st of
its Agreeableness, and all its Power to raise Admiration. A chast
Historian must not go about to amuse his Reader with Machines; and a Poet
that would imitate him, must have been forc'd to thin his Stage
accordingly, and disband all his glorious Train of Gods and Godesses,
which composes all that's admirable in his Work; according to that of
Boileau; Chaque Virtue devient une divlnitie.

And these, if I mistake not, were the main Reasons on which the
foremention'd Rules were grounded. Let's now enquire into the Strength and
Validity of them: To begin with Homer, he wrote in that manner, because
most of the ancient Eastern Learning, the Original of all others, was
Mythology. But this being now antiquated, I cannot think we are oblig'd
superstitiously to follow his Example, any more than to make Horses speak,
as he does that of Achilles, 2. If a Poet lights on any single Hero, whose
true Actions and History are as important as any that Fable ever did or
can produce, I see no reason why he may not as well make use of him and
his Example to form the Manners and enforce any Moral Truth, as seek for
one in Fable for that purpose: Nay, he can scarce fail of persuading more
strongly, because he has Truth it self; the other but the Image of Truth,
especially if his History be, in the Third place, of it self diverting and
admirable. If it has from its own Fund, and already made to his hand those
Deorum Ministeria, which cost the Poet so much in the forming 'em out of
his own Brain. Nor can we suppose Fiction it self pleases; no, 'tis the
agreeable and the admirable, in the Dress of Truth; and such a Plan as
this would effectually answer both the Ends of Poetry in general,
delectari & monere, nay come up fuller to the End of Epic, which is
agreeable Instruction; and thence it follows strongly, that a Poem written
in such a manner, must, notwithstanding the foregoing Rules, be a true and
proper Heroic Poem, especially if adorn'd with Poetical Colours and
Circumstances through the whole Body thereof.

Now that all this is not gratis dictum, I think I can prove, even from
most of those very Authors I've already produc'd, as of the contrary
Opinion; and that I can make it appear, Bossu goes too far in fixing Fable
as the Essential Fund and Soul of the principal Action in an Epic Poem. To
begin with Rapin, who has this Passage, sur la Poetique, Reflex. 5. La
Poesie Heroique, &c. "Heroique Poesie, according to Aristotle, is a
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