I shall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and see
whether it falls short of the _Iliad_ or _AEneid_, in the Beauties which
are essential to that kind of Writing. The first thing to be considered
in an Epic Poem, is the Fable, [4] which is perfect or imperfect,
according as the Action which it relates is more or less so. This Action
should have three Qualifications in it. First, It should be but One
Action. Secondly, It should be an entire Action; and, Thirdly, It should
be a great Action. [5] To consider the Action of the _Iliad_, _AEneid_,
and _Paradise Lost_, in these three several Lights. _Homer_ to preserve
the Unity of his Action hastens into the Midst of Things, as _Horace_
has observed: [6] Had he gone up to _Leda's Egg_, or begun much later,
even at the Rape of _Helen_, or the Investing of _Troy_, it is manifest
that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of several Actions.
He therefore opens his Poem with the Discord of his Princes, and
[artfully [7]] interweaves, in the several succeeding Parts of it, an
Account of every Thing [material] which relates to [them [8]] and had
passed before that fatal Dissension. After the same manner, _AEneas_
makes his first Appearance in the _Tyrrhene_ Seas, and within Sight of
_Italy_, because the Action proposed to be celebrated was that of his
settling himself in _Latium_. But because it was necessary for the
Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of _Troy_, and in
the preceding Parts of his Voyage, _Virgil_ makes his Hero relate it by
way of Episode in the second and third Books of the _AEneid_. The
Contents of both which Books come before those of the first Book in the
Thread of the Story, tho for preserving of this Unity of Action they
follow them in the Disposition of the Poem. _Milton_, in imitation of
these two great Poets, opens his _Paradise Lost_ with an Infernal
Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he proposed to
celebrate; and as for those great Actions, which preceded, in point of
Time, the Battle of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which
would have entirely destroyed the Unity of his principal Action, had he
related them in the same Order that they happened) he cast them into the
fifth, sixth, and seventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem.

_Aristotle_ himself allows, that _Homer_ has nothing to boast of as to
the Unity of his Fable, [9] tho at the same time that great Critick and
Phi