are thought to be made use of in the Christian Religion; for Example, the Throne and Temple of God in the Revelations, and the Description of the New Jerusalem, with all its Gates and Foundations of Sapphires and Emeralds, and that lovely Scheme of Trees and Rivers, worthy a Paradise:  All this, I say, will scarcely be granted literal, and consequently must be all an Allegory; alluding partly to the Old Jewish Church and Temple, partly to Ezekiel’s Visionary Representation and Prophetical Paradise.  Nor can it, I think, be justly reckoned more criminal, where we have any great instructive Example, which has been real matter of Fact, to expatiate thereon; adding suitable and proper Circumstances and Colours to the whole, especially when the History it self is but succinctly Related, and the Heads of things only left us.  And this some great Man have thought was the Method of the Holy Pen-man himself, whoever he were, in that lovely antient Poem of Job; which, that ’t was at the bottom a real History, few but Atheists deny; and yet ’tis thought some Circumstances might be amplified in the account we have left us, particularly the long Speeches between that Great Man and his Friends; tho’ the main hinges of the Relation, his Person, Character, and Losses, the malice of the Devil, the behaviour of his Wife and Friends, nay even the Substance of their Discourses, as well as of that between God and him, and the wonderful Turn of his Affairs soon after:  All this might, and did, truly happen.  Or, if any amplification should be here deny’d, does not the Divine however every day, Paraphrase and Expatiate upon the Words of his Text, inverting their Method as he sees occasion, and yet is still thought unblameable.  All the difference is, that he delivers what’s probable, as only probable; whereas the Nature of Poetry requires, that such probable Amplifications as these, be wrought into the main Action, in such a manner, as if they had really happen’d; and without this, a Man might Ryme long enough, but ne’er cou’d make a Poem, any more than this would have been one, had I begun with, Abraham begat Isaac, and so tagg’d on to the end of all the fourteen Generations, much as Nonnus has done with St. John, and yet often miss’d his Sence too, as Heinsius judges.

But enough of Fable, and of those who would either reduce all Heroic Poetry unto it, or absolutely banish it thence.

Next the Fable of Epics, the Poem is to be considered; which, after Bossu, is the other part of its general Nature, and shews the manner of handling it, comprehending Thoughts, Expressions and Verses; of which there need not much be said, since they are obvious to every Reader.  The Thoughts must be clear and just, and noble, and the Diction or Expression suited to them.  The chief Difficulty, as Rapin observes, is to keep up the Sublime, which Virgil has done admirably, even in the meanest Subjects; and which Aristotle thinks may be best done by the judicious use of Metaphors.  There ought to meet, according to him, Proportion in the Design, Justness in the Thoughts, and Exactness in the Expression, to constitute an accomplish’d Heroic Poem; and the great Art of Thought and Expression lies in this, that they be natural and proper without Meanness, and sublime without a vitious Swelling and Affectation.