Rational, Probable, Serious, Important, mix'd with Divinities, Amplified and Rehears'd in Verse, it will be an Epick Poem: If it has not these Conditions, it will be another kind of Fable.
CHAP. X.
The Fable of the Odyssëis.
The Odyssëis was not design'd as the Iliad, to instruct all the States of Greece join'd and confederated in one Body, but for each State in particular. A State is compos'd of two parts; The Head which commands is the first, and the Members which obey make up the other. There are Instructions requisite for the Governour, and some likewise necessary for the Subjects: for him to rule well, and for them to be rul'd by him.
There are two Vertues necessary to one in Authority; Prudence to order, and Care to put in Execution the Orders he has given. The Prudence of a Politician is not acquir'd but by a long experience in all sorts of Business, and by an Acquaintance with all the different Forms of Governments and States. The Care of the Execution suffers not him that has order'd it, to rely upon others, but it requires his own Presence; and Kings who are absent from their States are in danger of losing them, and give way to great disorders.
These two Points might be easily united in one and the same Man. [1]"A King absent from his Kingdom visits the Courts of several Princes, where he learns the Customs of different Nations. From hence there naturally arises a vast number of Incidents, of Dangers, and of Passages, that are very useful for a Political Instruction: And on the other side, this absence gives way to the disorders which happen in his own Kingdom, and which end not till his return, whose sole Presence can re-establish all things". Thus the Absence of a King is the same, and has the same effect in this Fable, as the Division had in the former.
The Subjects have scarce any need but of one general Maxim, which is to suffer themselves to be govern'd by, and to obey faithfully some Reason or other which seems to them contrary to the Orders they have received. It were easie to join this to what we have already said, by bestowing on this Wise and Industrious Prince such Subjects, as in his absence would obey, not the Orders they receiv'd, but what appear'd to them more reasonable: And by demonstrating from
- ↑ Dic mihi Musa virum captæ post tempora Trojæ, Qui motes hominum multorum vidit & urbes. Hor. Poet.
