mere fustian, as Horace would tell you from behind, without pressing forward, and more smoke than fire. Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto,[40] would cry out, "make room for the Italian poets, the descendants of Virgil in a right line:" father Le Moine, with his saint Louis; and Scudery with his Alaric, for a godly king and a Gothic conqueror; and Chapelain would take it ill that his _Maid_ should be refused a place with Helen and Lavinia.[41] Spencer[42] has a better plea for his "Fairy Queen," had his action been finished, or had been one; and Milton, if the devil had not been his hero, instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven him out of his strong-hold, to wander through the world with his lady errant; and if there had not been more machining persons than human in his poem. After these, the rest of our English poets shall not be mentioned. I have that honour for them which I ought to have; but, if they are worthies, they are not to be ranked amongst the three whom I have named, and who are established in their reputation. Before I quitted the comparison betwixt epic poetry and tragedy, I should have acquainted my judge with one advantage of the former over the latter, which I now casually remember out of the preface of Ségrais before his translation of the Æneïs, or out of Bossu, no matter which: "The style of the heroic poem is, and ought to be, more lofty than that of the drama." The critic is certainly in the right, for the reason already urged; the work of tragedy is on the passions, and in a dialogue; both of them abhor strong metaphors, in which the epopee delights. A poet cannot speak too plainly on the stage: for _volat irrevocabile verbum_; the sense is lost, if it be not taken flying. But what we read alone, we have leisure to digest; there an author may beautify his sense by the boldness of his expression, which if we understand not fully at the first, we may dwell upon it, till we find the secret force and excellence. That which cures the manners by alterative physic, as I said before, must proceed by insensible degrees; but that which purges the passions, must do its business all at once, or wholly fail of its effect, at least in the present operation, and without repeated doses. We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure. Thus, my lord, you pay the fine of my forgetfulness; and yet the merits of both causes are where they were, and undecided, till you declare whether it be more for the benefit of mankind to have their manners in general corrected, or their pride and hard-heartedness removed.