the virtues of a private Christian are patience, obedience,
submission, and the like; but those of a magistrate or a general or
a king are prudence, counsel, active fortitude, coercive power,
awful command, and the exercise of magnanimity as well as justice.
So that this objection hinders not but that an epic poem, or the
heroic action of some great commander, enterprised for the common
good and honour of the Christian cause, and executed happily, may be
as well written now as it was of old by the heathens, provided the
poet be endued with the same talents; and the language, though not
of equal dignity, yet as near approaching to it as our modern
barbarism will allow--which is all that can be expected from our own
or any other now extant, though more refined; and therefore we are
to rest contented with that only inferiority, which is not possibly
to be remedied.

I wish I could as easily remove that other difficulty which yet
remains. It is objected by a great French critic as well as an
admirable poet, yet living, and whom I have mentioned with that
honour which his merit exacts from me (I mean, Boileau), that the
machines of our Christian religion in heroic poetry are much more
feeble to support that weight than those of heathenism. Their
doctrine, grounded as it was on ridiculous fables, was yet the
belief of the two victorious monarchies, the Grecian and Roman.
Their gods did not only interest themselves in the event of wars
(which is the effect of a superior Providence), but also espoused
the several parties in a visible corporeal descent, managed their
intrigues and fought their battles, sometimes in opposition to each
other; though Virgil (more discreet than Homer in that last
particular) has contented himself with the partiality of his
deities, their favours, their counsels or commands, to those whose