Q. HORATII FLACCI ARS POETICA EPISTOLA AD PISONES. HUMANO capiti cervicem pictor equinam COMMENTARY. 5 THE subject of this piece being, as I suppose, one, viz. the state of the Roman Drama, and common sense requiring, even in the freest forms of composition, some kind of method, the intelligent reader will not be surprised to find the poet prosecuting his subject in a regular, well-ordered plan; which, for the more exact description of it, I distinguish into three parts: I. The first of them [from v. 1 to 89] is preparatory to the main subject of the epistle, containing some general rules and reflexions on poetry, but principally with an eye to the following parts: by which means it Reddatur formae. Pictoribus atque poetis Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas : 10 Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim: Sed non ut placidis coëant inmitia; non ut COMMENTARY. serves as an useful introduction to the poet's design, and opens with that air of ease and negligence, essential to the epistolary form. II. The main body of the epistle [from v. 89 to 295] is laid out in regulating the Roman stage; but chiefly in giving rules for tragedy; not only as that was the sublimer species of the Drama, but, as it should seem, less cultivated and understood. III. The last part [from v. 295 to the end] exhorts to correctness in writing; yet still with an eye, principally, to the dramatic species; and is taken up partly in removing the causes, that prevented it, and partly in directing to the use of such means, as might serve to promote it. Such is the general plan of the epistle. In order to enter fully into it, it will be necessary to trace the poet, attentively, through the elegant connexions of his own method. PART I. GENERAL REFLEXIONS ON POETRY. THE epistle begins [to v. 9] with that general and fundamental precept of preserving an unity in the subject and the disposition of the piece. This is further explained by defining the use, and fixing the character of poetic licence [from v. 9 to 13] which unskilful writers often 15 Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni. COMMENTARY. 25 plead in defence of their transgressions against the law of UNITY. To v. 23 is considered and exposed that particular violation of uniformity, into which young poets especially, under the impulse of a warm imagination, are apt to run, arising from frequent and ill-timed descriptions. These, however beautiful in themselves, and with whatever mastery they may be executed, yet, if foreign to the subject, and incongruous to the place, where they stand, are extremely impertinent: a caution, the more necessary, as the fault itself wears the appearance of a virtue, and so writers [from v. 23 to 25] come to transgress the rule of right from their very ambition to observe it. There are two cases, in which this ambition remarkably misleads us. The first is when it tempts us to push an acknowledged beauty too far. Great beauties are always in the confines of great faults; and there 1 |