The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule that an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a collection of many governments, who suffered very much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such discords. At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this for the instruction of his poem we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers: God save the king, and bless the land In plenty, joy, and peace; And grant henceforth that foul debate 'Twixt noblemen may cease. The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome; Homer's a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden Fleece and the Wars of Thebes for the subjects of their epic writings. The poet before us has not only found out a hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three, the Scotch retire with fifty- five; all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men's deaths who commanded in it: This news was brought to Edinburgh, Where Scotland's king did reign, That brave Earl Douglas suddenly Was with an arrow slain. "O heavy news!" King James did say, "Scotland can witness be, I have not any captain more Of such account as he."