Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/12

214 even the Cavities ought not to be fill'd with Rubbish, which is of a perishable kind, destructive to the strength: But with Brick or Stone, though of less pieces, yet of the same Nature, and fitted to the Crannies. Even the least portions of them must be of the Epick kind; all things must be Grave, Majestical, and Sublime: Nothing of a Foreign Nature, like the trifling Novels, which Aristotle and others have inserted in their Poems. By which the Reader is miss-led into another sort of Pleasure, opposite to that which is design'd in an Epick Poem. One raises the Soul and hardens it to Virtue, the other softens it again and unbends it into Vice. One conduces to the Poet's aim, the compleating of his Work; which he is driving on, labouring and hast'ning in every Line: the other slackens his pace, diverts him from his Way, and locks him up like a Knight Errant in an Enchanted Castle, when he should be pursuing his first Adventure. Statius, as Bossu has well observ'd, was ambitious of trying his strength with his Master Virgil, as Virgil had before try'd his with Homer. The Grecian gave the two Romans an Example, in the Games which were Celebrated at the Funerals of ''Patroclus. Virgil imitated the Invention of Homer'', but chang'd the Sports. But both the Greek and Latin Poet, took their occasions from the Subject; though to confess the Truth, they were both Ornamental, or at best, convenient parts of it, rather than of necessity arising from it. Statius, who through his whole Poem, is noted for want of Conduct and Judgment; instead of staying, as he might have done, for the Death of Capaneus, Hippomedon, Tideus, or some other of his Seven Champions, (who are Heroes all alike) or more properly for the Tragical end of the two Brothers, whose Exequies the next Successor had leisure to perform, when the Siege was rais'd, and in the Interval betwixt the Poets first Action, and his second; went out of his way, as