Can't act like those the Poets did invent.

Tho' he too, is short in History, how excellent soever in Poetry. For
first, the Heathen Poets did not invent the Names of their Gods and
Heroes, but had 'em from Eastern Tradition, and the Phenician and Jewish
Language, tho' deflected and disguis'd after the Greek and other Forms, as
Josephus tells us, which the learned Bochart has proved invincibly; and I
have made some Essay towards it, in my Sixth Book. Nay further, it seems
plain to me, that most, even of their best Fancies and Images, as well as
Names, were borrow'd from the Antient Hebrew Poetry and Divinity, as, were
there room for't, I cou'd, I think, render more than probable, in all the
most celebrated Strokes of Homer, moat of the Heathen Poetical Fables, and
even in Hesiod's blind Theogonia. Their Gods or Devils, which you please,
were not near as Antient as the Hebrews. The Word Satan is as ancient as
Job; nor can they shew us a Pluto within a long while of him. Ashtaroth,
and Astarte, are old enough to be Grandmothers to their Isis, or Venus,
and Bel, of the same standing with Idolatry. Lawful it must certainly be,
to use these very Heathen Gods in Christian, since they were us'd in
sacred Hebrew Poetry, in due place, and in a due manner; Bel boweth down,
Nebo stoopeth, says Isaiah. And what a noble Description has the same
Prophet of the Fall of Lucifer? Nor can I see why it may not be as
convenient and agreeable, as 'tis lawful to transplant 'em from Hebrew
Poetry to our own, if we use 'em as they did. And then for Angels,
Prophets, and Oracles, it wou'd be strange, if they shou'd not strike the
Mind as agreeably when real and true, as the Daemons, or Oracles, or
Prophets of the Heathens, form'd, as has been said, partly from mistaken
Fragments, or Traditions of sacred Story, partly indeed from the Juggles
of the Heathen Priests, and crafty Ambitious Daemons. On the whole, we
have all the Advantages they had, and yet more than they, for Heroic
Poetry in these matters. As for that Question of Boileau's, "What Pleasure