с do not feem to exhibit any certain moral, may probably have been thrown in by the poet only as an omen, and to raise what is commonly called the Wonderful, which is a property as effential to epick poetry as probability. Homer's giving speech to the river Xanthus in the Iliad, and to the horses of Achilles, feem to be inventions of the fame kind, and might be defigned to fill the reader with aftonishment and concern, and with an apprehenfion of the greatnefs of an occafion which, by a bold fiction of the poet, is fuppofed to have produced fuch extraordinary effects. As Allegory fometimes, for the fake of the moral fenfe couched under its fictions, gives fpeech to brutes, and fometimes introduces creatures which are out of nature, as goblins, chimeras, fairies, and the like; fo it frequently gives life to virtues and vices, paffions and diseases, to natural and moral qualities, and reprefents them acting as divine, human, or infernal perfons. A very ingenious writer calls these characters fhadowy beings, and has with good reafon cenfured the employing them in juft epick poems. Of this kind are Sin and Death, which I mentioned before in Milton, and Fame in Virgil. We find, likewife, a large group of thefe fhadowy figures placed in the Sixth Book of the Eneis, at the entrance into the infernal regions; but as they are only fhown there, and have no fhare in the action of the poem, the de Homer's giving Speech to the river Xanthus, and to the horfes of Achilles, &c.] Homer's giving fpeech to the horse (not horfes) of Achilles, is indeed a bold fiction; but his giving fpeech to the river Xanthus is not fo, nor ought it to be reckoned more marvellous than his making Jupiter and Juno fpeak for Xanthus was not the water, the river, but the god of the river, as Neptune is the god of the fea. JORTIN. d Spectator, Vol. IV. No. 273. HUGHES. fcription of them is a fine allegory, and extremely proper to the place where they appear. "Vestibulum ante ipfum, primifq; in faucibus Orci, 66 Pallentefq; habitant Morbi, triftifq; Senectus, "In medio ramos annofaq; brachia pandit "Ulmus opaca, ingens; quam fedem Somnia vulgo As perfons of this imaginary life are to be excluded from any fhare of action in epick poems, they are yet lefs to be endured in the drama; yet we find they have sometimes made their appearance on the ancient stage. Thus, in a tragedy of Æfchylus, Strength is introduced affifting Vulcan to bind Prometheus to a rock; and in one of Euripides, Death comes to the house of Admetus to demand Alceftis, who had offered herself to die to fave her husband's are to be excluded] Why fo? And by what law? Somnus is introduced as acting in the Ilias more than once, as alfo in other heroick poems; and Yvos nai avalos, Sleep and Death, are appointed to carry off the body of Sarpedon, and have a place in Hefiod's Theogonia, ver. 759. In a poem which is built upon a Jewish or Christian plan, a mixture of true religion and fable, good and bad angels in one place, and Jupiter and Juno in another, is perhaps juftly liable to cenfure, though great poets have not avoided it. But to allow a poet to introduce Mars and Minerva, and to forbid him to make use of Sleep, and Death, and Fear, and Difcord, &c. as actors, feems to be injudicious, founded upon a weak prejudice, that the latter have not in our imagination as good a right to be perfons as the former. The heathen theology is to be taken from the heathen writers; and whatever is a deity in Homer and Hefiod, has a perpetual and inconteftible right to be a poetical god. JORTIN, life. But what I have here faid of epick and dramatick poems does not extend to fuch writings, the very frame and model of which is defigned to be Allegorical; in which, therefore, as I faid before, fuch unfubftantial and fymbolical actors may be very properly admitted. Every Book of the Faerie Queene is fruitful of thefe vifionary beings, which are invented and drawn with a furprising ftrength of imagination. I fhall produce but one inftance here, which the reader may compare with that juft mentioned in Virgil, to which it is no way inferior; it is in Book II. where Mammon conducts Guyon through a cave under ground to fhow him his treafure. "At length they came into a larger space, "That ftretcht itfelfe into an ample playne, "And both did gnash their teeth, and both did threaten Life. "On the other fide in one confort there fate 66 Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bight; "And trembling Feare still to and fro did fly, "And found no place wher fafe he shroud him might; Lamenting Sorrow did in darknes lye; "And Shame his ugly face did hide from living eye. "And over them fad Horror with grim hew "That hart of flint afonder could have rifte; "Which having ended after him the flyeth fwifte. "All these before the gates of Pluto lay, &c." The pofture of Jealoufy, and the motion of Fear, in this defcription, are particularly fine. Thefe are inftances of Allegorical perfons, which are shown only in one tranfient view. The reader will every where meet with others in this Author, which are employed in the action of the poem, and which need not be mentioned here. Having thus endeavoured to give a general idea of what is meant by Allegory in poetry, and fhown what kind of perfons are frequently employed in it, I fhall proceed to mention fome properties which feem requifite in all well-invented fables of this kind. There is no doubt but men of critical learning, if they had thought fit, might have given us rules about Allegorical writing, as they have done about epick, and other kinds of poetry; but they have rather chofen to let this foreft remain wild, as if they thought there was fomething in the nature of the foil which could not fo well be restrained and cultivated in enclosures. What Sir William Temple obferves about rules in general, may perhaps be more particularly applicable to this; that "they may poffibly hinder fome from being very bad poets, but are not capable of making any very good one.' Notwithstanding this, they are ufeful to help our obfervation in diftinguifhing the beauties and the blemishes in fuch works as have been already produced. I fhall therefore beg leave to mention four qualities which I think are effential to every good Allegory; the three firft of which relate to the Fable, and the laft to the Moral. The firft is, that it be lively and surprising. The Fable, or literal fenfe, being that which moft immediately offers itself to the reader's obfervation, muft have this property, in order to raise and entertain his curiofity. As there is, therefore, more invention employed in a work of this kind than in mere narration, or defcription, or in general amplifications on any fubject, it confequently requires a more than ordinary heat of fancy in its firft production. If the Fable, on the contrary, is flat, fpiritlefs, or barrren of invention, the reader's imagination is not affected, nor his attention engaged, though the inftruction conveyed under it be ever fo useful or important. The fecond qualification I fhall mention is elegance, or a beautiful propriety and aptnefs in the Fable to the fubject on which it is employed. By this quality the invention of the poet is reftrained from taking too great a compafs, or lofing itself in a confufion of ill-forted ideas. Such reprefentations as that mentioned by Horace, of dolphins in a wood, or boars in the fea, being fit only to furprife the imagination, without pleafing the judgment. The fame Moral may likewife be expreffed in different Fables, all of which may be lively and full of spirit, yet not equally elegant, as various dreffes may be made for the fame body, yet not equally becoming. As it therefore requires a heat of fancy to raise images and resemblances, it requires a good tafte to diftinguish and range them, and to choose the most proper and beautiful, where there appears an almoft diftracting variety. I may compare this to Æneas fearching in the wood for the golden bough; he was at a lofs where to lay his hand, till his mother's doves, defcending in his fight, flew before him, and perched on the tree where it was to be found, |