down many mechanical rules for compositions of this sort, but at the same time they cut off almost all undertakers from the possibility of ever performing them; for the first qualification they unanimously require in a poet, is a genius. I shall here endeavour, for the respectable disciples, must, I am afraid, alas! be at last deserted and given up as a visionary and fantastical critic; especially for imagining, among other vain and groundless conceits and refinements, that Homer and Virgil first fixed on some one moral truth or axiom, and then added a fable or story, with suitable names and characters, proper to illustrate the truth so fixed upon. Before Bossu, Mambrun had advanced the same doctrine, and treated it in a philosophical Aristotelian manner, in a laboured Dissertation, which he exemplified by a woful Latin Epic Poem, intituled, Constantinus. He was one of those many critics who may remind us of the fate of Boccalini, when he was appointed by Paul V. governor of a small town, because he had written well on political subjects and on the art of government; but was obliged to be recalled after three months' administration for incapacity in the business. The lamentable Epic Poems that Boileau has strung together, the Jonas, the David, the Moses, the Alaric, the Clovis, are exactly of the sort and size of Sir Richard's Job, Arthur, and Alfred; from whom our Scriblerus takes so many instances of the absurd. To these Voltaire has added a work that ought to be exempted from this catalogue, the St. Louis of the Jesuit Le Moine, who seems to have possessed a more vigorous and fertile fancy than any of his countrymen; who, whatever talents they may lay claim to, are not eminent for imagination and creative powers. His Poem is in eighteen books, on the Recovery of our Saviour's Crown of Thorns from the Saracens ; the subject therefore closely resembles that of Tasso, certainly one of the most interesting subjects that has ever been treated. He has, like Tasso also, introduced machinery of angels, demons, and magicians. The speech and behaviour of one of the latter, Mireme, in the fifth book, page 145, who calls up from Hell the shades of many departed tyrants, is conceived with wonderful wildness of fancy, heightened by the scene of this transaction, near the pyramids of Egypt; especially when the ghost of Saladin declares, with an awful and tremendous voice, that the sultan must slay his daughter as an expiatory sacrifice. In short, this poem abounds in the terrible graces, and is in a tone and manner very superior to that generally used by the writers of France, and approaching to the sublimity of Dante or Milton; the noble fictions of whose Paradise Lost, the cautious and severe Boileau has, it is imagined, endeavoured to ridicule in the third canto of his Art of Poetry, v. 193. "Et quel objet enfin à présenter aux yeux, Que le diable toujours hurlant contre les cieux, What Boileau says of the Epopee is the worst, and what Marmontel says, is the best part in their respective arts of Poetry. It ought to be added, that although Le Moine frequently uses a turgid and hyperbolical style; yet that he has prefixed a discourse on heroic poetry, in which are many sensible and acute remarks. Le Moine is praised by Fontenelle, vol. ii. of his works. Voltaire very frankly owns, "Les Français n'ont pas Ja tête Epique."-Warton. benefit of my countrymen, to make it manifest, that epic poems may be made without a genius, nay, without learning or much reading. This must necessarily be of great use to all those who confess they never read, and of whom the world is convinced they never learn. Moliere observes of making a dinner, that any man can do it with money, and if a professed cook cannot do it without, he has his art for nothing; the same may be said of making a poem; it is easily brought about by him that has a genius, but the skill lies in doing it without one. In pursuance of this end, I shall present the reader with a plain and certain recipe, by which any author in the Bathos may be qualified for this grand performance. FOR THE FABLE. Take out of any old poem, history-book, romance, or legend (for instance, Geoffry of Monmouth, or Don Belianis of Greece) those parts of the story which afford most scope for long descriptions. Put these pieces together, and throw all the adventures you fancy into one tale. Then take a hero, whom you may choose for the sound of his name, and put him into the midst of these adventures. There let him work for twelve books; at the end of which you may take him out ready prepared to conquer or to marry; it being necessary that the conclusion of an epic poem be fortunate. TO MAKE AN EPISODE. Take any remaining adventure of your former collection, in which you could no way involve your hero; or any unfortunate accident that was too good to be thrown away; and it will be of use, applied to any other person, who may be lost and evaporate in the course of the work, without the least damage to the composition. FOR THE MORAL AND ALLEGORY. These you may extract out of the fable afterwards, at your leisure. Be sure you strain them sufficiently. FOR THE MANNERS 5. For those of the hero, take all the best qualities you can find in the most celebrated heroes of antiquity; if they will not be reduced to a consistency, lay them all on a heap upon him. But be sure they are qualities which your patron would be thought to have; and to prevent any mistake which the world may be subject to, select from the alphabet those capital letters that compose his name, and set them at the head of a dedication before your poem. However, do not absolutely observe the exact quantity of these virtues, it not being determined whether or no it be necessary for the hero of a poem to be an honest man. For the under characters gather them from Homer and Virgil, and change the names as occasion serves. FOR THE MACHINES. Take of deities, male and female, as many as you can use separate them into two equal parts, and keep Jupiter in the middle: let Juno put him in a ferment, 5 A stroke of ridicule on Bossu. Two very different opinions are held on this subject; and two very opposite interpretations are given of the Xonora non of Aristotle, and notandi mores of Horace. Dacier, Bossu, Shaftesbury, Harris, maintain that the words mean, that the manners should be only poetically good; but Heinsius, Hare, Batteaux, Marmontel, and Twining, insist that they should be morally good. The succeeding paragraph about the use of machines cannot but remind one of the different opinions held on this subject by Petronius, by Bossu, by Hobbes, by Temple, by Hurd, by Voltaire, by Lord Kaimes, by Blair, and Boileau. Warton. 6 In Dryden's long dedication to Lord Dorset of his_translation of Juvenal, he gives an account of his design of writing an Epic Poem on the actions either of Arthur or the Black Prince, and of the machinery he intended to have used on that occasion, which seems to have been happily and judiciously imagined, founded on an idea of the contest between the Guardian Angels of kingdoms. But Arthur was reserved for another fate, and furnishes the most absurd examples in the Bathos.Warton. and Venus mollify him. Remember on all occasions to make use of volatile Mercury. If you have need of devils, draw them out of Milton's Paradise, and extract your spirits from Tasso. The use of these machines is evident; since no Epic Poem can possibly subsist without them, the wisest way is to reserve them for your greatest necessities: when you cannot extricate your hero by any human means, or yourself by your own wit, seek relief from heaven, and the gods will do your business very readily. This is according to the direct prescription of Horace in his Art of Poetry: Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit That is to say, A poet should never call upon the gods for their assistance, but when he is in great perplexity. FOR THE DESCRIPTIONS. For a Tempest. Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, and cast them together in one verse: add to these of rain, lightning, and thunder, (the loudest you can) quantum sufficit: mix your clouds and billows well together till they foam, and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head, before you set it a blowing. For a Battle. Pick a large quantity of images and descriptions from Homer's Iliads, with a spice or two of Virgil, and if there remain any overplus, you may lay them by for a Skirmish. Season it well with Similes, and it will make an excellent Battle. For a Burning Town. If such a description be necessary (because it is certain there is one in Virgil) old Troy is ready burnt to your hands. But if you fear that would be thought borrowed, a chapter or two of the Theory of the Conflagration', well circumstanced and done into verse, will be a good Succedaneum. As for similes and metaphors, they may be found all over the creation; the most ignorant may gather them, but the difficulty is in applying them. For this advise with your bookseller 8. CHAPTER XVI. A PROJECT FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE STAGE. IT It may be thought that we should not wholly omit the Drama, which makes so great and so lucrative a part 7 An undeserved sarcasm on a work full of strong imagery, Burnet's Theory.-Warton. 8 The Discourse of Voltaire on the Epic Poets of all nations, added to his Henriade, contains many false crude opinions, particularly some objections to Paradise Lost. In the Geneva edition of this Poem we are informed of a curious anecdote. When it was printed at London in 1726, in quarto, by subscription, Mr. Dadiky, a Greek, and native of Smyrna, who at that time resided in London, saw by chance the first leaf as it was printing, where was the following line : 66 Qui força les François à devenir heureux;" he immediately paid a visit to the author, and said to him, I am of the country of Homer; he did not begin his poems by a stroke of wit or by an enigma." The author immediately corrected the line: but I beg leave to add, that he did not correct many others of the same modern kind. Voltaire has dropped a remark in the last edition of his Essay on Epic Poetry, which is not indeed very favourable to the taste of his countrymen, but is perfectly true and just, and which he seems to have forgotten in some of his late assertions : "It must be owned that it is more difficult for a Frenchman to succeed in Epic Poetry than for any other person; but neither the constraint of rhyme, nor the dryness of our language, is the cause of this difficulty. Shall I venture to name the cause? It is because, of all polished nations, ours is the least poetic. The works in verse, which are most in vogue in France, are pieces for the theatre. These pieces must be written in a style that approaches to that of conversation. Despréaux has treated only didactic subjects, which require simplicity. It is well known that exactness and elegance constitute the chief merit of his verses, and those of Racine; and when Despréaux attempted a sublime ode, he was no longer Despréaux. These examples have accustomed the French to too uniform a march."-Warton. 9 The character of a Player is in this chapter treated rather too con |