Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/9



IS Sir Roger L'Estranges jocular Remark in his Preface before his English Tullys Offices, That a Man had as good go to Court without a Cravat, as appear in Print without a Preface: And therefore, because my Author has none, it may be expected I should Preface it for him. But since I undertake to personate so great a Critick as the Learned Bossu; it may to some seem requisite (let me be never so meanly qualified for such an undertaking) that I should give the World some Account of Poetry in General, and especially of the Epick Poem in Particular.

As for Poetry in General, I shall not trouble my head much about it at present; the World has had enough on that Subject already, and by much abler Pens. "That its Nature is Divine, that it owes its Original to Heaven; how from small Beginnings it rose at last to that Lustre we find it in, in