frailty to be left in the best of them, any more than to be found in a Divine Nature. And if Æneas sometimes weeps, it is not in bemoaning his own miseries, but those which his people undergo. If this be an imperfection, the Son of God, when he was incarnate, shed tears of compassion over Jerusalem; and Lentulus describes him often weeping, but never laughing; so that Virgil is justified even from the Holy Scriptures. I have but one word more, which for once I will anticipate from the author of this book. Though it must be an Idea of perfection from which both the Epic Poet and the History Painter draws, yet all perfections are not suitable to all subjects, but every one must be designed according to that perfect beauty which is proper to him: An Apollo must be distinguished from a Jupiter, a Pallas from a Venus; and so in Poetry, an Æneas from any other Hero, for Piety is his chief perfection. Homer's Achilles is a kind of exception to this rule; but then he is not a perfect Hero, nor so intended by the Poet. All his Gods had somewhat of human imperfection, for which

he has been taxed by Plato as an imitator of what was bad. But Virgil observed hist fault and mended it. Yet Achilles was perfect in the strength of his body, and the vigour of his mind. Had he been less passionate or less revengeful, the Poet well foresaw that Hector had been killed, and Troy taken at the first assault: which had destroyed the beautiful contrivance of his Iliad, and the moral of preventing discord amongst confederate princes, which was his principal intention: for the moral (as Bossu observes) is the first business of the Poet, as being the ground-work of his instruction. This being formed, he contrives such a design or fable, as may be most suitable to the moral; after this he begins to think of the persons whom he is to employ in carrying on his design, and gives them the manners which are most proper to their several characters. The thoughts and words are the last parts which give beauty and colouring to the piece. When

I

say, that the manners of the Hero ought to be good in perfection, I contradict not the Marquis of Normanby's opinion, in that

admirable verse, where, speaking of a perfect character, he calls it

A faultless monster, which the world ne'er knew :'

A

For that excellent critick intended only to speak of dramatic characters, and not of epic. Thus at least I have shown, that in the most perfect poem, which is that of Virgil, a perfect idea was required and followed; and, consequently, that all succeeding Poets ought rather to imitate him, than even Homer. I will now proceed, as I promised, to the author of this book: He tells you, almost in the first lines of it, that "the chief end of Painting is to please the eyes; and it is one great end of Poetry to please the mind." Thus far the parallel of the arts holds true; with this difference, that the principal end of Painting is to please, and the chief design of Poetry is to instruct. In this the latter seems to have the advantage of the former. But if we consider the artists themselves on both sides, certainly their aims are the

very same; they would both make sure of pleasing, and that in preference to instruction. Next, the means of this pleasure is by deceit one imposes on the sight, and the other on the understanding. Fiction is of the essence of Poetry as well as of Painting: there is a resemblance in one, of human bodies, things and actions, which are not real; and in the other, of a true story by a fiction. And as all stories are not proper subjects for an Epic Poem or a Tragedy, so neither are they for a noble Picture. The subjects both of the one and of the other ought to have nothing of immoral, low, or filthy in them; but this being treated at large in the book itself, I wave it to avoid repetition. Only I must add, that though Catullus, Ovid, and others, were of another opinion, that the subject of Poets, and even their thoughts and expressions might be loose, provided their lives were chaste and holy, yet there are no such licences permitted in that art, any more than in Painting to design and colour obscene nudities. "Vita proba est," is is no excuse ; for

it will scarcely be admitted, that either a Poet or a Painter can be chaste, who give us the contrary examples in their writings and their pictures. We see nothing of this kind in Virgil; that which comes the nearest to it is the adventure of the Cave, where Dido and Æneas were driven by the storm; yet even there, the Poet pretends a marriage before the consummation, and Juno herself was present at it. Neither is there any expression in that story which a Roman matron might not read without a blush. Besides, the Poet passes it over as hastily as he can, as if he were afraid of staying in the cave with the two lovers, and of being a witness to their actions. Now I suppose that a Painter would not be much commended, who should pick out this cavern from the whole Eneis, when there is not another in the work. He had better leave them in their obscurity, than let in a flash of lightning to clear the natural darkness of the place, by which he must discover himself as much as them. The altarpieces, and holy decorations of Painting, show that Art may be applied to better uses as well as Poetry; and amongst many