_Peacock_ against _Fetter-Lane_, both in _Fleetstreet_, 1697.




THE PREFACE, Being an ESSAY on HEROIC POETRY


A Just Heroic Poem is so vast an Undertaking, requires so much both of Art
and Genius for its Management, and carries such Difficulty in the Model of
the Whole, and Disposition of the several Parts, that it's no Wonder, if
not above One or Two of the Ancients, and hardly any of the Moderns, have
succeeded in their Attempts of this Nature. Rapin, and other Masters of
Epic, represent it as an Enterprize so hardy, that it can scarce enter
into the Mind of a wise Man, without affrighting him, as being the most
perfect Piece of Work that Art can produce. That Author has many excellent
Reflexions and Rules concerning it in his Discourse sur la Poetique; but
Bossu is the first I've seen who has writ a just and perfect Tract
thereon, wherein he has in a clear and Scholastic Method amass'd together
most that's to be found in Antiquity on that Subject, tho' chiefly keeping
to the Observations of Aristotle, which he drew from Homer, and who seems
the first that reduced Poetry to an Art. That Author defines Epic, "An
Artificial Discourse, in order to form the Manners by Instructions,
disguis'd under the Allegories of some one important Action, recited in
Verse, in a manner probable, diverting and admirable;" which he thus
himself abridges, "'Tis a Fable, agreeably imitated on some important
Action, recited in Verse in a manner that's probable and admirable;" In
which Definition are contain'd, as he afterwards explains it, the general
Nature of Epic, and that double, Fable and Poem: The Matter, some one
important Action probably feign'd and imitated: Its Form, Recitation or