of his Poem than any other of the Italians, whom yet he justly blames, because he has two Hero’s Godfredo and Rinaldo, of whom Godfredo seems the principal, and yet Rinaldo performs the greatest part of the notable Actions.  He seems to imitate Agamemnon and Achilles, but then he raises his Agamemnon too high, or keeps him too low, for he hardly lets him do one great Action through the whole Work.  He further criticises upon him as mingling too much Gallantry with his Poem, which, he thinks, is unbecoming the Gravity of his Subject.  But whether this Censure be just, I know not, for Love and Gallantry runs through all Virgil’s AEneids, in the Instances of Helen, Dido, and Lavinia, and indeed it gives so great a Life to Epic, that it hardly can be agreeable without it, and I question whether ever it has been so.  Nor is he more just, I think, against Tasso’s Episodes, which he blames as not proper to circumstantiate his principal Action, not entring into the Causes and Effects thereof, but seeking too much to please, tho’ I think this Charge is unjust, for ’tis in his Episodes, if any where, that Tasso is admirable.  I might here give several Instances, but shall, at present, only refer my Reader to that of Tancred and Erminia, and I’m mistaken if he does not dissent from Rapin in this particular.  Sannazarius and Vida were the next who did any thing remarkable in Epic; they both writ in Latin on the same Subject, both Christian Heroics; Rapin says they both had a good Genius for Latin, the Purity of their Style being admirable, but that their ordering of the Fable has nothing in’t of Delicacy, nor is the manner of their Writing proportionable to the dignity of the Subject.  For Sannazarius he’s indeed so faulty, that one can hardly with Patience read him, the whole Structure of his imperfect Piece, de partu, being built on Heathen Fable; yet he has great and vigorous Thoughts and very Poetical Expressions, tho’ therein Vida far excels him, whose Thoughts are so noble, and the Air of his Stile so great, that the Elogy Balzac gives his Countryman Tasso, wou’d as well or rather better have fitted him; “That Virgil is the Cause, Vida is not the first; and Vida, that Virgil is not alone.”  It is true, as Rapin observes, that his Fable is very simple, and perhaps so much the better, considering the Subject; tho’ he forgets not Poetical Ornaments, where there’s occasion, if he does not lean a little to Sannazarius’s Error; for he talks of the Gorgons and Sphinxes, the Centaurs and Hydra’s and Chimera’s, though much more sparingly and modestly than the other.  He has the happiest beginning that perhaps is to be found in any Poem, and by mingling his Proposition and Invocation, has the advantage of placing one of the noblest Thoughts in the World in the first Line, without danger of falling into the absurdity of Horace’s Author with his Fortunam Priami:  For thus he sings,

  Qui mare, qui terras, qul coelum numine comples
  Spiritus alme, &c.