partly to Ezekiel's Visionary Representation and Prophetical Paradise. Nor
can it, I think, be justly reckoned more criminal, where we have any great
instructive Example, which has been real matter of Fact, to expatiate
thereon; adding suitable and proper Circumstances and Colours to the
whole, especially when the History it self is but succinctly Related, and
the Heads of things only left us. And this some great Man have thought was
the Method of the Holy Pen-man himself, whoever he were, in that lovely
antient Poem of Job; which, that 't was at the bottom a real History, few
but Atheists deny; and yet 'tis thought some Circumstances might be
amplified in the account we have left us, particularly the long Speeches
between that Great Man and his Friends; tho' the main hinges of the
Relation, his Person, Character, and Losses, the malice of the Devil, the
behaviour of his Wife and Friends, nay even the Substance of their
Discourses, as well as of that between God and him, and the wonderful Turn
of his Affairs soon after: All this might, and did, truly happen. Or, if
any amplification should be here deny'd, does not the Divine however every
day, Paraphrase and Expatiate upon the Words of his Text, inverting their
Method as he sees occasion, and yet is still thought unblameable. All the
difference is, that he delivers what's probable, as only probable; whereas
the Nature of Poetry requires, that such probable Amplifications as these,
be wrought into the main Action, in such a manner, as if they had really
happen'd; and without this, a Man might Ryme long enough, but ne'er cou'd
make a Poem, any more than this would have been one, had I begun with,
Abraham begat Isaac, and so tagg'd on to the end of all the fourteen
Generations, much as Nonnus has done with St. John, and yet often miss'd
his Sence too, as Heinsius judges.

But enough of Fable, and of those who would either reduce all Heroic
Poetry unto it, or absolutely banish it thence.