By those who commonly discourse of Heroic, and Dramatic Poetry, the Action, and the Fable seem not to be sufficiently distinguished. The Action is a great Achievement of some illustrious Person, attended with an important and memorable Event. The Fable is that Complication of Incidents, Episodes, and other Circumstances, which tend to the carrying on of the Action, or give Reasons for it, or at least embellish and adorn it. I make this Distinction; because Episodes are such, as are either absolutely necessary, or very requisite. Of the former sort is that long Narration of _Æneas_, I mean in the main Substance of it, which is the entire Subject of the Second, and Third Books. This perhaps will not by some be allowed to be an Episode; because, I think, it is not commonly called so: For that Word is generally appropriated to _Actions_, and therefore will be supposed not applicable to a _Narration_. But I think we shall speak more clearly; if by that Word we mean (as indeed the [7]Etymology of it imports) whatsoever is _adventitious_ to the grand Action of the Poem, connected to it, or inserted in it; whether it be it self an Action, or no. And there is Ground enough to distinguish This from the immediate, and direct Train, or Course of the main Action it self; and to shew what may, and may not, be called an Episode. For Example; The Sailing of the _Trojan_ Fleet from _Sicily_ in the First Book, it's Arrival there again at the Beginning of the Fifth, and it's Sailing from thence at the End of that Book; The Landing at _Cumæ_ in the Beginning of the Sixth; and in another Part of _Italy_, at the Beginning of the Seventh; The whole Operations of that Book, and so of all the rest, wherever the Heroe himself, or his Armies for him, either with or without his Presence, are directly engaged in the great Affair to be carry'd on, are, all of them, so many successive Parts of one, and the same Action (the great Action of the Poem) continued in a direct Line, and flowing in it's proper Channel. But where any Part comes under any one of the Bye-Characters above-mentioned, it is properly an Episode, whether it be an Action, or a Narration. The long Recital of Adventures in the Second and Third Books is not an _Action_, but it is _Necessary_: The Expedition of _Nisus_ and _Euryalus_ in the Ninth is not _Necessary_, but it is an _Action_: And Both are Episodes. Which brings us back to the Distinction before taken notice of, between Incidents and Episodes, and the several Kinds of the latter. All Episodes are Incidents; but it is not so on the Reverse. The Storm in the First Book, driving the Fleet on the Coast of _Carthage_, is an Incident, but not an Episode; because the Heroe himself, and the whole Body of his Forces, are concerned in it; and so it is a _direct_, not a _collateral_ Part of the main Action. But even Episodes (as I said) must carry on the main Action, or give Reasons for it, or at least embellish it: And therefore I said they are either