because it turns in a shorter compass—the whole action being
circumscribed within the space of four-and-twenty hours. He might prove
as well that a mushroom is to be preferred before a peach, because it
shoots up in the compass of a night. A chariot may be driven round the
pillar in less space than a large machine, because the bulk is not so
great. Is the moon a more noble planet than Saturn, because she makes
her revolution in less than thirty days, and he in little less than
thirty years? Both their orbs are in proportion to their several
magnitudes; and consequently the quickness or slowness of their motion,
and the time of their circumvolutions, is no argument of the greater or
less perfection. And besides, what virtue is there in a tragedy which is
not contained in an epic poem, where pride is humbled, virtue rewarded,
and vice punished, and those more amply treated than the narrowness of
the drama can admit? The shining quality of an epic hero, his
magnanimity, his constancy, his patience, his piety, or whatever
characteristical virtue his poet gives him, raises first our admiration;
we are naturally prone to imitate what we admire, and frequent acts
produce a habit. If the hero’s chief quality be vicious—as, for example,
the choler and obstinate desire of vengeance in Achilles—yet the moral is
instructive; and besides, we are informed in the very proposition of the
“Iliads” that this anger was pernicious, that it brought a thousand ills
on the Grecian camp. The courage of Achilles is proposed to imitation,
not his pride and disobedience to his general; nor his brutal cruelty to
his dead enemy, nor the selling his body to his father. We abhor these
actions while we read them, and what we abhor we never imitate; the poet
only shows them, like rocks or quicksands to be shunned.
By this example the critics have concluded that it is not necessary the
manners of the hero should be virtuous (they are poetically good if they
are of a piece); though where a character of perfect virtue is set before
us, it is more lovely; for there the whole hero is to be imitated. This
is the Æneas of our author; this is that idea of perfection in an epic
poem which painters and statuaries have only in their minds, and which no
hands are able to express. These are the beauties of a God in a human
body. When the picture of Achilles is drawn in tragedy, he is taken with
those warts and moles and hard features by those who represent him on the
stage, or he is no more Achilles; for his creator, Homer, has so
described him. Yet even thus he appears a perfect hero, though an
imperfect character of virtue. Horace paints him after Homer, and
delivers him to be copied on the stage with all those imperfections.
Therefore they are either not faults in an heroic poem, or faults common
to the drama.
After all, on the whole merits of the cause, it must be acknowledged that
the epic poem is more for the manners, and tragedy for the passions. The
passions, as I have said, are violent; and acute distempers require
medicines of a strong and speedy operation. Ill habits of the mind are,
like chronical diseases, to be corrected by degrees, and cured by
alteratives; wherein, though purges are sometimes necessary, yet diet,
good air, and moderate exercise have the greatest part. The matter being
thus stated, it will appear that both sorts of poetry are of use for
their proper ends. The stage is more active, the epic poem works at
greater leisure; yet is active too when need requires, for dialogue is
imitated by the drama from the more active parts of it. One puts off a
fit, like the quinquina, and relieves us only for a time; the other roots
out the distemper, and gives a healthful habit. The sun enlightens and
cheers us, dispels fogs, and warms the ground with his daily beams; but
the corn is sowed, increases, is ripened, and is reaped for use in
process of time and in its proper season.
I proceed from the greatness of the action to the dignity of the actors—I
mean, to the persons employed in both poems. There likewise tragedy will
be seen to borrow from the epopee; and that which borrows is always of
less dignity, because it has not of its own. A subject, it is true, may
lend to his sovereign; but the act of borrowing makes the king inferior,
because he wants and the subject supplies. And suppose the persons of
the drama wholly fabulous, or of the poet’s invention, yet heroic poetry
gave him the examples of that invention, because it was first, and Homer
the common father of the stage. I know not of any one advantage which
tragedy can boast above heroic poetry but that it is represented to the
view as well as read, and instructs in the closet as well as on the
theatre. This is an uncontended excellence, and a chief branch of its
prerogative; yet I may be allowed to say without partiality that herein
the actors share the poet’s praise. Your lordship knows some modern
tragedies which are beautiful on the stage, and yet I am confident you
would not read them. Tryphon the stationer complains they are seldom
asked for in his shop. The poet who flourished in the scene is damned in
the _ruelle_; nay, more, he is not esteemed a good poet by those who see
and hear his extravagances with delight. They are a sort of stately
fustian and lofty childishness. Nothing but nature can give a sincere
pleasure; where that is not imitated, it is grotesque painting; the fine
woman ends in a fish’s tail.
I might also add that many things which not only please, but are real
beauties in the reading, would appear absurd upon the stage; and those
not only the _speciosa miracula_, as Horace calls them, of
transformations of Scylla, Antiphates, and the Læstrygons (which cannot
be represented even in operas), but the prowess of Achilles or Æneas
would appear ridiculous in our dwarf-heroes of the theatre. We can
believe they routed armies in Homer or in Virgil, but _ne Hercules contra
duos_ in the drama. I forbear to instance in many things which the stage
cannot or ought not to represent; for I have said already more than I
intended on this subject, and should fear it might be turned against me
that I plead for the pre-eminence of epic poetry because I have taken
some pains in translating Virgil, if this were the first time that I had
delivered my opinion in this dispute; but I have more than once already
maintained the rights of my two masters against their rivals of the
scene, even while I wrote tragedies myself and had no thoughts of this
present undertaking. I submit my opinion to your judgment, who are
better qualified than any man I know to decide this controversy. You
come, my lord, instructed in the cause, and needed not that I should open
it. Your “Essay of Poetry,” which was published without a name, and of
which I was not honoured with the confidence, I read over and over with
much delight and as much instruction, and without flattering you, or
making myself more moral than I am, not without some envy. I was loth to
be informed how an epic poem should be written, or how a tragedy should
be contrived and managed, in better verse and with more judgment than I
could teach others. A native of Parnassus, and bred up in the studies of
its fundamental laws, may receive new lights from his contemporaries, but
it is a grudging kind of praise which he gives his benefactors. He is
more obliged than he is willing to acknowledge; there is a tincture of
malice in his commendations: for where I own I am taught, I confess my
want of knowledge. A judge upon the bench may, out of good nature, or,
at least, interest, encourage the pleadings of a puny counsellor, but he
does not willingly commend his brother-serjeant at the bar, especially
when he controls his law, and exposes that ignorance which is made sacred
by his place. I gave the unknown author his due commendation, I must
confess; but who can answer for me, and for the rest of the poets who
heard me read the poem, whether we should not have been better pleased to
have seen our own names at the bottom of the title-page? Perhaps we
commended it the more that we might seem to be above the censure. We are
naturally displeased with an unknown critic, as the ladies are with a
lampooner, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to
fasten our revenge; but great excellences will work their way through all
sorts of opposition. I applauded rather out of decency than affection;
and was ambitious, as some yet can witness, to be acquainted with a man
with whom I had the honour to converse, and that almost daily, for so
many years together. Heaven knows if I have heartily forgiven you this
deceit. You extorted a praise, which I should willingly have given had I
known you. Nothing had been more easy than to commend a patron of a long
standing. The world would join with me if the encomiums were just, and
if unjust would excuse a grateful flatterer. But to come anonymous upon
me, and force me to commend you against my interest, was not altogether
so fair, give me leave to say, as it was politic; for by concealing your
quality you might clearly understand how your work succeeded, and that
the general approbation was given to your merit, not your titles. Thus,
like Apelles, you stood unseen behind your own Venus, and received the
praises of the passing multitude. The work was commended, not the
author; and, I doubt not, this was one of the most pleasing adventures of
your life.
I have detained your lordship longer than I intended in this dispute of
preference betwixt the epic poem and the drama, and yet have not formally
answered any of the arguments which are brought by Aristotle on the other
side, and set in the fairest light by Dacier. But I suppose without
looking on the book, I may have touched on some of the objections; for in
this address to your lordship I design not a treatise of heroic poetry,
but write in a loose epistolary way somewhat tending to that subject,
after the example of Horace in his first epistle of the second book to
Augustus Cæsar, and of that to the Pisos, which we call his “Art of
Poetry,” in both of which he observes no method that I can trace,
whatever Scaliger the father, or Heinsius may have seen, or rather think
they had seen. I have taken up, laid down, and resumed, as often as I
pleased, the same subject, and this loose proceeding I shall use through
all this prefatory dedication. Yet all this while I have been sailing
with some side-wind or other toward the point I proposed in the
beginning—the greatness and excellence of an heroic poem, with some of
the difficulties which attend that work. The comparison therefore which
I made betwixt the epopee and the tragedy was not altogether a
digression, for it is concluded on all hands that they are both the
masterpieces of human wit.
In the meantime I may be bold to draw this corollary from what has been
already said—that the file of heroic poets is very short; all are not
such who have assumed that lofty title in ancient or modern ages, or have
been so esteemed by their partial and ignorant admirers.
There have been but one great “Ilias” and one “Æneis” in so many ages;
the next (but the next with a long interval betwixt) was the
“Jerusalem”—I mean, not so much in distance of time as in excellence.
After these three are entered, some Lord Chamberlain should be appointed,
some critic of authority should be set before the door to keep out a
crowd of little poets who press for admission, and are not of quality.
Mævius would be deafening your lordship’s ears with his
“_Fortunam Priami cantabo_, _et nobile bellum_.”
Mere fustian (as Horace would tell you from behind, without pressing
forward), and more smoke than fire. Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto 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. Spenser has a better plea for his “Faerie 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 stronghold 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 Segrais
before his translation of the “Æneis,” 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 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.
I must now come closer to my present business, and not think of making
more invasive wars abroad, when, like Hannibal, I am called back to the
defence of my own country. Virgil is attacked by many enemies; he has a
whole confederacy against him; and I must endeavour to defend him as well
as I am able. But their principal objections being against his moral,
the duration or length of time taken up in the action of the poem, and
what they have to urge against the manners of his hero, I shall omit the
rest as mere cavils of grammarians—at the worst but casual slips of a
great man’s pen, or inconsiderable faults of an admirable poem, which the
author had not leisure to review before his death. Macrobius has
answered what the ancients could urge against him, and some things I have
lately read in Tannegui le Febvre, Valois, and another whom I name not,
which are scarce worth answering. They begin with the moral of his poem,
which I have elsewhere confessed, and still must own, not to be so noble
as that of Homer. But let both be fairly stated, and without
contradicting my first opinion I can show that Virgil’s was as useful to
the Romans of his age as Homer’s was to the Grecians of his, in what time
soever he may be supposed to have lived and flourished. Homer’s moral
was to urge the necessity of union, and of a good understanding betwixt
confederate states and princes engaged in a war with a mighty monarch; as
also of discipline in an army, and obedience in the several chiefs to the
supreme commander of the joint forces. To inculcate this, he sets forth
the ruinous effects of discord in the camp of those allies, occasioned by
the quarrel betwixt the general and one of the next in office under him.
Agamemnon gives the provocation, and Achilles resents the injury. Both
parties are faulty in the quarrel, and accordingly they are both
punished; the aggressor is forced to sue for peace to his inferior on
dishonourable conditions; the deserter refuses the satisfaction offered,
and his obstinacy costs him his best friend. This works the natural
effect of choler, and turns his rage against him by whom he was last
affronted, and most sensibly. The greater anger expels the less, but his
character is still preserved. In the meantime the Grecian army receives
loss on loss, and is half destroyed by a pestilence into the bargain:—
“_Quicquid delirant reges_, _plectuntur Achivi_.”
As the poet in the first part of the example had shown the bad effects of
discord, so after the reconcilement he gives the good effects of unity;
for Hector is slain, and then Troy must fall. By this it is probable
that Homer lived when the Median monarchy was grown formidable to the
Grecians, and that the joint endeavours of his countrymen were little
enough to preserve their common freedom from an encroaching enemy. Such
was his moral, which all critics have allowed to be more noble than that
of Virgil, though not adapted to the times in which the Roman poet lived.
Had Virgil flourished in the age of Ennius and addressed to Scipio, he
had probably taken the same moral, or some other not unlike it; for then
the Romans were in as much danger from the Carthaginian commonwealth as
the Grecians were from the Assyrian or Median monarchy. But we are to
consider him as writing his poem in a time when the old form of
government was subverted, and a new one just established by Octavius
Cæsar—in effect, by force of arms, but seemingly by the consent of the
Roman people. The commonwealth had received a deadly wound in the former
civil wars betwixt Marius and Sylla. The commons, while the first
prevailed, had almost shaken off the yoke of the nobility; and Marius and
Cinna (like the captains of the mob), under the specious pretence of the
public good and of doing justice on the oppressors of their liberty,
revenged themselves without form of law on their private enemies. Sylla,
in his turn, proscribed the heads of the adverse party. He, too, had
nothing but liberty and reformation in his mouth; for the cause of
religion is but a modern motive to rebellion, invented by the Christian
priesthood refining on the heathen. Sylla, to be sure, meant no more
good to the Roman people than Marius before him, whatever he declared;
but sacrificed the lives and took the estates of all his enemies to
gratify those who brought him into power. Such was the reformation of
the government by both parties. The senate and the commons were the two
bases on which it stood, and the two champions of either faction each
destroyed the foundations of the other side; so the fabric, of
consequence, must fall betwixt them, and tyranny must be built upon their
ruins. _This comes of altering fundamental laws and constitutions_; like
him who, being in good health, lodged himself in a physician’s house, and
was over-persuaded by his landlord to take physic (of which be died) for
the benefit of his doctor. “_Stavo ben_,” was written on his monument,
“_ma_, _per star meglio_, _sto qui_.”
After the death of those two usurpers the commonwealth seemed to recover,
and held up its head for a little time, but it was all the while in a
deep consumption, which is a flattering disease. Pompey, Crassus, and
Cæsar had found the sweets of arbitrary power, and each being a check to
the other’s growth, struck up a false friendship amongst themselves and
divided the government betwixt them, which none of them was able to
assume alone. These were the public-spirited men of their age—that is,
patriots for their own interest. The commonwealth looked with a florid
countenance in their management; spread in bulk, and all the while was
wasting in the vitals. Not to trouble your lordship with the repetition
of what you know, after the death of Crassus Pompey found himself
outwitted by Cæsar, broke with him, overpowered him in the senate, and
caused many unjust decrees to pass against him. Cæsar thus injured, and
unable to resist the faction of the nobles which was now uppermost (for
he was a Marian), had recourse to arms, and his cause was just against
Pompey, but not against his country, whose constitution ought to have
been sacred to him, and never to have been violated on the account of any
private wrong. But he prevailed, and Heaven declaring for him, he became
a providential monarch under the title of Perpetual Dictator. He being
murdered by his own son (whom I neither dare commend nor can justly
blame, though Dante in his “Inferno” has put him and Cassius, and Judas
Iscariot betwixt them, into the great devil’s mouth), the commonwealth
popped up its head for the third time under Brutus and Cassius, and then
sank for ever.
Thus the Roman people were grossly gulled twice or thrice over, and as
often enslaved, in one century, and under the same pretence of
reformation. At last the two battles of Philippi gave the decisive
stroke against liberty, and not long after the commonwealth was turned
into a monarchy by the conduct and good fortune of Augustus. It is true
that the despotic power could not have fallen into better hands than
those of the first and second Cæsar. Your lordship well knows what
obligations Virgil had to the latter of them. He saw, beside, that the
commonwealth was lost without resource; the heads of it destroyed; the
senate, new moulded, grown degenerate, and either bought off or thrusting
their own necks into the yoke out of fear of being forced. Yet I may
safely affirm for our great author (as men of good sense are generally
honest) that he was still of republican principles in heart.
“_Secretosque pios_; _his dantem jura Catonem_.”
I think I need use no other argument to justify my opinion than that of
this one line taken from the eighth book of the Æneis. If he had not
well studied his patron’s temper it might have ruined him with another
prince. But Augustus was not discontented (at least, that we can find)
that Cato was placed by his own poet in Elysium, and there giving laws to
the holy souls who deserved to be separated from the vulgar sort of good
spirits; for his conscience could not but whisper to the arbitrary
monarch that the kings of Rome were at first elective, and governed not
without a senate; that Romulus was no hereditary prince, and though after
his death he received divine honours for the good he did on earth, yet he
was but a god of their own making; that the last Tarquin was expelled
justly for overt acts of tyranny and mal-administration (for such are the
conditions of an elective kingdom, and I meddle not with others, being,
for my own opinion, of Montange’s principles—that an honest man ought to
be contented with that form of government, and with those fundamental
constitutions of it, which he received from his ancestors, and under
which himself was born, though at the same time he confessed freely that
if he could have chosen his place of birth it should have been at Venice,
which for many reasons I dislike, and am better pleased to have been born
an Englishman).