veneration for this Prince Religion has always had a most powerful influence over the minds of the Vulgar The first Roman Kings and the new Emperors made use thereof by joyning the Sacerdotal to the Regal Office The Poet likewise us'd his utmost care in searching for all the Advantages he could derive from thence by making it the chief Foundation of his whole design He makes it appear That the great Revolutions which happen in States are brought about by the appointment and will of God That those who oppose them are Impious and have been punish'd according to their Demerits For Heaven never fails to protect the Heroes it makes choice of to carry on and execute its great designs This Maxim serves for the Foundation of the Aeneid and is that first part of the Fable which we call the Truth Besides the Poet was oblig'd to represent his Hero free from all manner of Violence and elected King by brave and generous People who thought it an Honour to obey him tho' they might lawfully have been their own Soveraigns and have chosen what form of Government they pleas'd In short it was requisite that the Justice of his Cause like that of Augustus should have been grounded upon the Rights of War In a word the Hero should have been like Augustus a New Monarch the Founder of an Empire a Lawgiver a Pontifex and a great Commander The necessity of reducing all these things into one Body and under the Allegories of a single Action makes it appear how great a difference there is between the designs of Homer and that of Virgil And that if the Latin Poet did imitate the Greek yet the applicaaion of it is so remote and difficult that it should never make his Poem pass for a new Copy nor rob him of the glory of the invention Let us see then the Collection which Virgil has made of all these Matters and the general Fiction which together with the Truths it disguises makes up the Fable and Life of the Poem The Gods preserve a Prince amidst the Ruin of a mighty State and make choice of him to be the maintainer of their Religion and the Establisher of a more great and glorious Empire than the first This very Hero is likewise elected King by the general consent of those who had escap'd the universal Wrack of that Kingdom He conducts them through Territories from whence his Ancestors came and by the way instructed himself in all that was necessary for a King a Priest and the Founder of a Monarchy He arrives and likewise finds in this new Country the Gods and Men dispos'd to entertain him and to allow him Subjects and Territories But a neighbouring Prince blinded by Ambition and Jealousie could not see the Justice and the Orders of Heaven but opposes his Establishment and is assisted by the Valour of a King whose Cruelty and Impiety had divested him of his States This opposition and the War this pious stranger was forc'd to renders his establishment more just by the Right of Conquest and more glorious by the overcoming and cutting off of his Enemies The model being thus fram'd there was nothing wanting but to look into History or into some Authentick Fables for Hero's whose Names he might borrow and whom he might engage to represent his Personages The obligation he lay under of accommodating himself to the Manners and Religion of his Country invited him to look after them in the Roman History But what Action could he take thence which might furnish him with a Revolution and Establishment of Government that was proper to his purpose Brutus had expelled the Kings and placed the People in that which they then called their Liberty But this Name was Odious and Prejudicial to Augustus and this Action was quite opposite to the Design which the Poet had of confirming the Re-establishment of Monarchy Romulus first founded Rome but he laid the Walls thereof in his Brother's Blood and his first Action was the Murder of his Uncle Amulius for which none could ever find a satisfactory excuse And then it was very difficult to suppose these Heroes to have taken Voyages Besides these two Establishments were made before the Destruction of the States which preceded them and were the cause of their ruin The Kingdom of Alba flourish'd during the Reign of the two first Roman Kings but was erased by the Third And Monarchy was extirpated by Brutus and his Successors in the Consul-ship It was of dangerous Consequence to instil this Notion into the Subjects of Augustus and to put the People upon thinking that this Prince had ruined the Commonwealth and banished their Liberty The Truth of History furnished him with a thought more favourable to his design since in reality Cicero and Tacitus do both inform us That before this Prince made the least shew of what he was about to do there was no Commonwealth in being All the vigour of the Empire was spent the Laws were invalid the Romans were nothing else but the Dregs of a State and in short there was nothing left of Rome but bare Walls which were not able to last much longer Thus Augustus destroyed nothing he only
But let us see whether these Incidents have so much as one single Qualification of those which I propos'd as necessary to the Vnity of the Action The first of these Qualifications is that an Episode be proper and drawn from the very Essence of the Fable and the Subject It would be hard to invent an Adventure more foreign to the War of the Theban Brothers than all this story of Lemnos For what Affinity has the Anger of Venus the butchering of the Lemnians the Designs of the Argonauts and the Amours of Jason and Hypsipyle with the Quarrel between Eteocles and Polynices To make a mix'd medly of such various Incidents is just like forming one of Horace's Monsters And never would a Woman's Head clap'd on to a Horse's Neck appear more Monstrous than does this Hypsipyle tack'd to the War of Thebes appear in this Poem This is the first and most Essential fault of this Episode The second is in the Connexion which is not at all in the Thebaid things being clap'd together without the least necessity or probability For pray what part of the subject of the Thebaid is either the Cause or the Effect of the Massacre at Lemnos Or of any of the Adventures of Jason 'T is true Hypsipyle makes this Recital to the Argives as they were going to infest Thebes but there is a great deal of difference between connecting the Recital of an Action to something and connecting the very Action to it If for the Introducing a Narration into the Body of a Poem and connecting it thereto so as to make a just Episode of it 't is enough that this Narration be made in the Presence of the Hero by some body that has some Interest therein there would be no more need of Rules for the due Vniting of Episodes For a Poet to fail of making this Vnion exactly it would not be enough that he were Ignorant and Unskilful but he should be something more he should be Malicious and declare positively against all Connexions whatever For without 't were so he would not be easily inclined to stuff a whole book with the impertinent Description of a Story that was nothing to the purpose The sports of the sixth Book of Statius are no less irregular There is nothing in the Action to give them the least Countenance They have no reference to the War of Thebes to the designs of the Argonauts nor to the mad Practices of Lemnos Nor is it a Consequence of the Stories of Hypsipyle but rather a Consequence of the Recital she made of these Stories They are tack'd to her Recital at one end and at the other to the March of the Grecians without the least Necessity and Probability And how could the fiery Tempers of Tydeus and Capaneus and the hot Spirits of the other Commanders away with such languishing and Godly Amusements and by consequence so opposite to the very Soul of the Poem which consists altogether in Violence and Impiety 'T is true the March of the Argives was the Cause of his Death for whom they instituted these sports But that it should not have been and since this cause is no way necessary and offends against all probability 't is rather a fresh Fault than any Excuse Hypsipyle had so little a way to go from the place where she left her Prince to that whither she conducted the Grecians that from thence she hears this Infant 's shrill cry when Death had almost stop'd his Mouth Therefore if she had had any concern for leaving Archemorus she should not have staid from him a moment But could not a Souldier have leave to pass a Compliment upon her for a few Minutes or so To conclude who did ever know a Nurse so inconsiderate as to leave her Child alone for several hours in the midst of a Forest to the mercy of wild Beasts expos'd to so many other Dangers and to leave him in this manner without a Guard thô so many Thousands were at hand to whom she had done such a singular piece of service How could so many Redoubted Princes endure this Unworthy and Foolish exposing of a Child without the least necessity for it But what signifies it Virgil had his sports and 't was but requisite Statius should have his too The third fault that may be committed against the Vnity of the Main Action is to compleat an Action entirely which should serve for an Episode This is likewise one of the Conditions of the Story of Hypsipyle Nothing is more compleat in all its Circumstances It makes no part of any other Action 'T is an entire Action that has no dependance on any of the Theban Worthies or the other Grecians of this Poem of whom not one has the least interest in what pass'd at Lemnos Thus the Vnity of the Action is entirely spoil'd in the Thebaid by this Adventure the Recital whereof makes the Poem Episodical This fault of Statius is in the very midle of his Poem It has cut the Action of it into two parts most monstrously divided by this large Hiatus which is so miserably fill'd up with foreign Members or rather foreign Bodies But as I before hinted these superfluities corrupt the Vnity as much when they are plac'd at the Beginning or End as when they are in the Middle and Body of the Poem Statius affords us instances of this kind of fault likewise Had he begun the War of Thebes with the Incestuous Birth of Eteocles and Polynices he would have imitated those who began the War of Troy with the Birth of Helen thô even that met with Horace's Censure But he carries matters still higher goes back as far as the first founding of Thebes and opens his Poem with the Rape of Europa which was the first Cause of building that City He ends just as he begun The Quarrel of the two Brothers was manifestly decided by their Deaths there remained no more difficulty the Siege was rais'd and all over And when the Reader expects no more the Poet who has quite drained his Matter gives us notice of his joyning another story thereto which was the Consequence thereof just as the Return of Vlysses is the Consequence of Hector's death and the taking of Troy and as the Reign of Ascanius is the Consequence of the Establishment of Aeneas Thebes has no longer the Argives but the Athenians for its Enemies 't is no longer defended by Eteocles but by Creon and not assaulted by Polynices but by Theseus The Dispute is no longer about a Kingdom but a Tyrant to be punished 'T is no more a Siege but the taking of a City And now no longer is Cruelty Ambition and Violence predominant there but Valour Generosity and Piety which in the last Book destroy the Character of the whole Poem So that the Action is quite Another in the Cause in the End in the Persons in the Manner and in all the other Circumstances These are the faults which manifestly spoil
is an Entire and Compleat Whole in the Fable and Poem which Homer has made of it You see then how these opposite Expressions of Aristotle are easily reconciled in their meaning The Poet may take out of History an Entire Action or but a Part of one but still he must put in his Poem an entire Action and not a Part only The Disposition of his Matter regulates this Point and makes a regular Whole of whatever he shall have met with and made choice of He must make use thereof Variously according to the Historical Plurality or Singularity of the Parts so as to make thereof the Subject of his Poem When he takes an Entire Action as Homer has done for his Odysseïs and Virgil for the Aeneid there is nothing to be adjusted nor any measure to be taken to make this Action appear a Whole and not the Part of another Action The Reader is already instructed by History and is in little danger of being mistaken therein 'T is enough that the Poet tell wherein his Action consists without saying wherein it does not Homer proposes the Return of Vlysses who after the Destruction of Troy came back again to his own Country Virgil proposes the Change of a State which is ruin'd at Troy and re-established in Italy by Aeneas Each of these Adventures have the Conditions of a Whole as well in the History whence they were taken as in the Fables where they are made use of But when the Poet chuses only a Part and out of this Historical Part makes a whole in his Fable he must take care to give his Readers notice of it for fear that they applying the knowledge they have of the History to what they Read in the Poem should blame the Author as if he had said but little on his Subject or rather had ill managed his design having only described an imperfect Action The Poet 's not knowing how to change a Part into a Whole has perhaps contributed very much to the fault of those Men whom Aristotle blames for having loaded themselves with too much matter But the Knowledge Homer had of this Secret and his Skill in practising it has made him merit those Praises which Aristotle gives him He does not only tell us in his Iliad that the Anger of Achilles is his Subject but besides that in express Words he excludes the other parts of the Trojan War To do this after a Poetical and more Artificial Manner he makes use of the very Hero's person whose Action and Design he Sings I am not come hither says Achilles to wage War against the Trojans I have nothing to do with them they have done me no wrong my design was to maintain the Honour of Agamemnon and Menelaus But since Agamemnon offers an Injury to my Honour I renounce that Design and shall only take care to revenge my self c. You may see by this what is the Design of the Iliad and what is not Besides the Poet has given neither a Beginning nor an End to the Siege of Troy Nay there is scarce a Middle that is proper to it For tho' Jupiter sends Agamemnon to Assault the Town yet 't is not with a Design it should be taken as this Abused Prince imagin'd But only to be punish'd by the Trojan Arms for the Affront he had put upon Achilles and to satisfie the Anger and the Revenge of this Hero On the other hand all the parts of this Anger that are requisite to make it a Whole are very Conspicuous It has its Beginning its Causes its Effects and its End This is what the Poet continues to make out as he had begun that is in the Person of his Hero Achilles is not reconcil'd with Agamemnon with a Design to revenge all Greece upon Troy or Menelaus upon Paris As long as nothing else was on foot he was inexorable But Hector kills Patroclus then he is reconcil'd that he may revenge his own particular injury upon Hector alone Thô he is the Death of other Trojans yet 't is only because he meets not with Hector himself 'T is to fight his way through to this particular Enemy 't is because those he kills are his Relations or his Souldiers just as before he reveng'd himself on all the Grecians for the Affront which Agamemnon alone had put upon him As soon as he could meet with Hector he charges all the other Greeks to stand off and would not let them interpose their Quarrel with his After he had kill'd him he never pushes on the Advantage which Hector's Death had given him over the Trojans who were stupified at this disaster and dejected at so great a loss He had nothing more to say to 'em called off the Gracians to the Obsequies of Patroclus and vents the rest of his fury by insulting over the Dead Corps of his Enemy Lastly being mov'd at Priam's tears he Restores the body to him and grants him a Truce for twelve days to perform the Funeral Solemnities And that we might not look upon the Death of Hector as the End of the War the Poet is so far from making the least shew of the Trojans being inclin'd to a Peace or a Surrender that he makes Priam say expresly That when the Truce was over they would be for fighting again upon the twelfth day If this twelfth day had come and a Battle ensu'd then the Anger and the particular Interest of Achilles being at an End these Battles would have been really a Part of the Trojan War and of the Common Cause Homer to prevent this Irregularity has finish'd his Poem together with the Truce and the Funeral of Hector before the Fight or the Skirmishes were renew'd Could there be any greater Demonstration that the Trojan War had nothing to do with all this and that the Subject of this Poem is not a Part of this War in the Iliad But that 't is a Whole Entire and Compleat Action that has no dependence on the taking of this City To conclude we must not confound the Action with the Fable nor the Design of the Hero in the Action he does with the Design of the Poet in the Allegory and in the Moral he teaches 'T is well known that a Wolf devouring a Lamb has no design to give us the Instructions which Aesop has drawn from it CHAP. XI Of the Beginning Middle and End of the Action THE Poet should so begin his Action that on one hand nothing should be farther wanting for the understanding of what one reads and on the other hand that what we read require after it a necessary Consequence He should end after the same manner with these two Conditions transposed the One that nothing more be expected and the Other that what is put at the End of the Action be only a necessary Consequence of some thing which ought to have went before Lastly the Beginning must be joined to the End by a Middle that makes no Interval but which
Interest prompt him to The Humours and the Inclinations belong to the Doctrine of the Morals which we shall treat of particularly in the fourth Book We only joyn them here to the two other Causes we mention'd and of all three we affirm this in general That the Poet ought to inform his Readers of them and make them conspicuous in his principal Personages when he introduces them or even before he makes them appear Homer has ingeniously begun his Odysseïs with the Transactions at Ithaca during the Absence of Vlysses If he had begun with the Travels of his Hero he would scarce have spoken of any one else and a Man might have read a great deal of the Poem without conceiving the least Idea of Telemachus Penelope or her Suitors who had so great a share in the Action But in the Beginning he has pitch'd upon besides these Personages whom he discovers he represents Vlysses in his full Length And from the very first Opening of the Action one sees the Interest which the Gods had therein The Skill and Care of the same Poet may be seen likewise in introducing his Personages in the first Book of his Iliad where he discovers the Humour the Interests and the Designs of Agamemnon Achilles Nestor Vlysses and several others nay and of the Gods too And in his second Book he makes a Review of the Grecian and Trojan Armies which is full evidence that all we have here said is very necessary But lastly Since the Epick Poem is doubtless much longer than the Dramatick and since 't is easier to manage the Incidents and the Presence of the Personages in that than in the other one is not obliged to introduce all of them at the Beginning of the Epopéa with as much Exactness as in the first Act of a Theatral Piece where at least one is obliged to give some Item of all those who have any considerable part in the Intrigue I mention this upon the Account of Virgil's Practice He has been less exact than the Greek Poet for he says nothing of Turnus Latinus Amata and other Italians till the middle of his Poem But 't is true likewise that he has so disposed his Action as seems to justifie this Delay He has divided the Aeneid into two parts more sensibly than Homer has his Iliad and Odysseïs He not only makes this Division at the first and in his Proposition by saying that Aeneas suffer'd much when he was toss'd about from this Sea to that and from one Province to another and suffer'd also a great deal more in the Wars he was engag'd in but he likewise when he begins his second Part advertises his Reader of it and proposes the things he is about to mention as all new and quite of another Make from the former Thus in the first Book he introduces the principal Personages of his first part and he only speaks of those who were to appear afresh in the second Part in his sixth seventh and eighth Books And here in my mind he was less fortunate than the Greek Poet. Besides these more general Causes of the Action and of the main Intrigues there are still some Incidents and some Episodes more particular of which the Poet must give an Account This happens commonly not in the Beginning of the Action but only when the Poet is about to make one of his lesser Recitals The Reader could not guess how the Wound of Vlysses came which discover'd him to his Friends not why Camilla should be in love with War nor how it came to pass that Aeneas met with several Persons in the Shades below who were to come into the World many Ages after c. Therefore the Poet must tell him the Causes of all this These Causes must be good and suitable to the Subject All the Action of the Iliad is founded upon the Anger of Achilles The Cause of this Anger is the Displeasure Apollo conceiv'd against Agamemnon because Agamemnon likewise in his Anger had affronted the Priest of this God All these Passions have probable Causes and such as are suitable to the General Subject of the Trojan War For as this General Cause is Heten's being ravish'd from Menelaus so the other Causes are of the same Nature Chryseïs is ravish'd from her Father and Briseïs from Achilles In short all are stamp'd with the same Character of Injustice and Violence in these Heroes If the Hero be a Man of Probity the Causes of all his Designs should be just and commendable as those in the Odysseïs and the Aeneid And the Causes of the Persecution he meets with must not lessen the Esteem which the Poet would raise of his Probity Neptune persecutes Vlysses because Vlysses had blinded his Son Polypheme But this Monster had already devour'd six of the Comerades of Vlysses and was just upon serving Vlysses himself and the rest the same Trick Aeneas makes a more particular Profession of his Piety and accordingly Virgil uses him more honourably The Causes Juno had to persecute him did either not touch his Person or else were much to his Glory since the only one which concern'd him was the Choice which Fate made of him to lay in Italy the Foundation of the Empire of the World Juno is so far from having any scornful or hateful Thoughts for this Hero's Person that she was willing to trust him with all that was most dear to her on Earth and make him Lord over her own Carthage She could never have given a more considerable Token of her Love and Esteem for any Man CHAP. XIII Of the Intrigue and the Vnravelling thereof IN what was said about the Causes of the Action one might have observ'd two opposite Designs The first and most principal is that of the Hero The second comprehends all their Designs that oppose the Pretensions of the Hero These Opposite Causes produce likewise Opposite Effects viz. the Endeavours of the Hero for the accomplishing his Design and the Endeavours of those who are against it As these Causes and Designs are the Beginning of the Action so these contrary Endeavours are the Middle of it and form a Difficulty and Intrigue which makes up the greatest part of the Poem It lasts as long as the Reader 's Mind is in suspense about the Event of these contrary Endeavours The Solution or the Vnravelling begins when one begins to see the Difficulty remov'd and the Doubts clear'd up Our Poets have divided each of their three Poems into two Parts and have put a particular Intrigue and the Solution of it in each Part. The first Part of the Iliad is the Anger of Achilles who is for revenging himself upon Agamemnon by the means of Hector and the Trojans The Intrigue comprehends the three Days Fight which happen'd in the Absence of Achilles and it consists on one side in the Resistance of Agamemnon and the Grecians and on the other in the revengeful and inexorable Humour of Achilles which would not
contend Beside these sorts of Probabilities there is still another particular one which we may call an Accidental Probability It consists not in making use of several Incidents each of which in particular is Probable but in ordering them so that they shall happen all together very Probably A Man for instance may Probably die of an Apoplexy but that this should happen exactly when the Poet has occasion to unravel his Plot is not so easily granted The faults against this Probability are of a large Extent For they comprehend the Multitude of Marvellous things each of which might have been regular in the particular but which in all Probability cannot be heaped up in so great a Number and so small a space 'T is likewise a fault against this Probability when an Incident not duly prepared tho it needs it is brought in all on a sudden A desire of surprizing the Auditors by the sight of some Beauty which they never expected casts Poets of little Judgment into these Errors but the effect thereof is of very ill Consequence When a Man sets himself to seek for the Causes of these events in what he has already seen this Application of thought takes away all the pleasure It would vex a Man to take too much pains to find out these Causes but much more if he could not find them out at all And when at last the Poet does discover them the Passion is weaken'd or destroy'd by these misplaced Instructions The Comedians make use of these surprizes more frequently and can reap some Advantage from them But the gravity of the Epopéa will not away with these petty Amusements All there ought to be manag'd after a Natural way so that the Incidents thereof must be duly prepar'd or else be such as need no Preparation Virgil is exact in this Juno prepares the Tempest which she raises in the first Book Venus in the same Book prepares the Amours of the Fourth The Death of Dido which happen'd at the End of this Fourth Book is prepar'd from the very * first day of her Marriage Helenus in the third Book prepares all the matter of the sixth In the Sixth Sibyl foretells all the ensuing Wars the Out-rages of Turnus the misfortunes which were to happen upon the Account of Lavinia and likewise the Voyage of Aeneas with Evander We should be too tedious if we took notice of ev'ry thing of this Nature CHAP. VIII Of the Admirable or the Marvellous ADmiration is opposed to Probability 'T is the business of the last to reduce ev'ry thing into the most simple and most natural order Whereas on the other hand we never admire any thing but what appears extraordinary and out of the common Road. This is that which deceives some who to make their Heroes admir'd raise them to what is impossible This Practice meets with a quite contrary effect for if we would have a thing admired we should make it so Probable that it may be conceiv'd and credited We never Admire that which we think has actually never been and all extravagant Flights put us upon this Thought And yet for ought I know I may yield too much to Reason and Probability contrary to Aristotle's mind who prefers the Admirable by far before them Let us see what he says about it and let the World agree to it as they see cause 'T is requisite says he That the Marvellous should be in Tragedy but much more in the Epopéa which in this goes beyond the bounds of Reason For since they do not see the Persons act as they do upon the Stage that which transgresses the bounds of Reason is very proper to produce the Marvellous That which Homer says of Hector pursued by Achilles would have been very ridiculous upon the Stage where one should have seen so many persons in a fight looking on Hector as he was flying without pursuing him and only one person following giving a signal to the rest to stand off But this is not discernable in the Epopéa Aristotle says further that these Additions that are made to Reason and Truth for the raising of Admiration are likewise Pleasant and that 't is evident how natural this is by the ordinary practice of most People who to make their story the more diverting and something or another of their own Invention But that Homer out-does all Men in teaching us how to tell these sorts of yes with a bon grace These Fictions of Homer are amongst other things such as Horace commends in the Odysseïs and which he finds to be equally beautiful and surprising joyning together these two Qualifications the Pleasant and the Marvellous after the same manner that we have observed Aristotle did But tho' this Philosopher might have said thus much certainly he never design'd to allow Men a full license of carrying things beyond Probability and Reason Besides without doing him the least injustice and without abating any thing of his due Authority it may be questioned whether the Example of Homer which he proposes would have been exact enough for Virgil's Imitation For the custom of speaking by Fables and Allegories even in Prose and before the People was not in vogue at Rome in the Latin Poet's time So that beside the Allegorical sense he was farther obliged to insert some other which one might understand simply without any more ado Lastly that which I infer from the Doctrine of Aristotle is that he prescribes the Marvellous and the Probable to both the Epick and the Dramatick Poets But in such a manner that the Dramatick have a greater regard to the Probable than the Marvellous and that the Epick on the contrary prefer the Admirable The reason of this difference is that we see what is done in Tragedy and only hear by Recitals the Adventures of the Epopéa 'T is upon this consideration that Horace orders that in Tragedies themselves the two surprizing Incidents such as the Transformation of Progne into a Bird or of Cadmus into a Serpent should be kept from the Spectator's view There needs only simple Narrations to be made of these things 'T is likewise for this reason that the Epopéa has the privilege of Machines which are as so many Miracles and exceed natural Probability But they are not after the same manner allow'd upon the Theatre We add further that if for the better pleasing the Auditors by a surprizing Incident one should transgress the boundaries of Reason and Truth their minds ought to be disposed thereto by something that may set them so far besides themselves that they be not in a condition to perceive that they are imposed upon or at least that they may thank the Poet for having surprised them so pleasantly This is what Monsieur Corneille has observ'd in his Cid He knew well enough that he could not bring Rodrigues into the Earl's House whom he had but just then Murder'd without transgressing against Reason and Probability But then he knew as well that
Meer Qualities in their own Nature produce neither of these two effects such as Valour Art the Knowledge of Sciences and the like Solomon could still preserve the Knowledge of the Sciences even when he was become an Idolater Aencas and Mezentius were both Valiant yet one was a Pious and a good Man the other an Atheistical and profane fellow 'T is farther observable that among the Inclinations there are some which belong more peculiarly to some particular Adventure and that are only of Use upon certain Occasions Such for instance are Valour Clemency and Liberality Others are more Universal and appear in every thing such as are good Nature and a passionate Temper For a Man may be passionate and violent not only in War but at a Council board and upon all other occasions as Achilles was or he may be mild and good-natured even in the heat of Battle as Aeneas We shall call this last species of general and Universal Manners the Character of such or such a Person and will treat of it more particularly The Causes of our Manners are either wholly External or wholly Internal or they may be considered as partly External partly Internal The External Causes are God the Stars and our Native Country The mixt Causes are our Parents and Education The internal Causes are the Complexion the Sex the Passions and the Actions whereby we contract these habits The effects of our Manners are the Discourses the Designs and the Essays we make to do such or such a thing and the Good Bad or Indifferent Actions Poetry is not the only thing where the Manners are of use Philosophers Historians Geographers and Rhetoricians treat of them as well as Poets Each of these in his own way But the Poet has need of all And beside these there are a vast number of things which he is indispensibly obliged to be acquainted with that he may make his Personages speak and act regularly Whatsoever has been said on this Subject yet I cannot wholly pass it over I shall only content my self to apply it to the practice of Virgil. Therefore before I treat of the Poetical Manners I will explain at large what I have proposed concerning the Causes of the Manners and I shall say something concerning the Manners that are Foreign to Poetry CHAP. II. Of the Causes of the Manners GOD is the chief of all the Causes in general we shall look upon him here in particular as the most universal and first cause of the Manners He is the Author of Nature and disposes of all things as he thinks fit This cause renders the Manners of Aeneas good even to admiration 'T is superfluous to show how this Hero is favour'd by Jupiter since we see Juno who prosecuted him loves and esteems his person The Stars and principally the Signs and Planets are the second Cause of the Manners The Poet takes notice what influence they have upon Men. When in the person of Dido He proves from them that the Tyrians are not so dull but that they know what esteem ought to be had for Virtue But is it by chance think ye that this Poet who elsewhere was so skillful in Astronomy causes the Planets to act in favour of his Hero conformable to the Rules of Astrologers Of the seven there are three that favour him Jupiter Venus and the Sun All three act visibly in the Poem in behalf of Aeneas There are three others whose influences are Malignant Saturn Mars the Moon or Diana If they act 't is indeed against the Hero But they appear so obscurely that one may say Virgil has hid them below the Horizon Lastly Mercury whose Planet is said to be good with the good and bad with the bad acts visibly as the good Planets do but he never acts alone 't is Jupiter that always sends him out And this is the Horoscope which the Poet makes for the Birth of the Roman Empire The third external cause of the Manners is the Country in which one is Born Virgil bestows great commendations on the Country of his Hero and advances it far above Greece As long as Troy was assaulted fairly by Force it always remained Victorious 'T was only the fraud and Treachery of the Grecians that gain'd the mastery over the generosity of the Trojans So that according to their Countries the one Party are brave and generous the other Knaves and Cheats the one Civil the other Barbarous the one Hardy the other Nice c. After these Causes that are properly external follow next the Fathers and Mothers whose blood is derived down to their Children We cannot say that the Parents are such Causes as are altogether foreign to the Inclinations of those who are formed from their substance Let us apply this to our Subject Aeneas sprang from the Royal Blood of Troy The first Princes of this Family were as Virtuous as Powerful But in process of time these two things were divided into two different branches Ilus left the Crown to Laomedon and his Virtue to Assaracus Priam and Paris were Heirs to the first Anchises and Aeneas to the second By this means the Poet bestows upon his Hero the good inclinations of his Ancestors before ever he restored to him the Regal Power His Piety deserv'd the Sceptre of his Fathers and the perfidiousness of the other branch was the cause that Priam's Family was extirpated The Innocent themselves felt likewise the smart of it as Virgil observes of Polydore This is more clearly expressed by the Greek Poet. He lays down the genealogy of Priam and Aeneas and adds that Jupiter hated the Family of Priam and that notwithstanding Aeneas was to command the Trojans and transmit the Empire to his Posterity These are the advantages Aeneas derived from his Father His Mother was the Goddess from whom he deriv'd the Character of Good Nature and Meekness which was the finest Ornament of his Manners Parents likewise hand down to their Children their Nobility which often makes a great deal of difference between those that are Noble and those that are not Now that which happens often or ordinarily in these things is the Rule which the Poet ought to go by It would argue Ignorance or Childishness to do otherwise And one should fall under these Censures if for instance one should cause a Poetical person to be born under an unlucky Constellation to whom we would give good inclinations and a happy fortune whatsoever Instances may be opposed against the pretended doctrine of Astrologers yet that which is admirable and extraordinary in Poets does not consist in contradicting the common received opinion about these things Education is another Cause of the Manners which depends upon the two former to wit the Care and Quality of the Parents Virgil has not forgot this Cause Those likewise with whom one converses contribute very much towards those various Inclinations that proceed from Education Whether one suits himself to their Humour or whether that conformity
in the mouth of a passionate person Yet observe what the enrag'd Medea says in Seneca Not time it self shall cool my glowing Rage Which grows in strength still as it grows in age Cruel as beasts or Scylla it shall be Or as Charybdis whose devouring Sea Sucks up th' Ionian and Sicilian Main Which meet and shove each other back again So scorching and so hot shall be my Ire Titan from Aetna ne'er belch'd half the Fire Englished thus by J. Hoadly of Cath. Hall Such learned Passions are seldom violent A Woman who takes notice that Charybdis swallows up the two Seas of Ionium and Sicily and that the Flames which Aetna throws out are belched by a Giant that is overwhelmed with the weight of that Mountain thinks upon something else beside her Anger CHAP. IV. Concerning Sentences THis Word Sententia in Latin is very Ambiguous It signifies that part of Poetry which we now treat of in this Book under the Name of Sentiments or Thoughts It likewise signifies a Sentence of few Words that contains some profitable Thought or other for the conduct of human Life such as in these Instances Learn to be just and don 't the Gods contemn The habits we contract in our youth are of great Moment c. The Word Sentence in our Language does not fall under the first of these two Significations Therefore in this Chapter we shall only take it in the latter Sence and understand by it a Moral Instruction couch'd in a few Words Sentences then render Poems very useful and besides that they have I know not what kind of Lustre that pleases us So that it seems natural to imagine that the more any Work is embellish'd with them the more it deserves that general Approbation which Horace promises to those that have the Art to mix the Profitable with the Pleasant But there is not any one Vertue but what is attended with some dangerous Vice or other Too many Sentences make the Poem sink into a Stile that is too Philosophical and cast it into a Seriousness that is less becoming the Majesty of a Poem than the Study of the Learned and the Gravity of the Dogmatical These Thoughts have in their own Nature a certain kind of calm Wisdom that is contrary to the Passions and with which they inspire us They are such as make the Passions languish as well in the Auditors as in the speakers To conclude the Affectation of speaking by Sentences is the cause that many foolish and triffling ones are spoken or that they are spoken by such whose present State and Condition does not allow them to be so prudent and learned We have a great many of these vicious instances in Seneca's Tragedies The misfortunes of Hecuba in the loss of her Kingdom Husband Children and Liberty render'd her no longer capable of any thing else but Barking Howling and Biting to use the Poet's Dialect who for this reason have judiciously transform'd her into a Bitch From whence then proceed these grave and moderate Sentences and these fine Moral Reflections Let those who sit on Thrones and bear a sway In Courts who think the Gods will always be Propitious to them and maintain their State Look down on mine and Troy's unhappy Fate From these sad turns of Fortune they may learn Themselves may die like Slaves tho' Monarchs born Certainly these are not the Thoughts of this Hecuba whose name is borrow'd here They are the Thoughts of Seneca the Philosopher writing at quiet in his Study and meditating upon the Misfortunes to which the Height of Fortune exposes us The only interest he takes upon him is to draw from thence useful Maxims and this fine Moral which the glittering Thrones and the dreadful fall of the most puissant Monarchies supply'd him with These are such Sentences as are ill manag'd Let us now take notice of others that are as ill employ'd and yet are moreover cold ridiculous and absurd Oedipus seeking out for a Remedy to succour Thebes that is reduced to the very brink of ruin is forc'd at last to conjure up the Ghost of King Laius He orders Creon to be present at that Ceremony and afterwards to come and give him an account of it The Ghost appear'd discover'd the remedy according as it was requir'd and Creon comes to give the King an account of it He begins with declaring that he cannot tell how to utter his mind and by Sentences he makes this foolish Declaration to him We 're loth to live when by the nauseous Pill Our health must be restor'd Kings take it ill They should be told what they sometimes require Let me be silent That 's a small desire No King can well refuse If that 's deny'd What can be granted me A Man must have a strange fancy to speak Sententiously that makes his Personages speak thus upon such an Occasion When he is upon declaring the only Remedy that could save a State which his silence would certainly ruin is it not a great piece of Impertinence to say That the least favour that could be begged of a King is to hold ones peace and that if it be not lawful to conceal this Remedy nothing is lawful Yet Oedipus who at the first denyal made him by Creon was so incensed against him as to threaten him with Death when he should have been incensed more against him for his perservering in so unreasonable a denyal and for his alledging such foolish reasons as would make one believe he jeer'd him to his face Yet I say as if Oedipus were of the Poets own mind and had a greater Inclination for Sentences than for the safety of his Subjects he seems to be wholly pacified since he has the patience to hear Creon say so many fine ones and is willing to utter such as well as he And they too are of the same stamp with those we have already seen This is his answer That oftimes silence does more harm to Kings and States than even speaking does and that lastly he is no obedient Subject that speaks not when Commanded The first Remedy to cure these Indecenies is to imagine we hear the true Persons talking naturally together and to suppose our selves in their places and see what we would say upon such an Occasion By this means a Man will learn to use Sentences seldomer and to retrench those that being not necessary to raise the Idea of that which he would represent are only dress'd up for a show He will likewise learn to strip a great many Thoughts of that Ambitious Air which forms a general Precept out of a Trifle And he will say upon these occasions I command you to speak do you Obey And not like Seneca he that does not speak when commanded does not do as we Command him In short he will know how to manage the Sentences he makes use of better and how to render them more just The second Remedy is so to express these Sentences