composition professedly historical.

On carrying such a scheme into execution, circumstances will occur which will not merely weaken but counteract the effect of his composition. For, on account of the extended knowledge of his subject, every alteration of its important incidents must be a violation of received truths; and hence it will unavoidably happen, that the expedient by which this alteration is effected will operate in a contrary direction, as well to the general end of the art, as to the particular means by which this species of composition aims at securing this general end. It deprives us of that portion of pleasure which arises from the consideration of truth; a quality that in no slight degree contributes to advance the end of such a work as an historical poem, the subject of which is chiefly recommended by its dignity and importance. We must consider moreover every alteration of an historick incident as being made suitably to the character of the production in which it is attempted: when this is not the case, whatever be the change effected, it must fail in its end, from the sense we retain of its want, not only of truth, but of propriety. Such however is the serious character of all historical com

position, that it will not admit of those means of exciting pleasure which are appropriate to works of a different description. It will not, in fact, permit that continued address to the more powerful emotions, which constitute our delight in the perusal of such productions as the drama or marvellous epos; and which, by engrossing the mind, leave it insensible to the violence which is offered to its received notions, when striking facts are misrepresented or altered.

These considerations on the serious character of the historick poem, may be prosecuted even further in confirmation of the same position. From the necessity incumbent on the poet of preserving such a character, we may fairly deduce, that he is confined to the observation, if not of truth, at least of verisimilitude; a quality which criticism" has in all ages, pronounced requisite to the poet in detailing, as well the matter which he finds,"

d Φανερον δε εκ των ειρημενων, και οτι 8 το τα γενόμενα λεγειν, τέτο ποιητό ἔργον εστιν, αλλ' οἷα αν γενοιτο, και τα δυνατα κατα το εικος, η το αναγκαιον. Arist. De Poet. § 18.

• For historical or true events may sometimes be improbable. Thus M. Boileau, after Aristotle, observes,

Jamais au spectateur n'offrez rien d'incroyable;

Le vrai peut quelquefois n'etre pas vraisemblable.

D

L'Art. Poet. III. v. 47.

as that which he supplies in his subject. Now among those subjects which are purely fictitious, or are so remote in point of time as to be known with little certainty, the mind, from having no standard to decide how far they may be false or real, may be led to admit every thing in them as far as it is probable. But this is not the case with our thoughts on subjects that have not only a positive, but a recent existence. In them the standard of truth is fixed and determinable. And so far so, that if we depart from their reality we annul their verisimilitude: for in altering any incident of which we have an accurate knowledge, it is evident we take from it the appearance of truth. If, therefore, verisimilitude is necessary to poetry, it is a fair inference to assert, that in order to preserve it in the historick epos, no alteration or embellishment can take place which affects the reality of its incidents, as far as they are known and important.

From this view of the subject the authours of the " Pharsalia," and the "Campaign," who have been so often censured for a rigid adherence to reality, appear rather to merit applause than to need justification. Nor am I of opinion, that their practice in construct

ing their works with that historick fidelity which we discover in them, is to be attributed more to choice than to necessity. As living near the period which produced those illustrious actions which their respective poems were intended to celebrate, they saw them in that strong point of view, in which great and recent events take hold of the recollection. The splendid objects to which their admiration had been turned had indeed gone down, but their departed glories still continued to illuminate the horizon. The poet and his readers must thus have stood in the same view with respect to the circumstances of his poem: both must equally have seen the impropriety of confounding in detail, the boundaries of truth and falsehood ; and writing under this impression, the artist naturally drew from his own feelings, a production suited to the feelings of his readers.

Nor can the imperfections of a less important rank, which criticks discover in the historick productions just mentioned, be insisted on as recommending a contrary practice to the poet, or be urged as abridging the exemplification of the doctrine which has been laid down on the present subject. Under cover of the same principles, the minuter

regions of fiction. In pursuing any track which occasionally falls into the direct course of history, a poet's way must be influenced by one of the before-mentioned principles of his art: it may be on the one side directed by an attachment to truth, or deflected on the other by the love of embellishment. But in his attempt to influence the reader's gratification, by means of the first of these qualities, his powers admit neither of increase or diminution. What is already truth, cannot be made more so; and of those persons, among whom he can expect to find readers, all must be supposed acquainted with the real statement of the more important facts in his subject. Nor does this happen to be the case with such readers only as live near the period when those occurrences took place, that are admitted into his descriptions; as his subject must, of necessity, be recommended by its dignity, it must rank those great among those occurrences that exist longest, and most forcibly in the memory. The knowledge of the poet's subject being thus definite and general, the alteration of any historick incident, for the purpose of securing the second quality, and conferring some particular beauty of embellishment, must be productive of a