by the adulterous mixture of ’tis hard to say how many Languages:  So that between ’em, they’d make it impossible for a Christian Poet to write a good Heroic Poem, or even a Tragedy, on any, but profane Subjects; by taking away all the Machines, and therein whatever is admirable.  No, says Balzac, instead of those hard Words and proper Names, Appellatives may be chosen, Words common to all People:  As for example, Ill luck instead of the Fates, and the Foul Fiend for Lucifer; and whether this wou’d not sound extreamly Heroical, I leave any Man to judge:  It being besides certain, that ’tis singulars and particulars which give an Air of Probability, and the main Life and Beauty to a Poem, especially of this Nature; without which it must of necessity sink and languish.  However so much of Truth, I must confess, there is in what he says, that I verily believe Magor-missabib, or Mahershal-alhashbaz, wou’d scarce yoke decently in one of our Pentameters, but be near as unquiet and troublesome there, as a Mount Orgueil it self.  Nor can partiality so far blind my Judgment as not to be my self almost frighted at second hearing of such a thundering Verse, as Belsamen Ashtaroth Baaltii Ba’al:  Which seems as flat Conjuration, as Zinguebar, Oran, &c. tho’ ’tis now too late to amend it.  But then there are other Words or a more soft and treatable Cadence, even in the same Hebrew Language, especially when mollified by a Latin or Greek form, or Termination; and such as these one may make use of and let others alone:  though neither is our bolder rougher Tongue so much affrighted at them, as the French and Latin.

But Boileau pushes the Objection further, and wou’d make it bear against the Things as well as Words, persuading himself,

  Our God and Prophets that he sent,
  Can’t act like those the Poets did invent.

Tho’ he too, is short in History, how excellent soever in Poetry.  For first, the Heathen Poets did not invent the Names of their Gods and Heroes, but had ’em from Eastern Tradition, and the Phenician and Jewish Language, tho’ deflected and disguis’d after the Greek and other Forms, as Josephus tells us, which the learned Bochart has proved invincibly; and I have made some Essay towards it, in my Sixth Book.  Nay further, it seems plain to me, that most, even of their best Fancies and Images, as well as Names, were borrow’d from the Antient Hebrew Poetry and Divinity, as, were there room for’t, I cou’d, I think, render more than probable, in all the most celebrated Strokes of Homer, moat of the Heathen Poetical Fables, and even in Hesiod’s blind Theogonia.  Their Gods or Devils, which you please, were not near as Antient as the Hebrews.  The Word Satan is as ancient as Job; nor can they shew us a Pluto within a long while of him.  Ashtaroth, and Astarte, are old enough to be Grandmothers to their Isis, or Venus, and Bel, of the same standing with Idolatry.  Lawful it must certainly be, to use these very Heathen Gods in Christian, since they were