The Treasures of Poesie cannot be better bestowed than upon the apparelling of Truth, and Truth cannot be better apparelled to please young Lovers than with the Excellencies of Poesy. I would allow that an Epick Poem should consist altogether of a Fiction, that the Poet, 5 soaring above the Course of Nature, making the Beauty of Virtue to invite and the Horrour of Vice to affright the Beholders, may liberally furnish his imaginary Man with all the Qualities requisite for the accomplishing of a perfect Creature, having Power to dispose of all Things 10 at his own Pleasure.

But it is more agreeable with the Gravity of a Tragedy that it be grounded upon a true History, where the Greatness of a Known Person, urging Regard, doth work the more powerfully upon the Affections. As for 15 the Satyrist and Epigrammatist, they may mix both the Two, who shadowing Truth with Fables, and discovering true Persons with feigned Names, may, by alluding to Antiquity, tax the modern Times. I have heard some with a pretended Theological Austerity condemn the 20 Reading of Fictions, as only breathing a contagious Dissoluteness to impoison the Spirits, where such Works must be acknowledged as the chief Springs of Learning, both for Profit and Pleasure, showing Things as they should be, where Histories represent them as they are, 25 many times making Vice to prosper and Virtue to prove miserable: I like not the Alexander of Curtius so well as the Cyrus of Xenophon, who made it first appear unto the World with what Grace and Spirit a Poem might be delivered in Prose.

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The Ethiopian History of Heliodorus, though far inferiour to that for the Weight and State of the Matter, as fitted to instruct Greatness, yet above it for the Delicacy of the Invention and Variety of Accidents, strange yet possible, leading the curious Reader by a 35

baited Appetite, with a methodical Intricateness, through a Labyrinth of Labours, entertaining his Expectation till he come unto the End, which he must seek that he may understand the Beginning: A Work whereof the Author, 5 though he had Loss thereby, being a Bishop, needed not to be ashamed, his chief Person doing nothing that was not worthy to be imitated. But I confess that the Arcadia of S. P. Sidney (either being considered in the whole or in several Lineaments) is the most excellent Work that, in 10 my Judgment, hath been written in any Language that I understand, affording many exquisite Types of Perfection for both the Sexes; leaving the Gifts of Nature, whose Value doth depend upon the Beholders, wanting no Virtue whereof a Humane Mind could be capable: As for 15 Men, Magnanimity, Carriage, Courtesy, Valour, Judgment, Discretion; and in Women, Modesty, Shamefastness, Constancy, Continency, still accompanied with a tender sense of Honour. And his chief Persons being Eminent for some singular Virtue, and yet all Virtues being united 20 in every one of them, Men equally excelling both for Martial Exercise and for Courtly Recreations, showing the Author, as he was indeed, alike well versed both in Learning and Arms. It was a great Loss to Posterity that his untimely Death did prevent the Accomplishing of 25 that excellent Work.

Long since, being young, I adventured a Piece with him, beginning at the very half Sentence where he left with the Combat between Zelmane and Anaxius, and continuing till the Ladies were returned to their Father, 30 intending further, if I had not been otherways diverted, meerly out of my Love to the Author's Memory, which I celebrated under the Name of Philsides; intending to have altered all that followed after my Addition, having conformed my self only to that which went before; and 35 though being there but an Imitator, I could not really

give the Principall it self, but only as it were the Pourtrait, and that done by too gross a Pencil, Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum. It were enough to be excellent by being Second to Sidney, since who ever could be that, behoved to be before others.

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This Kind of Invention in Prose hath been attempted by sundry in the Vulgar Languages, as (leaving as not worthy to be named here those ridiculous Works composed of Impossibilities, and considering the best) Sanazarius's Arcadia in Italian, Diana de Montemajor in Spanish, Astrea 10 in French, whose Authors being all of excellent Wits, in a Bucolick Strain disguising such Passions of Love as they suffered or devised under the Persons of Shepherds, were bound by the Decorum of that which they profess'd to keep so low a Course, that though their Spirits could 15 have reach'd to more generous Conceptions, yet they could not have delivered them in Pastorals, which are only capable of Affections fit for their Quality; where S. P. Sidney, as in an Epick Poem, did express such things as both in War and in Peace were fit to be practised by 20 Princes. The most lofty of the other is the Marquis d'Urfee in his Astrea; and the choise Pieces there, representing any of the better Sorts, do seem borrowed from ancient Histories, or else Narrations that hapned in modern Times, rather true Discourses showing Persons 25 such as they were indeed, though with other Names, than for the framing of them for Perfection they should have been devised to be.

I have lately seen my Country-Man Barclay's Argenis, printed at Rome, though the Last in this Kind, yet no 30 way inferior to the First; he doth only meddle with Matters of State, War and Love, all chief Persons being Princes, which in my Judgment he doth discharge with a great Dexterity; and where he doth represent some Things, which either are Passages of this Time, or at 35

least, as having a great Conformity therewith, may be easily apply'd to the same, he doth it so finely, as if he found such Purposes in his Way, and went not astray with a Search too curiously elaborated. And if any Part 5 of his Work distaste the Reader, it will be the extreme affecting of Policy, by clogging his Muse with too long and serious Discourses, which, though they be full of Wit and Judgment, will seem tedious to some. But his Work, whether judged of in the Whole or parted in Pieces, will be 10 found to be a Body strong in Substance and full of Sinews in every Member.

A

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

A SESSIONS OF THE POETS

1637?

Session was held the other day,
And Apollo himself was at it, they say;
The Laurel that had been so long reserv'd,
Was now to be given to him best deserv'd.

Therefore the wits of the Town came thither,
'T was strange to see how they flocked together;
Each, strongly confident of his own way,
Thought to gain the Laurel away that day.

There Selden, and he sate hard by the chair;
Weniman not far off, which was very fair;
Sands with Townsend, for they kept no order;
Digby and Shillingsworth a little further:

There was Lucans Translators too, and he
That makes God speak so bigge in 's Poetry;
Selwin, and Waller, and Bartlets both the brothers;
Jack Vaughan, and Porter, and divers others.

The first that broke silence was good old Ben,
Prepar'd before with Canary wine;

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And

And he told them plainly he deserv'd the Bayes,
For his were calld Works, where others were but Plaies.

Bid them remember how he had purg'd the Stage
Of errors that had lasted many an Age;
And he hopes they did not think the silent Woman,
The Fox, and the Alchymist out done by no man.

And

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