d Disposition of the several Parts, that it's no Wonder, if
not above One or Two of the Ancients, and hardly any of the Moderns, have
succeeded in their Attempts of this Nature. Rapin, and other Masters of
Epic, represent it as an Enterprize so hardy, that it can scarce enter
into the Mind of a wise Man, without affrighting him, as being the most
perfect Piece of Work that Art can produce. That Author has many excellent
Reflexions and Rules concerning it in his Discourse sur la Poetique; but
Bossu is the first I've seen who has writ a just and perfect Tract
thereon, wherein he has in a clear and Scholastic Method amass'd together
most that's to be found in Antiquity on that Subject, tho' chiefly keeping
to the Observations of Aristotle, which he drew from Homer, and who seems
the first that reduced Poetry to an Art. That Author defines Epic, "An
Artificial Discourse, in order to form the Manners by Instructions,
disguis'd under the Allegories of some one important Action, recited in
Verse, in a manner probable, diverting and admirable;" which he thus
himself abridges, "'Tis a Fable, agreeably imitated on some important
Action, recited in Verse in a manner that's probable and admirable;" In
which Definition are contain'd, as he afterwards explains it, the general
Nature of Epic, and that double, Fable and Poem: The Matter, some one
important Action probably feign'd and imitated: Its Form, Recitation or
Narration: And lastly, its End, Instruction, which is aimed at in general
by the Moral of the Fable; and besides in the particular Manners of the
Persons who make the most considerable Figure in the Work.

To begin with Fable, which he makes included in the general Nature or
Essence of Epic. This, he says, is the most essential Part of it; "That
some Fables and Allegories scatter'd up and down in a Poem don't suffice
to constitute Epic, if they are only the Ornaments, and not the very
Foundation of it." And again, "That 'tis the very Fund and principal
Action that ought to be Feign'd and Allegorical:" For which reason he
expresly excludes hence all simple Histories, as by Name, Lucan's
Pharsalia, Silius Italicus's Punic War, and all true Actions of particular
Persons, without Fable: And still more home; that 'tis not a Relation of
the Actions of any Hero, to form the Manners by his Example, but on the
contrary, a Discourse invented to form the Manners by the Relation of some
one feign'd Action, design'd to please, under the