mals, or to tell us what a certain Wolf has done or said. The same Judgment ought to be made of the Epick Fables, and the Application thereof is easie.
This Doctrine may easily render us capable of judging what extent is allowable to the Matter of a Poem; of what Incidents it is compos'd; and whether 'tis lawful to insert such as belong not to the main Matter.
Since then the Action is the Matter of a Fable, it is plain that whatever Incidents are necessary to the Fable, and make up a part of it, are likewise necessary to the Action, and are parts of the Epick Matter, none of which ought to be omitted: Such, for instance, are the Quarrel of the Dogs; and that of Agamemnon and Achilles: The havock which the Wolf made among the Sheep; and the Slaughter which Hector made in the Confederate Army: The re-union of the Dogs with each other; and that of the Grecian Princes: And lastly, the Re-settlement and Victory which was consequent to this Re-union in each of these Fables. Thus all things being adjusted, you see the Fable, and the whole Action, with which the Poem ought to conclude. If less had been said about it, it had not been enough.
But can an Author put nothing into his Poem, but what is purely the Matter of it? Or has he not the Liberty of inserting what he pleases, and of talking to it, as [1]Horace expresses himself, some pieces of rich and gay Stuff, that have nothing to do with the Ground-work? This is another Vicious Extreme, into which we shall never fall, if we follow the Dictates of Right Reason, the Practice of good Poets, and the Rules of the best Masters. They permit us on the one hand to insert some Incident or another, that is necessary to Clear up a part of the Action altho this Incident make up no part of the Fable nor the Action; and tho of it self it be not the subject Matter of the Epopéa: And on the other hand they do not approve of the Recital of an Incident that has not one of these two Conditions, viz. Such a one as is neither the Matter of the Epopéa, nor necessary to illustrate any part of the Action.
Examples and Authority will justifie this Doctrine, and make it more intelligible.
If in the Fable we mention'd, Æsop had related that the Wolf ranging one day in the Forest prick'd his Foot with a Thorn, of which after a great deal of Pain he was at last cur'd; doubtless he would have quite spoil'd his Fable: And Homer too had spoil'd his, if he had made an ample Narration of some Adventure that had happen'd to Hector, which had no manner of dependance on his design. They would have been more considerably to blame, had they inserted any Incident, which had not happen'd to these chief Personages, but which they only saw or heard. On the other side Æsop
- ↑ Purpureus latè qui Splendeat unus & alter assuitur pannus. Hor. Poet.
had
