heroic virtue by example. It is conveyed in verse, that it may delight, while it instructs: the action of it is always one, entire, and great. The least and most trivial episodes, or under-actions, which are interwoven in it, are parts either necessary or convenient to carry on the main design; either so necessary, that, without them, the poem must be imperfect, or so convenient, that no others can be imagined more suitable to the place in which they are. There is nothing to be left void in a firm building; even the cavities ought not to be filled with rubbish, (which is of a perishable kind, destructive to the strength,) but with brick or stone, though of less pieces, yet of the same nature, and fitted to the crannies. Even the least portions of them must be of the epic kind: all things must be grave, majestical, and sublime; nothing of a foreign nature, like the trifling novels, which Ariosto,* and others, have inserted in their poems; by which the reader is misled into another sort of pleasure, opposite to that which is designed in an epic poem. One raises the soul, and hardens it to virtue; the other softens it again, and unbends it into vice.

*The early editions, by an absurd and continued blunder, read Aristotle. Ariosto, and indeed all the heroic Italian poets, Tasso excepted, have chequered their romantic fictions with lighter stories, such as those of Jocondo and of Adonio, in the "Orlando Furioso." But neither Ariosto, nor his predecessors Boiardo and Pulci, ever entertained the idea of writing a regular epic poem after the ancient rules. On the contrary, they often drop the mask in the middle of the romantic wonders which they relate; and plainly shew, how very far they are from considering the narrative as serious. It was, therefore, consistent with their plan, to admit such light and frivolous narratives, as might relieve the ge neral gravity of their tale, which resembled an epic poem as little as a melo-drama docs a tragedy.

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, 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 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 Thebaïs-if he had either furthered or hindered the taking of the townthe 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 enterprise.*

If this œconomy must be observed in the minutest parts of an epic 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 Odysseys, and which he fitted to the drama; furnishing himself also with observations

* I quote, from Mr Malone, Mr Harte's vindication of Statius ; premising, however, that it is far from amounting to an exculpation of that boisterous author, whose works have fallen into oblivion even among scholars, in due proportion to the ripening of poetical taste.

"Mr Dryden, in his excellent Preface to the Eneid, 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 critic : 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 terror 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 horror of a future war. This is intimated in some measure by the derivation of the word Archemorus."--- Note on Mr Walter Harte's Translation of the Sixth Book of the Thebaid.

Notwithstanding what Mr Harte has stated, our author seldom mentions Statius, without reprobating his turgid and bombast stile.

from the practice of the theatre, when it flourished under schylus, Euripides, and Sophocles: for the original of the stage was from the epic 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 infinity of pygmies, yet all endued with human souls; for from him, their great creator, they have each of them the divine particulam auræ. 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 conse quence, 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 epic poem is the draught at length.* Here, my lord, I must

* Dryden, as was excellently observed by Sir Samuel Garth, in his "Funeral Eulogy," always thought that species of composition most excellent upon which his labour had been more immediately employed. In the "Essay upon Dramatic Poesy," he had preferred the tragedy to the epic poem, and here he has reversed their station and rank. I think the principal distinction is no

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 mechanic 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 befal the greatestin 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 epic 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

ticed below. Tragedy is addressed, as it were, to the eye; and the whole scene to be enjoyed, even in perusal, must be supposed present to the observation. But epic poetry is, by its nature, narrative; and, therefore, while it is capable of the beauties of more extended description, and more copious morality, it is excluded from that immediate and energetic appeal to the senses manifested in the drama.