have inserted in their poems; by which the reader is misled into another sort of pleasure, opposite to that which is designed in an epick poem. One raises the soul, and hardens it to virtue; the other softens it again, and unbends it into vice. One conduces to the poet's aim, the completing of his work; which he is driving on, labouring, and hastening, in every line: the other slackens his pace, diverts him from his way, and locks him up like a knight-errant in an enchanted castle, when he should be pursuing his first adventure. Statius, as Bossu has well observed, was ambitious of trying his strength with his master, Virgil, as Virgil had before tried his with Homer. The Grecian gave the two Romans an example, in the games which were celebrated at the funerals of Patroclus. Virgil imitated the invention of Homer, but changed the sports. But both the Greek and Latin poet took their occasions from the subject; though, to confess the truth, they were both ornamental, or

questionably an errour of the press in the original copy, which escaped our author's notice, though he employed some time in correcting the first edition of his work, before the second was undertaken. In one of his letters to Jacob Tonson, he complains that the person employed in printing his Virgil " was a beast, and understood nothing of correcting the press." The present passage fully confirms that remark; for there can be no doubt that Dryden here wrote Ariosto. See pp. 89, 90, 442.—It is hardly necessary to observe, that Aristotle, though for an

with or without

entire century he has been represented in this Essay as an epick poet, never wrote any poem, trifling novels in it.

at best convenient parts of it, rather than of necessity arising from it. Statius, who through his whole poem is noted for want of conduct and judgment, instead of staying, as he might have done, for the death of Capaneus, Hippomedon, Tydeus, or some other of his Seven Champions, (who are heroes all alike) or more properly for the tragical end of the two brothers, whose exequies the next successor had leisure to perform, when the siege was raised, and in the interval betwixt the poet's first action and his second, went out of his way, as it were on prepense malice, to commit a fault. For he took his opportunity to kill a royal infant, by the means of a serpent, (that author of

7 This observation of our author drew from Mr. Walter Harte, several years afterwards, the following remark, subjoined to his translation of the sixth THEBAID:

"Mr. Dryden, in his excellent Preface to the NEID, takes occasion to quarrel with Statius, and calls the present book [the sixth] an ill-timed and injudicious episode.' I wonder so severe a remark could pass from that gentleman, who was an admirer of our author, even to superstition. I own I can scarce forgive myself to contradict so great a poet, and so good a critick: talium enim virorum ut admiratio maxima, ita censura difficilis. However, the present case may admit of very alleviating circumstances. It may be replied in general, that the design of this book was, to give a respite to the main action, introducing a mournful but pleasing variation from terrour to pity. It is also highly probable, that Statius had an eye to the funeral obsequies of Polydore and Anchises, mentioned in the third and fifth books of Virgil. We may also look upon them as a prelude, opening the mind by degrees to receive the miseries and horrour of a future war.

all evil,) to make way for those funeral honours which he intended for him. Now if this innocent had been of any relation to his THEBAIS, if he had either farthered or hindered the taking of the town, the poet might have found some sorry excuse, at least, for detaining the reader from the promised siege. On these terms, this Capaneus of a poet engaged his two immortal predecessors, and his success was answerable to his enterprize.

If this œconomy must be observed in the minutest parts of an epick poem, which, to a common reader, seem to be detached from the body, and almost independent of it, what soul, though sent into the world with great advantages of nature, cultivated with the liberal arts and sciences, conversant with histories of the dead, and enriched with observations on the living, can be sufficient to inform the whole body of so great a work? I touch here but transiently, without any strict method, on some few of those many rules of imitating nature, which Aristotle drew from Homer's ILIADS and ODYSSES, and which he fitted to the drama; furnishing himself also with observations

This is intimated in some measure by the derivation of the word ARCHEMORUS." POEMS, 8vo. 1727.

Mr. Harte's assertion that Dryden was an admirer of Statius, even to superstition, might have had some weight, had not our author frequently mentioned that poet, and never, I think, without disapprobation. In the Dedication of THE SPANISH FRYAR, (vol. ii. p. 57,) he says, Virgil had all the majesty of a lawful prince, and Statius only the blustering of a tyrant."

from the practice of the theatre, when it flourished under Æschilus, Euripides, and Sophocles. For the original of the stage was from the epick poem. Narration, doubtless, preceded acting, and gave laws to it what at first was told artfully, was, in process of time, represented gracefully to the sight and hearing. Those episodes of Homer, which were proper for the stage, the poets amplified each into an action. Out of his limbs they formed their bodies; what he had contracted, they enlarged; out of one Hercules were made infinite of pigmies, yet all endued with human souls; for from him, their great creator, they have each of them the divine particulam aura. They flowed from him at first, and are at last resolved into him. Nor were they only animated by him, but their measure and symmetry was owing to him. His one, entire, and great action was copied by them, according to the proportions of the drama. If he finished his orb within the year, it sufficed to teach them, that their action being less, and being also less diversified with incidents, their orb, of consequence, must be circumscribed in a less compass; which they reduced within the limits either of a natural or an artificial day. So that, as he taught them to amplify what he had shortened, by the same rule applied the contrary way, he taught them to shorten what he had amplified. Tragedy is the miniature of human life; an epick poem is the draught at length.-Here, my Lord, I must contract also, for before I was aware, I was almost running into a long digression to prove that there

is no such absolute necessity that the time of a stage-action should so strictly be confined to twenty-four hours, as never to exceed them; for which Aristotle contends, and the Grecian stage has practised. Some longer space, on some occasions, I think may be allowed, especially for the English theatre, which requires more variety of incidents than the French. Corneille himself, after long practice, was inclined to think, that the time allotted by the ancients was too short to raise and finish a great action; and better a mechanick rule were stretched or broken, than a great beauty were omitted. To raise, and afterwards to calm the passions, to purge the soul from pride, by the examples of human miseries which befall the greatest; in few words, to expel arrogance, and introduce compassion, are the great effects of tragedy: great, I must confess, if they were altogether as true as they are pompous. But are habits to be introduced at three hours' warning? Are radical diseases so suddenly removed? A mountebank may promise such a cure, but a skilful physician will not undertake it. An epick poem is not in so much haste; it works leisurely; the changes which it makes are slow, but the cure is likely to be more perfect. The effects of tragedy, as I said, are too violent to be lasting. If it be answered, that for this reason tragedies are often to be seen, and the dose to be repeated, this is tacitly to confess that there is more virtue in one heroick poem, than in many tragedies. A man is humbled one day, and his pride returns the next.