To lay these ancient ornaments aside, Thinking our God, and prophets that he sent, Might act like those the poets did invent, To fright poor readers in each line with hell, And talk of Satan, Ashtaroth, and Bel.[74] The mysteries which Christians must believe, Disdain such shifting pageants to receive: The gospel offers nothing to our thoughts But penitence, or punishment for faults; And mingling falsehoods with those mysteries, Would make our sacred truths appear like lies. Besides, what pleasure can it be to hear The howlings of repining Lucifer, Whose rage at your imagined hero flies, And oft with God himself disputes the prize? Tasso, you'll say, has done it with applause:-- It is not here I mean to judge his cause: Yet though our age has so extolled his name, His works had never gained immortal fame, If holy Godfrey in his ecstasies Had only conquered Satan on his knees; If Tancred and Armida's pleasing form Did not his melancholy theme adorn. 'Tis not, that Christian poems ought to be Filled with the fictions of idolatry; But, in a common subject, to reject The gods, and heathen ornaments neglect; To banish Tritons, who the seas invade, To take Pan's whistle, or the fates degrade, To hinder Charon in his leaky boat To pass the shepherd with the man of note, Is with vain scruples to disturb your mind, And search perfection you can never find: As well they may forbid us to present Prudence or Justice for an ornament, To paint old Janus with his front of brass, And take from Time his scythe, his wings, and glass, And everywhere, as 'twere idolatry, Banish descriptions from our poetry. Leave them their pious follies to pursue; But let our reason such vain fears subdue: And let us not, amongst our vanities, Of the true God create a god of lies. In fable we a thousand pleasures see, And the smooth names seem made for poetry; As Hector, Alexander, Helen, Phyllis, Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles: In such a crowd, the poet were to blame To chuse king Chilperic for his hero's name. Sometimes the name, being well or ill applied, Will the whole fortune of your work decide. Would you your reader never should be tired, Chuse some great hero, fit to be admired, In courage signal, and in virtue bright; Let even his very failings give delight; Let his great actions our attention bind, Like Cæsar, or like Scipio, frame his mind, And not like Œdipus his perjured race; A common conqueror is a theme too base. Chuse not your tale of accidents too full; Too much variety may make it dull: Achilles' rage alone, when wrought with skill, Abundantly does a whole Iliad fill. Be your narrations lively, short, and smart; In your descriptions show your noblest art: There 'tis your poetry may be employed.