Excellency of his Nature, or to some happy Transports; but withall so extraordinary, that the Ancients, and [1]Aristotle himself, stile them Fits of Enthusiasm or Frensie: yet still there is to be supposed an exact and solid Judgment to master this Frensie and Imagination of the Poet.
From what has been said, we may conclude that the End of Poetry is to please: that its Cause is either the Excellency of the Poet's Nature, or the Poetick Frensie, and these Transports of Spirit, that are to be govern'd by Judgment. Its Matter is the long and short Syllables, the Numbers it is made up of, and the Words which Grammar furnishes it with, as well as Prose. And its Form is the ranging of all these Things in such exact and charming Verses, as may best express the Thoughts of the Author after the manner we have been describing.
But after all, how confin'd is all this, if we consider the great Name of Poet in the Honour Homer and Virgil did it, and in all the Extent it is capable of! What we have said about it has nothing of Praise-worthy in it, but what ev'ry pitiful Translator may pretend to, and what the War of Catiline turn'd into Verse might bestow upon him, that would transpose the Prose of Sallust after this manner. 'Tis with Reason then that we distinguish these mean Subjects from great Poetry, by giving them the name of Versification; and that we make, as it were, two distinct Arts of Versification and Poetry. In a word, there is as much Difference between the Art of Making Verses, and that of Inventing Poems, as there is between Grammar and Rhetorick.
This great Art consists chiefly in the Fable, in the manner of Expressing Things by Allegories and Metaphors, and in the Invention of some probable Matter; that is, of some Actions, under which the Poet very charmingly disguises the Truths he would have us learn. This is so proper to the Poet, that even in the Expression [2]Aristotle recommends nothing so much as the Metaphor. Which agrees very well with that which we have already said about the Nature of Poetry. For the Fables are so many Allegorical Disguises, and an Allegory is nothing else but a Series and Chain of Metaphors linked together.
We shall speak of the Fable, and these important Matters in the Sequel of this Treatise. We shall here only make this one Reflection; That the true Poems, and such as have more of the Essence and Nature of Great Poetry than any other, are the Epopéa, the Tragedy, and the Comedy; for they are all Allegorical and Fabulous. Nor has [3]Aristotle in his Poetry undertaken to treat of any more than these
three
