Rica to the Same.
THE next day he conducted me into another apartment. “These, said he, are the poets, whose chief merit consists in putting good sense in shackles, and in overwhelming reason by a heap of ornaments, as the women were formerly incumbered by the parade of dress. You are no stranger to them, they are common amongst the Orientals, where a hotter sun seems to warm the imagination of the natives. Here are the epic poems”—“What,” said I, somewhat surprised, “is an epic poem?” “To deal plainly with you, answered he, “I do not know: the critics tell us, that there never were more than two, and that the others which go by the same name, are by no means worthy of it: I cannot juge of this neither. They say besides, that it is impossible to compose any more; this to me appears still more surprising. Here are the dramatic poets, who, I think, hold the first place amongst those of their profession, and may be justly looked upon as the masters of our passions. There are two different species of dramatic poets; the comic poets, who stir our passions so gently, and the tragic poets, who rouse and agitate us with so much violence. Here are the lyric poets, whom I despise as much as I esteem the others, who convert their art into an harmonious extravagance. Next in order follow the authors of Idyllium and Eclogues, who please even courtiers, by exciting in them an idea of a certain tranquility which they do not possess, which they present to their view in the condition of shepherds. But here are authors more dangerous than any you have yet seen: these are they who point epigrams, little sharp arrows which make a deep wound that admits of no cure. Here you behold romances, the authors of which may be in some measure considered as poets who are equally extravagant in their wit, and in their representations of passion; they pass their whole lives in seeking after nature, and their research is always equally vain; their heroes are no more in nature than the winged dragons, and the hippocentaurs.” “I have,” answered I, “seen some of your romances, and if you had seen any of ours, you would have been still more disgusted. They are full as void of nature, and lie under great constraints on account of our manners: an amorous passion must have lasted ten years before the lover can see so much as his mistress’s face; yet the authors are under a necessity of making their readers pass through all these tedious preliminaries; now as it is impossible to invent new incidents for ever, these authors have recourse to an artifice, which has a worse effect than the inconvenience they mean to obviate by it; they avail themselves of prodigies.
I am convinced that you cannot approve of a sorceress making an army rise out of the earth by the power of her art; that a single hero should destroy a fleet consisting of an hundred thousand men. Yet in this taste our romances are wrote: these cold adventures, so often repeated, appear to us altogether insipid, and give us the highest disgust.”