not to be inferior, either in genius, or learning, or the tongue in which they write; or all those other wonderful qualifications which are necessary to the forming of a true accomplished heroick poet. The fault is laid on our religion: they say that Christianity is not capable of those embellishments which are afforded in the belief of those ancient heathens.

And it is true, that in the severe notions of our faith, the fortitude of a Christian consists in patience, and suffering, for the love of God, whatever hardships can befall in the world; not in any great attempt, or in performance of those enterprises which the poets call heroick, and which are commonly the effects of interest, ostentation, pride, and worldly honour: that humility and resignation are our prime virtues; and that these include no action but that of the soul; whenas, on the contrary, an heroick poem requires, to its necessary design, and as its last perfection, some great action of war, the accomplishment of some extraordinary undertaking; which requires the strength and vigour of the body, the duty of a soldier, the capacity and prudence of a general, and, in short, as much or more of the active virtue, than the suffering. But to this the answer is very obvious. GOD has placed us in our several stations; the virtues of a private Christian are patience, obedience, submission, and the like; but those of a magistrate, or general, or a king, are prudence, counsel, active fortitude, coercive power, awful command, and the exercise of magnanimity, as well as justice.

So that this objection hinders not, but that an epick poem, or the heroick action of some great commander, enterprised for the common good, and honour of the Christian cause, and executed happily, may be as well written now, as it was of old by the heathens; provided the poet be endued with the same talents; and the language, though not of equal dignity, yet as near approaching to it, as our modern barbarism will allow; which is all that can be expected from our own or any other now extant, though more refined; and therefore we are to rest contented with that only inferiority, which is not possibly to be remedied.

I wish I could as easily remove that other difficulty which yet remains. It is objected by a great French critick as well as an admirable poet, yet living, and whom I have mentioned with that honour which his merit exacts from me, I mean Boileau, that the machines of our Christian religion in heroick poetry are much more feeble to support that weight, than those of heathenism. Their doctrine, grounded as it was on ridiculous fables, was yet the belief of the two victorious monarchies, the Grecian and Roman. Their gods did not only interest themselves in the event of wars, (which is the effect of a superior providence,) but also espoused the several parties, in a visible corporeal descent; managed their intrigues, and fought their battles, sometimes in opposition to each other though Virgil (more discreet than Homer in that last particular) has contented him

self with the partiality of his deities, their favours, their counsels or commands, to those whose cause they had espoused, without bringing them to the outrageousness of blows. Now, our religion (says he) is deprived of the greatest part of those machines; at least the most shining in epick poetry. Though St. Michael in Ariosto seeks out DISCORD, to send her amongst the Pagans, and finds her in a convent of friars where peace should reign, which indeed is fine satire; and Satan, in Tasso, excites Solyman to an attempt by night on the Christian camp, and brings an host of devils to his assistance; yet the archangel, in the former example, when DISCORD was restive, and would not be drawn from her beloved monastery with fair words, has the whiphand of her, drags her out with many stripes, sets her, on GoD's-name, about her business, and makes her know the difference of strength betwixt a nuncio of heaven, and a minister of hell. The same angel, in the latter instance from Tasso, (as if God had never another messenger belonging to the court, but was confined, like Jupiter to Mercury, and Juno to Iris,) when he sees his time, that is, when half of the Christians are already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way to be routed, stickles betwixt the remainders of GOD'S host, and the race of fiends; pulls the devils backward by the tails, and drives them from their quarry; or otherwise the whole business had miscarried, and Jerusalem remained untaken. This, says Boileau, is a very unequal match for the poor

devils, who are sure to come by the worst of it in the combat; for nothing is more easy, than for an Almighty Power to bring his old rebels to reason, when he pleases. Consequently, what pleasure, what entertainment can be raised from so pitiful a machine, where we see the success of the battle from the very beginning of it? unless that, as we are Christians, we are glad that we have gotten GOD on our side, to maul our enemies, when we cannot do the work ourselves. For if the poet had given the faithful more courage, which had cost him nothing, or at least have made them exceed the Turks in number, he might have gained the victory for us Christians, without interesting heaven in the quarrel; and that with as much ease, and as little credit to the conqueror, as when a party of a hundred soldiers defeats another which consists only of fifty.

This, my lord, I confess, is such an argument against our modern poetry, as cannot be answered by those mediums which have been used. We cannot hitherto boast, that our religion has furnished us with any such machines, as have made the strength and beauty of the ancient buildings.

But what if I venture to advance an invention of my own, to supply the manifest defect of our new writers. I am sufficiently sensible of my weakness; and it is not very probable that I should succeed in such a project, whereof I have not had the least hint from any of my predecessors, the poets, or any of their seconds and coadjutors, the

criticks. Yet we see the art of war is improved in sieges, and new instruments of death are invented daily. Something new in philosophy and the mechanicks is discovered almost every year; and the science of former ages is improved by the succeeding. I will not detain you with a long preamble to that, which better judges will, perhaps, conclude to be little worth.

It is this, in short,-that Christian poets have not hitherto been acquainted with their own strength. If they had searched the Old Testament as they ought, they might there have found the machines which are proper for their work; and those more certain in their effect, than it may be the New Testament is, in the rules sufficient for salvation. The perusing of one chapter in the prophecy of Daniel, and accommodating what there they find with the principles of Platonick philosophy, as it is now Christianized, would have made the ministry of angels as strong an engine for the working up heroick poetry, in our religion, as that of the ancients has been to raise theirs by all the fables of their gods, which were only received for truths by the most ignorant and weakest of the people.

It is a doctrine almost universally received by Christians, as well protestants as catholicks, that there are guardian angels appointed by GoD Almighty, as his vicegerents, for the protection and government of cities, provinces, kingdoms, and monarchies; and those as well of heathens, as of