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 be lost and evaporate in the course of the work, without the least damage to the composition.

may

FOR THE MORAL AND ALLEGORY.

These you may extract out of the Fable afterward, at your leisure: be sure you strain them sufficiently.

FOR THE MANNERS 8.

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

8 A stroke of ridicule on Bossu. Two very different opinions are held on this subject; and two very opposite interpretations are given of the xonarà on 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, Bateaux, 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.

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, 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-

9 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 a contest between the Guardian Angels of kingdoms. But Arthur was reserved for another fate, and furnishes the most absurd examples in the Bathos.

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 Conflagration1, well circumstanced and done into verse, will be a good Succeda

neum.

As for Similes and Metaphors, they may be found all over the Creation; the most ignorant may gather

An undeserved sarcasm on a work full of strong imagery, Burnet's Theory.

VOL. VI.

them, but the difficulty is in applying them. For this advise with your Bookseller2.

* The Discourse of Voltaire on the Epic Poets of all nations, added to his Henriade, contains many false and rude 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,

"Qui forca les Francois 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 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 dropt 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:

C

"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. Despreaux has treated only didactic subjects, which requires implicity. It is well known that exactness and elegance constitute the chief merit of his verses, and those of Racine; and when Despreaux attempted a sublime ode, he was no longer Despreaux. These examples have accustomed the French to too uniform a march."

CHAP. XVI.

A PROJECT FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE

STAGES.

Ir may be thought that we should not wholly omit the Drama, which makes so great and so lucrative a part of Poetry. But this Province is so well taken care of, by the present Managers of the Theatre, that it is perfectly needless to suggest to them any other Methods than they have already practised for the advancement of the Bathos.

Here therefore, in the name of all our Brethren, let me return our sincere and humble Thanks to the most August Mr. Barton Booth, the most Serene Mr. Robert Wilks, and the most Undaunted Mr. Colley Cibber; of whom let it be known, when the People of this Age shall be Ancestors, and to all the Succession of our Successors, that to this present day they continue to Out-do even their own Out-doings: and when the inevitable Hand of sweeping Time shall have brushed

* The character of a Player is in this chapter treated rather too contemptuously. Johnson fell into the same cant, and treated his old friend Garrick unkindly and unjustly, at a time when he was received into the familiarity of some of the best families in this country. Baron, Chamellè, La Covreur, Du Menil, Le Kain, were equally respected in France. But the whole chapter is, in other respects, replete with incomparable and original humour, particu larly the third, fifth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh articles of this project. I have not been able to discover that Booth, who was a man of excellent character, or Wilkes, ever gave any such particular offence to our author as to deserve the sarcasms here thrown upon them.