conveyed under it be ever so useful or impor

tant.

The second qualification I shall mention is elegance, or a beautiful propriety and aptness in the Fable to the subject on which it is employed. By this quality the invention of the poet is restrained from taking too great a compass, or losing itself in a confusion of ill-sorted ideas. Such representations as that mentioned by Horace, of dolphins in a wood, or boars in the sea, being fit only to surprise the imagination, without pleasing the judgment. The same Moral may likewise be expressed in different Fables, all of which may be lively and full of spirit, yet not equally elegant, as various dresses may be made for the same body, yet not equally becoming. As it therefore requires a heat of fancy to raise images and resemblances, it requires a good taste to distinguish and range them, and to choose the most proper and beautiful, where there appears an almost distracting variety. I may compare this to Æneas searching in the wood for the golden bough; he was at a loss where to lay his hand, till his mother's doves, descending in his sight, flew before him, and perched on the tree where it was to be found.

Another essential property is, that the Fable be every where consistent with itself. As licentious as Allegorical fiction may seem in some re

spects, it is, nevertheless, subject to this restraint. The poet is, indeed, at liberty in choosing his story, and inventing his persons, but, after he has introduced them, he is obliged to sustain 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 suffice to say that this wild nature is, however, subject to an economy proper to itself; and, though it may sometimes seem extravagant, ought never to be absurd. Most of the Allego ries in the Faerie Queene are agreeable to this rule; but in one of his other poems the Author has manifestly transgressed it; the poem I mean is that which is called Prothalamion. In this the two brides are figured by two beautiful swans sailing down the river Thames. The Allegory breaks, before the reader is prepared for it; and we see them, at their landing, in their true shapes, without knowing how this sudden 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 some probable means of coming out of it.

The last property I shall mention is, that the Allegory be clear and intelligible; the Fable being designed only to clothe and adorn the Moral, but not to hide it, should, methinks, resemble the draperies we admire in some of the

ancient statues, in which the folds are not too many, nor too thick, but so judiciously ordered, that the shape and beauty of the limbs may be seen through them.

It must be confessed, that many of the ancient Fables appear to us, at this distance of time, very perplexed and dark; and, if they had any Moral at all, it is so closely couched, that is very difficult to discover it. Whoever reads the Lord

Bacon's Wisdom of the Ancients, will be convinced of this. He has employed a more than ordinary penetration to decipher the most known traditions in the Heathen mythology; but his interpretations are often far-fetched, and so much at random, that the reader can have no assurance of their truth. It is not to be doubted that a great part of these fables were allegorical, but others might have been stories designed only to amuse, or to practise upon the credulity of the vulgar; or the doctrines they contained might be purposely clouded, to conceal them from common knowledge. But though, as I hinted in the former part of this discourse, this may have been a reason among philosophers, it ought not to be admitted among poets. An Allegory which is not clear is a riddle, and the sense of it lies at the mercy of every fanciful interpreter.

Though the epick poets, as I have shown, have sprinkled some Allegories through their poems, yet it would be absurd to endeavour to

understand them every where in a mystical sense. We are told of one Metrodorus Lampsacenus, whose works are lost, that turned the whole writings of Homer into an Allegory: it was, doubtless,' by some such means that the principles of all arts and sciences whatever, were discovered in that single author; for nothing can escape an expositor who proceeds in his operations like a Rosycrucian, and brings with him the gold he pretends to find.

It is surprising that Tasso, whose Jerusalem was, at the time when he wrote, the best plan of an epick poem after Virgil, should be possessed with this affectation, and should not believe his work perfect till he had turned it into a mystery. I 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 Jerusalem, civil happiness; Godfrey, the understanding; Rinaldo and Tancred, the other powers of the soul; and that the body is typified by the common soldiers; with a great deal more that carries in it a strong cast of enthusiasm. He is indeed much more intelligible when he explains the flowers, the fountains, the nymphs, and the musical instruments, to figure to us sensual pleasures under the false appearance of good; but, for the rest, I appeal to any one who is acquainted with that poem, whether he would ever have discovered these mysteries 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?

Spenser's conduct is much more reasonable. As he designed his Poem upon the plan of the Virtues by which he has entitled his several Books, he scarce ever loses sight of this design, but has almost every where taken care to let it 1 appear. Sir William Temple, indeed, censures this as a fault, and says, that though his flightsTM of fancy were very noble and high, yet his moral lay so bare that it lost the effect: but I confess I do not understand this: a moral which is not clear is, in my apprehension, next to no moral at all.

It would be easy to enumerate other properties, I which are various, according to the different kinds of Allegory, or its different degrees of perfection. Sometimes we are surprised 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 some new and beautiful point of light, and made surprising by the fiction under which it is exhibited. I have thought it sufficient to touch upon such properties only as seem to be the most essential, and perhaps many more might be reduced under one or other of these general heads.

I might here give examples of this noble and ancient kind of writing out of the Books of Holy