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-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
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
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
Rules to any Art one cannot question but these four Persons had all Authority on their side with respect to the Epick Poem And this is the only kind we shall treat of at present 'T is true the Men of our Times may have as much Spirit as the Ancients had and in those things which depend upon Choice and Invention they may likewise have as just and as lucky Fancies But then it would be a Piece of Injustice to pretend that our new Rules destroy those of our first Masters and that they must needs condemn all their Works who could not foresee our Humours nor adapt themselves to the Genius of such Persons as were to be born in after-Ages under different Governments and under a different Religion from theirs and with Manners Customs and Languages that have no kind of relation to them Having no Design then by this Treatise to make Poets after the Model of our Age with which I am not sufficiently acquainted but only to furnish my self with some sort of Foundation in the Design I have of explaining the Aeneid of Virgil I need not concern my self with every new Invention of these last Times I am not of Opinion that what our late Authors think is universal Reason and such a common Notion as Nature must needs have put into the Head of Virgil. But leaving Posterity to determine whether these Novelties be well or ill devis'd I shall only acquiesce in what I think may be prov'd from Homer Aristotle and Horace I will interpret the one by the Other and Virgil by all Three as having the same Genius and Idea of the Epick Poesie CHAP. II. What is the Nature of the Epick Poem THE most considerable difference my Subject presents me with between the Style of the Ancients and that of the last Ages is That our way of Speaking is plain proper and without the Turn Whereas theirs was full of Mysteries and Allegories The Truth was mask'd under these ingenious Inventions which for their Excellence go under the name of Fables or Sayings as if there were as much difference between these fabulous Discourses of the Wise and the ordinary Language of the Vulgar as there is between the Language that is proper to Men and the Sounds brute Beasts make use of to express their Passions and Sensations At first the Fables were employ'd in speaking of the Divine Nature according to the Notion they then had of it This sublime Subject made the first Poets to be stil'd Divines and Poetry the Language of the Gods They divided the Divine Attributes as it were into so many Persons because the Infirmity of a Humane Mind cannot sufficiently conceive or explain so much Power and Action in a Simplicity so great and indivisible as is that of God And perhaps they were jealous of the Advantages they reap'd from such excellent and refin'd Learning and which they thought the vulgar part of Mankind was not worthy of They could not tell us of the Operations of this Almighty Cause without speaking at the same time of its Effects So that to Divinity they added Physiology and treated thereof without quitting the Umbrages of their Allegorical Expressions But Man being the chief and the most noble of all the Effects which God produc'd and nothing being so proper nor more useful to Poets than this Subject they have added it to the former and treated of the Doctrine of Morality after the same manner as they did that of Divinity and Philosophy And from Morality thus discours'd of has Art form'd that kind of Poem and Fable which we call the Epick What the Divines made their Divinity that did the Epick Poets make their Morality But that infinite Variety of the Actions and Operations of the Divine Nature to which our Understanding bears but little proportion did as it were force them upon dividing the single Idea of the only one God into several Persons under the different Names of Jupiter Juno Neptune and the rest And on the other hand the Nature of Moral Philosophy being such as never lays down a Rule for any particular thing the Epick Poets were oblig'd to unite in one single Idea in one and the same Person and in an Action that appear'd singular all that look'd like it in different Persons and in various Actions which might be thus contain'd as so many Species under their Genus Therefore when Aristotle speaks to this purpose That Poetry is more serious than History and that Poets are greater Philosophers than Historians are He does not only speak this to magnifie the Excellence of this Art but to inform us also of the Nature of it Poesie says he teaches Morality not by Recital only as an Historian who barely tells us what Alcibiades for Instance 't is Aristotle's own Instance did or suffer'd But by proposing whatever a Person let the Poet call him by what name he pleases ought either necessarily or in all probability to have said or done upon that or the like occasion 'T is in this Nature that the Poet lays down the bad Consequences of an ill-grounded Design or a wicked Action or else the Reward of good Actions and the Satisfaction one receives from a Design form'd by Vertue and manag'd by Prudence Thus in the Epopea according to Aristotle let the Names be what they will yet the Persons and the Actions are Feign'd Allegorical and Vniversal not Historical and Singular Horace is likewise of the same mind as we shall see hereafter Only by the way we cannot but observe that he not only says that Poets teach Men Morality full as well as Philosophers but in that he even gives Homer the Pre-eminence The reason Poets are more excellent herein than the plain downright Philosopher is this that every sort of Poem is in general an Imitation Now Imitation is extremely natural and pleases every body By which means this way of proposing things is more charming and more proper to take with an Audience Besides Imitation is an Instruction by Examples and Examples are very proper to perswade since they prove such or such a thing is feasible In short Imitation is so far the Essence of Poetry that it is Poetry it self as Aristotle the first Founder of this Art tells us And Horace recommends it very particularly to the Poet he would create But thô Poets play the Moral Philosophers yet still they are no less Divines The Morality they deal withal does indispensibly oblige them to have a Vein of Divinity run thrô all their Works Because the Knowledge the Fear and the Love of God in a Word Piety and Religion are the chief and solidest Foundations of other Vertues and of all Morality The Presence of the Deity and the Care such an August Cause ought to take about any Action obliges the Poet to represent this Action as great important and manag'd by Kings and Princes It obliges him likewise to think and speak in an elevated way
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
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
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
Surely Seneca's Design in making her speak thus was only to put her Audience upon admiring her fine Faculty of discoursing Pro and Con and what a great many pretty Sentences she had got by heart Let the case be how it will since he had a design to make use of this Nurse to debauch the chaste Resolution of Hippolytus he makes her speak well enough this second Speech and he re-assumes the Poetical Goodness when he quite the Moral Goodness and when he makes her vent such profligate Maxims Since then the Goodness that is proper to the Poetical Manners is to make them appear such as they are it is necessary to observe what are the things that discover to us the Inclinations of the Personages The first thing is the Speeches and Actions There are Manners in a Poem says Aristotle if as we said the Speeches and the Actions discover to us any Inclination The Poet makes his Personages speak and act as he pleases So that these two things are owing to him they are wholly at his disposal And they are the foundation of all the rest When the Manners are well exprest after this way they are denoted purely and simply by the term Good and this Goodness makes their first Qualification Aristotle places it in the front of all the rest that it may be the more exactly observed Horace likewise orders the Poet to be exact in demonstrating the Manners The second thing is the Knowledge which a Genius Study and Experience gives us of the Inclinations that are proper to each Person according to the Complexion the Dignity and all the other Causes whether natural or acquir'd internal or external all which we mention'd before As soon as the Poet has given the Dignity of a King to one of his Personages without hearing him speak or seeing him act we know that he ought to be grave majestical jealous of his Authority and the like The Inclinations should be suitable to that which the Poet has proposed and this Conformity and Suitableness makes the second Qualification of the Manners The third thing is the Knowledge which we deduce from the Fable or the History This sort of Discovery is comprehended under the Name of Common Opinion or Fame for the Reasons we have already mentioned So that when a Poet has nam'd Alexander we know that the Inclination of this Personage is all for Greatness and Glory and that his Ambition is larger than the Extent of the whole Earth If he introduces Achilles we know he is angry passionate and impatient The Manners of these Heroes in the Poem should be like to that which Fame has reported of them and this Resemblance makes the third Qualification of the Manners Lastly because the Poems may be divided into two parts as the Aeneid the one half whereof requires Piety and Patience and the other Violence and War a Man may fansie according to these so different States he may likewise make the Characters of his Hero different And then the Manners of each Part will be good in particular But because the Speeches and the Actions of the first Part have discovered the Inclinations which the Poet gives his Hero and because the Reader sees 't is so in the Fable and History and has the same Effect as common Fame this would be to offend against the first and third Qualification if we change the Character that is known from whence it follows that the Poet is oblig'd to make it constant and Even that is such at the End of the Poem as it appear'd to be at the Beginning and this Evenness of the Character is the fourth Qualification of the Manners So that there are four things to be observed in the Manners first that they be good secondly suitable thirdly likely and fourthly even These four Qualifications are comprehended in Aristotle's Definition so that if one should transgress any one of these he would transgress this Definition by making us pass a wrong Judgment upon the Inolinations of a Personage and the Resolutions he ought to take The most important and hardest thing is to distinguish these two sorts of Goodness in the Manners the one which we may call Moral Goodness and which is proper to Vertue and the other Poetical to which the most Vicious Men have as much Right as the Vertuous It consists only in the Skill of the Poet to discover rightly the Inclinations of those he makes to speak and act in his Poem That which raises the greatest Scruple is that the Poetical Manners suppose the others and Aristotle not only speaks of these two sorts in his Poesie but farther he makes use of the same Term to express these two sorts of Goodness To wind our selves out of this Difficulty 't will not be amiss to begin here by examining whether according to Aristotle the Poetical Hero ought necessarily to be an honest and vertuous Man For if this be not so then 't is plain that when Aristotle requires for the first and most principal Quality of the Manners that they be good he would not be understood to speak of that Moral Goodness which makes Men good and which is inseparable from Vertue So that though we do not perhaps penetrate through all the Obscurity of this Expression yet we shall at least know the bottom of his Thoughts And since this Question is necessary we shall not stick to add Reason and the Authority of others to that of Aristotle and that will establish it the better CHAP. V. Whether the Hero of the Poem ought to be an Honest Man or no THIS Question will seem unreasonable to those who have but one single Idea of their Heroes and who acknowledge none of that Name but those excellent Men who are endued with every Virtue are Masters of their Passions and all their Inclinations and whom an excellent and Divine Nature raises above the rest of Mankind But neither the Ancient Poets nor the Masters of this Art ever thought of placing their Heroes in so high a Sphere without thinking it lawful to put them in a lower form 'T is requisite then to make the same Distinction between a Hero in Morality and an Hero in Poetry as we did between Moral and Poetical Goodness and to say that Achilles and Mezentius had as much right to the Poetical Goodness as Vlysses and Aeneas So that these two cruel and unjust Men are as regular Heroes of Poetry as these two Princes that are so Just so Wise and so Good In the Poem it self this Term admits of two sences Sometimes it signifies indifferently all the persons of Note So that not only Aeneas and Turnus but likewise Entellus in the sports of the Fifth Book and Misenus the Trumpeter of Aeneas in the Sixth are styl'd Heroes by the Poet. But though the Name of Hero may be also bestow'd on other Personages yet there is so particular an Application of it made to the first that when one
of Aeneas or to lay it again So likewise a Woman stabb'd to the heart with a Ponyard as Dido was might very well die of the wound without Iris's being sent by Juno to clip a lock of Hair off her Head A Ship well mann'd and near the Haven might without any Miracle enter in before another that was farther off 'T is therefore without any necessity that the Poet makes use of the Gods therein and says that Mnestheus would have gain'd the prize perhaps had not Cloanthes put up so many vows and had not so many Sea-Gods that heard him lent him a helping hand Virgil makes use of several ways from whence one may discover there was necessity for Machines Sometimes the thing that is done by a God is necessary but it might as well have been done by a Mortal Aeneas should be inform'd of what had happen'd to Dido But there was no need that Venus should disguise her self under the shape of a Tyrrhenian Damsel that was hunting in a Wood. A mere Damsel might have inform'd him And 't is thus that we ought to interpret the Changes of the Gods into Men. These are the ways whereby Poets express themselves An Historian would say that Beroe excited the other Trojan Dames to fire their Fleet And a Poet says that Iris sent express by Juno takes upon her the shape of Beroe Sometimes the Action ascrib'd to a Deity cannot be done by a mere Man But then this Action shall not be at all necessary A mere Mortal cannot transform the Ships of Aeneas into Nymphs But then whether they are thus transform'd or whether they are destroy'd by fire still they are lost Nor can any one see what alteration one of these two Incidents would have caus'd in the Affairs of Aeneas more than the other I have already mention'd the Infernal Shades of the sixth Book the Fury that was sent by Jupiter to Turnus and several other We may therefore conclude that a Machine in the Epick Poem is not an Invention to wind ones self out of any Difficulty that is intricate affected and proper to some parts of the Poem But that 't is the Presence of a Deity and some supernatural extraordinary Action which the Poet inserts into almost all the Incidents of his Work to make it look more Majestical and surprizing and to give his Readers a Lesson of Piety and Vertue This mixture should be so made that one might retrench the Machines without cutting off any thing from the Action CHAP. VI. Whether the Presence of the Gods is any Disparagement to the Heroes THE care of our Poets in making the Actions and Designs of their Hero's to succeed by the assistance of the Gods puts me upon adding the following Reflections to what has been already said One would think there was no question to be made whether the Love and favour of God were an honour or a Disparagement to those he thus Loves and Favours And yet we suffer our selves to be so far prepossess'd with sensible and ordinary things that we become liable to more extravagant thoughts We judge of the Justice the Favours and if I may so say of the Duties of God just as we do of the Justice the Favours and the Duties of Men. In a fight between Two persons if a Third steps in and assists one of them to kill the other we blame that third person and with him condemn his friend who was so much a Coward as to stand in need of Succour to protect them both from disgrace These thoughts are proper and this Indignation just But Men treat God after the same Manner Jupiter say they should not have assisted Aeneas Was not this Hero brave enough to fight Turnus alone and valiant enough to Conquer him Where is there any need then of this foreign Assistance Does it not reflect upon the Hero and the God too And would Turnus have done less had he had the same Advantage This is their way of arguing from whence it must be inferr'd that the Love and Favour of God will serve only to make those that he would assist and and that venture to make use of that Assistance appear Weak Impotent Cowardly and not worthy of being Conquerors One should thereupon never pray to him nor thank him for any happy success And by this means the Character of Mezentius will be the Character of a perfect Hero and of a truly valiant Man This Bravo is not for having his Glory eclipsed by the Assistance of any Deity His Sword and his Arm are the only Gods he acknowledges and invokes He vows a Trophy to his Victory but this vow is only addressed to his Son Lausus whom he designs to adorn with the spoils of vanquish'd Aeneas These are the Prayers he makes for his Victory and these the Thanks givings he designs to make And these are likewise the Heroes those Men would make who find fault with Jupiter and Minerva for having bestowed the Victory on Aeneas Achilles and Vlysses 'T is true it would reflect upon an Hero if himself did nothing if the Hope and the Confidence he plac'd in the Promises and Favour of God rendring him more negligent he should wait for the effect with his hands in his bosom or else if exposing his Weakness and his little Valour and being just upon the point of yielding he ow'd his preservation and his Victory only to Gods and Miracles But the Practice of our Poets removes this inconveniency and we have fully satisfied the World as to this point when we observ'd that the presence and the Action of the Gods should be so order'd that one might retrench ev'ry thing that was extraordinary and Miraculous without making any alteration in the Action of the Humane Personages By this means the Epopéa will be neither a School of Impiety and Atheism nor of Idleness and Sloth But Men will there learn to adore God and acknowledge him as the Only and Necessary Principle of all the Good that can be done and without whom the most puissant Princes and she most accomplished Heroes cannot succeed in any of their Designs 'T is he that inspires Men with good Designs gives them Courage to undertake them and power to execute them Men will learn to respect and submit to him because this Submission and Humility which makes even Great Men stoop to their God is the Cause and the Occasion of their being elevated above the rest of Mankind They will learn to fear him by considering the Misfortunes those Men bring upon themselves who abandon him And because when our Passions have shut our Eyes and stop'd our Ears to his Orders and Instructions we are too slow in apprehending what a dreadful thing it is to make him our Enemy They will put an entire confidence in his Words and Promises But withal knowing that they suppose one shall merit the effects of them by using ones utmost endeavours an Hero will so behave himself in all his Actions as if he
Sense they have We can produce instances enow even in the Juridical Kind though that is more confin'd than the other two Besides did these Persons understand wherein a true praise does consist and were they Masters of the second quality we requir'd which is to know what Thoughts and Sentiments a Man should propose in order to raise a great Idea of himself in the minds of those that hear him they would then correct this first default they would speak correctly and say nothing but what was of Consequence and to the Purpose But since their first Error proceeds from a Defect in judgment it cannot be alone They imagine that the true esteem of an Orator or a Poet consists chiefly in fine Thoughts in strong and lofty Expressions in passions carry'd on to an extream or in other such like things which in truth belong not to Eloquence and sometimes produce effects quite contrary to the design of an unjudicious Author A Lawyer for instance will Imagine that his Esteem depends upon making a set Speech adorn'd with figures and full of a great many pretty Antitheses He will be sure to heap figure upon figure in his pleading And chuse rather to enervate a good Argument and lose his Cause by an unpardonable flight than not give his Antitheses all the Embellishments he judges they are capable of This is what Pedius did according to Persius's account of him Theft says th' Accuser to thy charge I lay O Pedius What does gentle Pedius say Studious to please the Genius of the Times With Periods Points and Tropes he slurs his Crimes English'd thus by Mr. Dryden Martial's Posthumus was troubled with another kind of whim He had a vast esteem for the Knowledge of History and thought this Science must needs make him pass for a very Learned Man He therefore soon quits his Subject to declaim against Hannibal and Mithridates and to plead the Romans Cause As if the Matter in debate were concerning their being Conquerors of the World whereas in truth the Controversie was only about three kids It was not sufficient to inform this Pleader of the Process of his Cause and of the business on foot 't was likewise requisite he should be inform'd of what he was to have no hand in With Poisinings Murders Rapes we 've nought to do The Judge impatiently expects that you Should prove how contrary no Roman Laws My Neighbour stole my Kids For that 's the Cause But you with strech'd-out hands and clamorous Bawl Thunder the Punick War around the Hall Who fought with Mithiriâ—lates how much Blood Was spilt at Cannae how that Sylla stood Competitor with Marius sought his doom And how bold Soaevola protected Rome Enough of this Now prithee Lawyer tell What sad mishap to my three Kids befell The more Vanity any Man has the more subject he is to these Vices Therefore Poete should be more upon their Guards than Orators The Composures of the last are only to be spoken and to establish for their Authors a present Fame But a Poet has Immortality so much in his Thoughts that he fansies he has enough and to spare on 't and promises it with so much Confidence to others as if his own where indisputable and as if all his Enemies were destroy'd to the very last Rat and Butter-Wife These Poets will stuff a Poem with Descriptions either ill plac'd or ill manag'd with affected and useless Figures with forc'd and insipid Sentences with Similes more fine than just and with other such like Ornaments And by this means they destroy the Idea they ought to give of their Subject by imprinting on their Readers minds nothing else but the Idea of their Knowledge Eloquence and fine Genius because they forsooth fansie that the Politeness of a Genius and the Honour of an Author consists in these things They judge of the Ancients and Moderns according to these Ideas and suppose they have excell'd Homer and Virgil and all other Poets when without minding the Character or any thing else that is peculiar and proper to each Poem they have heap'd up in that which they compose whatever appear'd beautiful in all the rest and when they have transplanted these pretended Beauties with as little skill as if the Nose or the Lips of an handsom person had the same Comeliness upon all sorts of Faces without any distinction of Age Sex or Proportion This was not Virgil's Opinion when he imitated the Greek Poet. He has given another sort of Character to his Aeneid and he well observ'd that this oblig'd him to give the things he borrow'd a quite different Turn This made him say That 't was harder to steal one Verse from Homer than to rob Hercules of his Club. This great Man had just and pure Ideas and perfectly knew how to inspire his Audience with them without quitting his design to run after false lights and glittering thoughts by an indiscreet Vanity more pardonable in the Rawness of a Scholar than in the Maturity of a Master Let us apply this to some general Thoughts CHAP. II. Concerning Descriptions DEscriptions are properly such Speeches as explain the parts and properties of some thing or other This Term sometimes extends even to Actions But that of a Recital or Narration is more proper to them especially when these Recitals are of some Length such as is that of the Tempest in the first Book of the Aeneid the Sports of the Fifth the Infernal shades of the next Book the Battles of the Second part with several Others which I was willing to comprehend under what I said concerning the Narration They are too considerable to be mention'd here under the Name of Sentiments or simple Thoughts The Descriptions we now speak of are only parts of these long Recitals They therefore must be short and moreover necessary and suited to the general Character of the Poem and to the Particular Character of the Subject matter that is describ'd as far as possible The Description of Carthage which Virgil makes the Frontispiece of his Aeneid is contained in six Verses It tells us that this City is seated over against Italy facing the very mouth of Tiber that it is powerful in War and that Juno had a mind to make it the seat of the Universal Monarchy This is the Cause of the Anger of this Deity and that which makes the Plot of the Poem The Readers would not have imagined how Aeolus could keep in and let loose the Winds as he thought fit if they had not been informed that they are inclosed in Caverns The Poet spends twelve Verses upon it The Ships of Aeneas so roughly handled by a Tempest and at a Season when the Sea was liable to frequent and unforeseen Storms had need of an Harbour that was free from this Danger and very still and since it was in a strange and unknown Country 't was requisite this Haven should be in a private and secret Place This is what Virgil describes in