ancient epic, for which he saw no cause in nature, and which, he supposed, had been followed merely from a blind deference to the authority of the first model, he resolved to construct an heroic poem on the narrower and, as he conceived, juster plan of the dramatic poets. And, because it was their practice, for the purpose of raising the passions by a close accelerated plot, and for the convenience of representation, to conclude their subject in five acts, he affects to restrain himself within the same limits. The event was, that, cutting himself off, by this means, from the opportunity of digressive ornaments, which contribute so much to the pomp of the epic poetry; and, what is more essential, from the advantage of the most gradual and circumstantiated narration, which gives an air of truth and reality to the fable, he failed in accomplishing the proper end of this poem, ADMIRATION; produced by a grandeur of design and variety of important incidents, and sustained by all the energy and minute particularity of description.

2. It was essential to the ancient epos to raise and exalt the fable by the intervention of supernatural agency. This, again, the poet mistook for the prejudice of the affected imitators of Homer, "who had so often led them

"into heaven and hell, till, by conversation "with gods and ghosts, they sometimes de

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prive us of those natural probabilities in

story, which are instructive to human lifes." Here then he would needs be original; and so, by recording only the affairs of men, hath fairly omitted a necessary part of the epic plan, and that which, of all others, had given the greatest state and magnificence to its construction. Yet here, to do him justice, one thing deserves our commendation. It had been the way of the Italian romancers, who were at that time the best poets, to run very much into prodigy and enchantment. "Not only to "exceed the work, but also the possibility of "nature, they would have impenetrable armors, "inchanted castles, invulnerable bodies, iron

men, flying horses, and a thousand other "such things, which are easily feigned by "them that dareh." These conceits, he rightly saw, had too slender a foundation in the serious belief of his age to justify a relation of them. And had he only dropped these, his conduct had been without blame. But, as it is the weakness of human nature, the observation of this extreme determined him to the other, of

Pref. to GONDIBERT, p. 3. Lond. 1651, 4to.
Answer to the Preface, p. 81.

admitting nothing, however well established in the general opinion, that was supernatural.

And as here he did too much, so in another respect, it may be observed, he did too little. The romancers, before spoken of, had carried their notions of gallantry in ordinary life, as high, as they had done those of preternatural agency, in their marvellous fictions. Yet here this original genius, who was not to be held by the shackles of superstition, suffered himself to be entrapped in the silken net of love and honour. And so hath adopted, in his draught of characters, that elevation of sentiment which a change of manners could not but dispose the reader to regard as funtastic in the Gothic romance, at the same time that he rejected what had the truest grace in the ancient epic, a sober intermixture of religion.

poem was answerable His SENTIMENTS are

The execution of his to the general method. frequently forced, and so tortured by an affectation of wit, that every stanza hath the air of an epigram. And the EXPRESSION, in which he eloaths them, is so quaint and figurative, as turns his description almost into a continued riddle.

Such was the effect of a studious affectation of originality in a writer, who, but for this

misconduct, had been in the first rank of our poets. His endeavour was to keep clear of the models, in which his youth had been instructed, and which he perfectly understood. And in this indeed he succeeded. But the success lost him the possession of, what his large soul appears to have been full of, a true and permanent glory; which hath ever arisen, and can only arise, from the unambitious simplicity of nature; contemplated in her own proper form, or, by reflexion, in the faithful mirror of those very models, he so much dreaded.

In short, from what hath been here advanced, and especially as confirmed by so uncommon an instance, I think myself entitled to come at once to this general conclusion, which they, who have a comprehensive view of the history of letters, in their several periods, and a just discernment to estimate their state in them, will hardly dispute with me, that, though many causes concur to produce a thorough degene

racy of taste in any country; yet the principal, ever, is, THIS ANXIOUS DREAD OF IMITATION IN POLITE AND CULTIVATED WRITERS."

And, if such be the case, among the other uses of this Essay, it may perhaps serve for a seasonable admonition to the poets of our time, to relinquish their vain hopes of originality,

and turn themselves to a stricter imitation of the best models. I say, a seasonable admonition; for the more polished a nation is, and the more generally these models are understood, the greater danger there is, as was now observed, of running into that worst of literary faults, affectation. But, to stimulate their endeavours to this practice, the judgment of the public should first be set right; and their readers prepared to place a just value upon it. In this respect, too, I would willingly contribute, in some small degree, to the service of letters. For the poet, whose object is fame, will always adapt himself to the humour of those, who confer it. And till the public taste be reduced, by sober criticism, to a just standard, strength of genius will only enable a writer to pervert it still further, by a too successful compliance with its vicious expectations.