the best authors, the origin, the antiquity, the growth, the change, and the completement of satire among the Romans; to describe, if not define, the nature of that poem, with its several qualifications and virtues, together with the several sorts of it; to compare the excellencies of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, and show the particular manners of their satires; and, lastly, to give an account of this new way of version, which is attempted in our performance: all which, according to the weakness of my ability, and the best lights which I can get from others, shall be the subject of my following discourse.

[Pg 35]

The most perfect work of poetry, says our master Aristotle, is tragedy. His reason is, because it is the most united; being more severely confined within the rules of action, time, and place. The action is entire, of a piece, and one, without episodes; the time[Pg 36] limited to a natural day; and the place circumscribed at least within the compass of one town, or city. Being exactly proportioned thus, and uniform in all its parts, the mind is more capable of comprehending the whole beauty of it without distraction.

[Pg 36]

But, after all these advantages, an heroic poem is certainly the greatest work of human nature. The beauties and perfections of the other are but mechanical; those of the epic are more noble: though Homer has limited his place to Troy, and the fields about it; his actions to forty-eight natural days, whereof twelve are holidays, or cessation from business, during the funeral of Patroclus.—To proceed; the action of the epic is greater; the extention of time enlarges the pleasure of the reader, and the episodes give it more ornament, and more variety. The instruction is equal; but the first is only instructive, the latter forms a hero, and a prince.

If it signifies any thing which of them is of the more ancient family, the best and most absolute heroic poem was written by Homer long before tragedy was invented. But if we consider the natural endowments, and acquired parts, which are necessary to make an accomplished writer in either kind, tragedy requires a less and more confined knowledge; moderate learning, and observation of the rules, is sufficient, if a genius be not wanting. But in an epic poet, one who is worthy of that name, besides an universal genius, is required universal learning, together with all those qualities and acquisitions which I have named above, and as many more as I have, through haste or negligence, omitted. And, after all, he must have exactly studied Homer and Virgil, as his 

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