several stations; the virtues of a private Christian are patience, obedience, submission, and the like; but those of a magistrate, or general, or a king, are prudence, counsel, active fortitude, coercive power, awful command, and the exercise of magnanimity, as well as justice. So that this objection hinders not, but that an epic poem, or the heroic action of some great commander, enterprized for the common good, and honour of the Christian cause, and executed happily, may[Pg 23] be as well written now, as it was of old by the heathens; provided the poet be endued with the same talents; and the language, though not of equal dignity, yet as near approaching to it, as our modern barbarism will allow; which is all that can be expected from our own, or any other now extant, though more refined; and therefore we are to rest contented with that only inferiority, which is not possibly to be remedied.

[Pg 23]

I wish I could as easily remove that other difficulty which yet remains. It is objected by a great French critic, as well as an admirable poet, yet living, and whom I have mentioned with that honour which his merit exacts from me, I mean Boileau, that the machines of our Christian religion, in heroic poetry, are much more feeble to support that weight than those of heathenism. Their doctrine, grounded as it was on ridiculous fables, was yet the belief of the two victorious monarchies, the Grecian and Roman. Their gods did not only interest themselves in the event of wars, (which is the effect of a superior providence,) but also espoused the several parties, in a visible corporeal descent, managed their intrigues, and fought their battles sometimes in opposition to each other: though Virgil (more discreet than Homer in that last particular) has contented himself with the partiality of his deities, their favours, their counsels or commands, to those whose cause they had espoused, without bringing them to the outrageousness of blows. Now, our religion (says he) is deprived of the greatest part of those machines; at least the most shining in epic poetry. Though St Michael, in Ariosto, seeks out Discord, to send her among the Pagans, and finds her in a convent of friars, where peace should reign, which indeed is fine satire; and Satan, in Tasso, ex[Pg 24]cites Solyman to an attempt by night on the Christian camp, and brings an host of devils to his assistance; yet the archangel, in the former example, when Discord was restive, and would not be drawn from her beloved monastery with fair words, has the whip-hand of her, drags her out with many stripes, sets her, on God's name, about her business, and makes her know the difference of strength betwixt a nuncio of 

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