impious, and frequently punished as they deserve; and that Heaven is not wanting to take that Hero always under its particular Protection, whom it chuses for the Execution of such grand Designs.”  This for the Moral Truth; we must then, he says, go on to lay the general Plan of the Fiction, which, together with that Verity, makes the Fable and Soul of the Poem:  And this he thinks Virgil did in this manner, “The Gods save a great Prince from the Ruines of his Country, and chuse him for the Preservation of Religion, and re-establishing a more glorious Empire than his former.  The Hero is made a King, and arriving at his new Country, finds both God and Men dispos’d to receive him:  But a neighbouring Prince, whose Eyes Ambition and Jealousie have closed against Justice and the Will of Heaven, opposes his Establishment, being assisted by another King despoil’d of his Estate for his Cruelty and Wickedness.  Their Opposition, and the War on which this pious Prince is forc’d, render his Establishment more just by the Right of Conquest, and more glorious by his Victory and the Death of his Enemies.”  These are his own Words, as any may see who are at the pains to consult him; nor can I help it, if either Virgil or Bossu happen to be Prophets.

When the Poet has proceeded thus far, and as Bossu calls it, dress’d his Project, he’s next to search in History or receiv’d Fable, for some Hero, whose Name he may borrow for his Work, and to whom he may suit his Persons.  These are Bossu’s Notions, and, indeed, very agreeable to Aristotle, who says, that Persons and Actions in this sort of Poetry must be feign’d, allegorical, and universal.

This is the Platform they lay; and let’s now see if we can discover the Reasons whereon they found these Rules, being so unanimous for Fable rather than true History, as the Matter of an Heroic Poem; and, if I mistake not, these are some of the principal.

1.  Because they had observ’d the best Models of Heroic Poems were laid after this manner; the greatest part of the Action both in Homer and Virgil being pure Fable.  Homer beginning, and all the rest following his Steps.

2.  Because no single Hero, or true History, which the Ancients knew was sufficient, without Fable, to furnish Matter for an Epic Poem.  History, says Aristotle, treats of particular Things as they really are; Poetry, as they ought to be; and therefore he prefers Poetry as the more grave and more instructive; the Poets being forc’d to follow the same Methods with their Kindred-Art, that of the Painters, and gather a great many Beauties together, out of ’em all, to steal one Venus.

3.  A third Reason may be, because, supposing they should have found some one Example from whence to enforce strongly any particular Point of Morality, yet it would have miss’d those other Characters of Epic, most of its Agreeableness, and all its Power to raise Admiration.  A chast Historian must not go about to amuse his Reader with Machines; and a Poet that would imitate him, must have been forc’d to thin his Stage accordingly, and disband all his glorious Train of Gods and Godesses, which composes all that’s admirable in his Work; according to that of Boileau; Chaque Virtue devient une divlnitie.