very Additions are likewise in true Fables, they will never make these Recitals to be of the Nature of an Epopéa; because these Fables consist only in the Additions and Decorations of the Action. Now the Epick Fable is none of all this; 'tis on the contrary the Soul of a Poem, and the Ground-work upon which all the rest is built. And this Ground-work is to be prepar'd before one so much as think of the Decorations, which make no part of the Essence of the Fable. The being adorn'd and loaded with Animate Things, will never make an Animal, but there must be a Soul added to it: And though all the Earth were cover'd and embellish'd with an infinite number of Trees, and pierc'd very deep with their Roots, yet it will never pass for a Tree it self.
CHAP. XVI.
ARistotle bestows large Commendations on Homer for the Simplicity of his Design, because he has included in one single part all that happen'd in the Trojan War. And to him he opposes the Ignorance of certain Poets, who imagin'd that the Ʋnity of the Fable, or of the Action, was well enough preserv'd by the Ʋnity of the Hero, and who compos'd their Theseid's, Heraclid's, and such like Poems, in each of which they heap'd up every thing that happen'd to their principal Personage. The Instances of these Defects which Aristotle blames, and would have us avoid, are very instructive. These Poems are lost to us: but Statius has something very like it.
His Achilleid is a Model of all the Adventures which the Poets have feign'd under the Name of Achilles[1]. "O Goddess (says this Poet) sing of the magnanimous Son of Æacus, that has made Jove himself tremble, and was deny'd Admittance into Heaven, from whence he deduc'd his Origin. Homer has render'd his Actions very famous; but he has omitted a great many more than he has mention'd: For my part, I will not omit any thing. 'Tis this Hero at his full Length which I describe. Here is a noble Design, and Aristotle falls short of what he proposes.
All this cannot be consider'd, but as an Historical Recital, and without the least Glimpse of a Fable. Nor can I represent the
- ↑ Magnanimum Æacidem, formidatamque Toranti Progeniem, & patrio vetitam succedere Ioœlo, Dive refer. Quanquam actu Viri mulcium inclyta canen Mæonio, sed plura vacant. Nos ire per omnem, sic amor est, Heroa vetis.
Idea
