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Another effential property is, that the Fable be every where confiftent with itfelf. As licentious as Allegorical fiction may feem in some respects, it is, nevertheless, fubject to this restraint. The poet is, indeed, at liberty in choosing his story, and inventing his perfons, but, after he has introduced them, he is obliged to fuftain them in their proper characters, as well as in more regular kinds of writing. It is difficult to give particular rules under this head; it may fuffice to fay that this wild nature is, however, fubject to an economy proper to itself; and, though it may fometimes feem extravagant, ought never to be abfurd. Moft of the Allegories in the Faerie Queene are agreeable to this rule; but in one of his other poems the Author has manifeftly tranfgreffed it; the poem I mean is that which is called Prothalamion. In this the two brides are figured by two beautiful fwans failing down the river Thames. The Allegory breaks, before the reader is prepared for it; and we fee them, at their landing, in their true fhapes, without knowing how this fudden change is effected. If this had been only a simile, the poet might have dropped it at pleasure; but, as it is an Allegory, he ought to have made it of a piece, or to have invented fome probable means of coming out of it.

The laft property I fhall mention is, that the Allegory be clear and intelligible; the Fable being defigned only to clothe and adorn the Moral, but not to hide it, fhould, methinks, refemble the draperies we admire in fome of the ancient ftatues, in which the folds are not too many, nor too thick, but fo judiciously ordered, that the fhape and beauty of the limbs may be seen through them.

It must be confeffed, that many of the ancient Fables appear to us, at this diftance of time, very perplexed and dark; and, if they had any Moral

at all, it is fo clofely couched, that it is very difficult to difcover it. Whoever reads the Lord Bacon's Wifdom of the Ancients, will be convinced of this. He has employed a more than ordinary penetration to decipher the moft known traditions in the Heathen mythology; but his interpretations are often far-fetched, and fo much at random, that the reader can have no affurance of their truth. It is not to be doubted that a great part of these fables were allegorical, but others might have been ftories defigned only to amufe, or to practife upon the credulity of the vulgar; or the doctrines they contained might be purpofely clouded, to conceal them from common knowledge. But though, as I hinted in the former part of this difcourfe, this may have been a reafon among philofophers, it ought not to be admitted among poets. An Allegory which is not clear is a riddle, and the fenfe of it lies at the mercy of every fanciful interpreter.

Though the epick poets, as I have fhown, have fprinkled fome Allegories through their poems, yet it would be abfurd to endeavour to understand them every where in a myftical fenfe. We are told of one Metrodorus Lampfacenus, whofe works are loft, that turned the whole writings of Homer

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f turned the whole writings of Homer into an Allegory:] Mr. Hughes feems not to have known that another work of this kind exifted, which is in Greek, viz. "Allegoriæ Homerica quæ fub Heraclidis nomine feruntur, &c." This allegorical performance (of which the French criticks fpeak contemptuoufly) was first published by Aldus at the end of his edition of Efop's Fables in 1505. Conrad Gefner republished this little tract, with a Latin verfion. It was again iffued from the press, at Gottingen in 1782, by N. Schow, M. A. To which is added, "Ejufdem Commentatio Critica in Stoicorum et Grammaticorum Allegorias Homericas, una cum adnotatione critica in lectionem libelli." A critical Letter from Heyne to the editor is prefixed. TODD...

into an Allegory: it was, doubtlefs, by fome fuch means that the principles of all arts and fciences whatever were discovered in that fingle author; for nothing can efcape an expofitor who proceeds in his operations like a Rofycrucian, and brings with him the gold he pretends to find.

It is furprising that Taffo, whofe Jerufalem was, at the time when he wrote, the best plan of an epick poem after Virgil, fhould be poffeffed with this affectation, and should not believe his work perfect till he had turned it into a mystery. I cannot help thinking that the Allegory, as it is called, which he has printed with it, looks as if it were invented after the poem was finished. He tells us that the Christian army represents man; the city of Jerufalem, civil happinefs; Godfrey, the understanding; Rinaldo and Tancred, the other powers of the foul; and that the body is typified by the common foldiers; with a great deal more that carries in it a ftrong caft of enthufiafm. He is indeed much more intelligible when he explains the flowers, the fountains, the nymphs, and the mufical inftruments, to figure to us fenfual pleafures under the falfe appearance of good; but, for the reft, I appeal to any one who is acquainted with that poem, whether he would ever have difcovered these myfteries if the poet had not let him into them? or whether even, after this, he can keep them long in his mind while he is reading it?

Spenfer's conduct is much more reasonable. As he defigned his Poem upon the plan of the Virtues by which he has entitled his feveral Books, he fcarce ever lofes fight of this defign, but has almost every where taken care to let it appear. Sir William Temple, indeed, cenfures this as a fault, and fays, that though his flights of fancy were very noble and high, yet his moral lay fo bare that it loft the b

VOL. II.

effect: but I confefs I do not understand this: a moral which is not clear is, in my apprehenfion, next to no moral at all.

It would be eafy to enumerate other properties, which are various, according to the different kinds of Allegory, or its different degrees of perfection. Sometimes we are furprifed with an uncommon moral, which ennobles the fable that conveys it; and at other times we meet with a known and obvious truth, placed in fome new and beautiful point of light, and made furprifing by the fiction under which it is exhibited. I have thought it fufficient to touch upon fuch properties only as feem to be the most effential, and perhaps many more might be reduced under one or other of thefe general heads.

I might here give examples of this noble and ancient kind of writing out of the Books of Holy Writ, and especially the Jewith Prophets, in which we find a spirit of poetry furprisingly fublime and majeftick; but there are obvious to every one's reading. The Eaft feems indeed to have been principally the region of thefe figurative and emblematical writings. Sir John Chardin, in his Travels, has given us a tranflation of several pieces of modern Perfian poetry, which fhow that there are traces of the fame genius remaining among the prefent inhabitants of thofe countries. But, not to prolong this Difcourfe, I fhall only add one inftance of a very ancient Allegory, which has all the properties in it I have mentioned; I mean that in Xenophon, of the Choice of Hercules, when he is courted by Virtue and Pleasure, which is faid to have been the invention of Prodicus. This fable is full of fpirit and elegance; the characters are finely drawn, and confiftent, and the moral is clear: I fhall not need to fay any thing more of it, but

refer the reader to the fecond volume of the Tatler, where he will find it very beautifully tranflated.

After what has been faid, it must be confeffed that, excepting Spenfer, there are few extraordinary inftances of this kind of writing among the Moderns. The great mines of invention have been opened long ago, and little new ore feems to have been difcovered or brought to light by latter ages. With us the art of framing fables, apologues, and allegories, which was fo frequent among the writers of antiquity, feems to be, like the art of painting upon glass, but little practifed, and in a great meafure loft. Our colours are not fo rich and transparent, and are either fo ill prepared, or fo unfkilfully laid on, that they often fully the light which is to pass through them, rather than agreeably tincture and beautify it. Boccalini must be reckoned one of the chief modern mafters of Allegory; yet his Fables are often flat and ill chofen, and his invention seems to have been rather fruitful than elegant. I cannot, however, conclude this Effay on Allegory without obferving, that we have had the fatisfaction to fee this kind of writing very lately revived by an excellent genius among ourfelves, in the true fpirit of the Ancients. I need only mention the Vifions in the Tatler and Spectator, by Mr. Addifon, to convince every one of this. The Table of Fame, the Vifion of Juftice, that of the different Pursuits of Love, Ambition, and Avarice; the Vifion of Mirza, and feveral others; and especially that admirable Fable of the two Families of Pain and Pleasure, which are all imagined and

very beautifully tranflated.] The reader will find it tranflated, with new graces, fince that period, by a fcholar of the first rank, the late accomplished bishop Lowth. It appeared: firft in Spence's Polymetis; it will be moft easy of access to readers, in Dodley's Collection of Puems, vol. iii. p. 7. TODD.

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