s more
scope for handsome Turns and the Art of the writer. Another Reason why a
whole Life is not ordinarily a proper Subject for Epics, is, because many
trivial Accidents must be therein recited; but if a Life can be found in
which is nothing but what's diverting and wonderful, tending besides to
the perfecting the main Action, and the Order of time revers'd in the
whole, the Case would be so much altered, that I think their Rules would
not hold.

For the Form of Epic, which comes next in view, 'tis agreed on all Hands
to be Recitation or Narration. Bossu says, The Persons are not at all to
be introduced before the Eyes of the Spectators, acting by themselves
without the Poet; not that he'd hereby exclude the Poet from introducing
the persons telling their own Story, or some one of them that of the
principal Hero: for great part of Epic is thus far Dramatic. And thus
Virgil manages his second and third Books by way of Recitation, and that
by his Hero himself, making him give Dido a long account of the Wars of
Troy, and his own Actions, tho' thereby he falls into the Impropriety of
commending himself, with a--sum pius AEneas. Vida takes the same way of
Recitation, wherein he employs two or three of his six Books; and Milton
follows them both, tho' less naturally than either; for he introduces our
Saviour, in his Paradise regain'd, repeating a great part of his own Life
in Soliloquy, which way of Discourse includes, in a Wise Man especially,
so much of Calmness and deep Reflection, that it seems improper for the
great and noble Turn required in such a Work, unless in describing a
Passion, where it may be more lively. All that they mean by not
introducing the Parties, is not doing it as in a Tragedy: they are not to
be brought in abruptly to tell their own Tale from the beginning, without
the appearing Help of the Poet, as Actors in a true and proper Drama. And
this Narration, says Rapin, should be simple and natural; but the greatest
difficulty is, not to let its Simplicity appear, lest it thence grow
disagreeable, and the chiefest Art in this, consists in its Transitions,
and all the delicate surprising Turns, which lead the Reader from one
thing to another without his thinking whither he's going, or perceiving
any Breach or so much as a passage between 'em; after all, the more Action
there is in Epic, still the more Life there will be. A Poet may, I find,
easily fall into Poorness of Thought by aiming too much at the Pr