res his Odysses with his Iliads; where he'll find, if 'tis not for
want of Judgment, in the latter a very different Air from the former, in
many places much more dead and languishing, and this which I have given,
seems one probable Reason on't; not excluding that of Longinus, that Homer
was then grown old, and besides too much of the Work was spent in
Narration; to which may be added, that he here design'd a wise and prudent
rather than a brave and fighting Hero, having wrought off most of the Edg
and Fury of his Youthful Spirit and Fury in Achilles, as in Ulysses he
express'd more of Age and Judgment.

This Action must be one and uniform: the Painture of one Heroic Action,
says Rapin from Aristotle. It must be, as Bossu from Horace, simplex
duntaxat & unum, that is, the principal Action on which the whole Work
moves ought to be one, otherwise the whole will be confus'd; tho' there
may be many Episodic Actions without making what Aristotle calls an
Episodic Poem, which is, where the Actions are not necessarily or not
probably link'd to each other, and of such an irregular multiplication of
Actions and Incidents. Bossu instances very pleasantly in Statius's
Achilleid; but he tells us there's also a regular and just Multiplication,
without which 'twere impossible to find matter for so large a Poem, when
as before it's so ordered that the Unity of the whole is not broken, and
consequently divers Incidents it has bound together are not to be
accounted different Actions and Fables, but only different Parts not
finish'd, or entire of one Action or Fable entire or finished: and,
agreeable to this Doctrine, Rapin blames Lucan's Episodes as too
far-fetch'd, over-scholastic, and consisting purely of speculative
Disputes on natural Causes whenever they came in his way, not being link'd
with the main Action, nor flowing naturally from it, nor tending to its
Perfection.

And in this Action, the Poet ought, as Rapin tells us, to invert the
natural Order of things, not to begin with his Hero in the Cradle, and
write his Annals instead of an Epic Poem, as Statius in his Achilleid, the
Reason of which seems plain, because this would look more like History
than Poetry. It's more agreeable, more natural, in some Sence, to be here
unnatural; to bring in, by way of Recitation or Narration, what was first
in order of time, at some distance from that time when it really happened,
which makes the whole look unlike a dull formal Story, and give