his Subject. But whether this Censure be just, I know not, for Love and
Gallantry runs through all Virgil's Æneids, in the Instances of Helen,
Dido, and Lavinia, and indeed it gives so great a Life to Epic, that it
hardly can be agreeable without it, and I question whether ever it has
been so. Nor is he more just, I think, against Tasso's Episodes, which he
blames as not proper to circumstantiate his principal Action, not entring
into the Causes and Effects thereof, but seeking too much to please, tho'
I think this Charge is unjust, for 'tis in his Episodes, if any where,
that Tasso is admirable. I might here give several Instances, but shall,
at present, only refer my Reader to that of Tancred and Erminia, and I'm
mistaken if he does not dissent from Rapin in this particular. Sannazarius
and Vida were the next who did any thing remarkable in Epic; they both
writ in Latin on the same Subject, both Christian Heroics; Rapin says they
both had a good Genius for Latin, the Purity of their Style being
admirable, but that their ordering of the Fable has nothing in't of
Delicacy, nor is the manner of their Writing proportionable to the dignity
of the Subject. For Sannazarius he's indeed so faulty, that one can hardly
with Patience read him, the whole Structure of his imperfect Piece, de
partu, being built on Heathen Fable; yet he has great and vigorous
Thoughts and very Poetical Expressions, tho' therein Vida far excels him,
whose Thoughts are so noble, and the Air of his Stile so great, that the
Elogy Balzac gives his Countryman Tasso, wou'd as well or rather better
have fitted him; "That Virgil is the Cause, Vida is not the first; and
Vida, that Virgil is not alone." It is true, as Rapin observes, that his
Fable is very simple, and perhaps so much the better, considering the
Subject; tho' he forgets not Poetical Ornaments, where there's occasion,
if he does not lean a little to Sannazarius's Error; for he talks of the
Gorgons and Sphinxes, the Centaurs and Hydra's and Chimera's, though much
more sparingly and modestly than the other. He has the happiest beginning
that perhaps is to be found in any Poem, and by mingling his Proposition