This Action must be one and uniform: the Painture of one Heroic Action, says Rapin from Aristotle. It must be, as Bossu from Horace, simplex duntaxat & unum, that is, the principal Action on which the whole Work moves ought to be one, otherwise the whole will be confus'd; tho' there may be many Episodic Actions without making what Aristotle calls an Episodic Poem, which is, where the Actions are not necessarily or not probably link'd to each other, and of such an irregular multiplication of Actions and Incidents. Bossu instances very pleasantly in Statius's Achilleid; but he tells us there's also a regular and just Multiplication, without which 'twere impossible to find matter for so large a Poem, when as before it's so ordered that the Unity of the whole is not broken, and consequently divers Incidents it has bound together are not to be accounted different Actions and Fables, but only different Parts not finish'd, or entire of one Action or Fable entire or finished: and, agreeable to this Doctrine, Rapin blames Lucan's Episodes as too far-fetch'd, over-scholastic, and consisting purely of speculative Disputes on natural Causes whenever they came in his way, not being link'd with the main Action, nor flowing naturally from it, nor tending to its Perfection. And in this Action, the Poet ought, as Rapin tells us, to invert the natural Order of things, not to begin with his Hero in the Cradle, and write his Annals instead of an Epic Poem, as Statius in his Achilleid, the Reason of which seems plain, because this would look more like History than Poetry. It's more agreeable, more natural, in some Sence, to be here unnatural; to bring in, by way of Recitation or Narration, what was first in order of time, at some distance from that time when it really happened, which makes the whole look unlike a dull formal Story, and gives more scope for handsome Turns and the Art of the writer. Another Reason why a whole Life is not ordinarily a proper Subject for Epics, is, because many trivial Accidents must be therein recited; but if a Life can be found in which is nothing but what's diverting and wonderful, tending besides to the perfecting the main Action, and the Order of time revers'd in the whole, the Case would be so much altered, that I think their Rules would not hold.