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DISCOURSE ON EPICK POETRY:5

ADDRESSED

TO THE MOST HONOURABLE

JOHN, LORD MARQUIS OF NORMANBY, EARL OF MULGRAVE, &c. AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER.“

A HEROICK poem, truly such, is undoubt

edly the greatest work which the soul of man is capable to perform. The design of it is, to form the mind to heroick virtue by example; it is conveyed in verse, that it may delight while it in

5 Prefixed, in the form of a Dedication, to the Translation of the ENEID.

6 John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, of whom some account has already been given, (see vol. i. p. 415,) was created Marquis of Normanby, May 10, 1694; and on the accession of Queen Anne, of whom he is said to have been an admirer in his youth, in May, 1702, he was created Duke of Buckinghamshire and Normanby, and appointed Lord Privy Seal.

He is (says Macky, in his CHARACTERS, 8vo. 1732, p. 20,) a nobleman of learning, and good natural parts, but of no principles. Violent for the High Church, yet seldom goes to it. Very proud, insolent, and covetous, and takes all advantages. In paying his debts, unwilling; and is neither esteemed, nor beloved: for notwithstanding his great interest at court, it is certain he has none in

structs. 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 epick kind; all things must be grave, majestical, and sublime: nothing of a foreign nature, like the trifling novels which Ariosto* and others

either house of parliament, or in the country.-He is of a middle stature, of a brown complexion, with a sour lofty look."

To this representation Swift gave his assent, by writing on the margin of his copy of Macky's book- This character is the truest of any."

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If we credit the testimony of his contemporaries, he was a poet of no vulgar rank. But favour and flattery are now at an end: criticism is no longer softened by his bounties, or awed by his splendour; and, being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer that sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines, feebly laborious, and at best but pretty." Johnson's Life of SHEFFIELD.

* Both the folios printed in our author's life-time, read here" which Aristotle," &c. in which they have been followed in all the modern editions. But it was un

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 entire century he has been represented in this Essay as an epick poet, never wrote any poem, with or without trifling novels in it.

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