Note return to page 1 [*In Philaster]

Note return to page 2 *His Grace here refers to Comedy, as the Instances of Plato and Lucian show; for the Art of Tragick Dialogue is to express the Sentiments naturally in proper Words: else his Grace had mistaken; for certainly in the Tragick Dialogue, Sophocles and Euripides, nay, even Æschylus, must have been preferr'd. Nay, it will not hold of Tragedy; for Fletcher's Dialogue is intolerable in that, and could not be otherwise, because he seldom draws either his Manners or Sentiments from Nature.

Note return to page 3 †Exactly conformable to Aristotle.

Note return to page 4 ‡Involuntary Faults, that is, the Effects of violent Passions, not such as are voluntary and scandalous; as will appear in our Rules.

Note return to page 5 ¶His Grace means not, that the Scenes should not be a Part of the Plot; but that the Poet should, besides the main Design, consider well the working up of every particular Scene which is just.

Note return to page 6 Vulcan was Jupiter's Smith, an excellent Workman, on whom the Poets father many rare Works, among which I find this one.

Note return to page 7 This Minotaur, when he came to growth, was inclos'd in the Labyrinth, which was made by the curious Arts-master Dedalus, whose Tale likewise we thus pursue.

Note return to page 8 *N. B. The Translation of these Epistles is loose, and not without Errors, and yet they justify what I have said in the Preface, concerning Shakespear's Learning.

Note return to page 9 *Tho this be an admirable Observation, yet I am afraid it will never please some of our late Writers of Poems, who have nothing but a Company of Lines put together without any Design; and yet they have gone down with our Fautors of the Muses, as good Payment, and meritorious of Reward, as well as Reputation.

Note return to page 10 †Pindarics.

Note return to page 11 ‡My Lord here does not mean, that Judgment entirely leaves the Rule to Fancy in this Poem; for that wou'd be a direct Contradiction to what his Grace has said before, and make the writing at all about it superfluous. For indeed there is no sort of Poem that leaves so arbitrary a Sway to Fancy; because that wou'd be to put that sort of Poem quite out of any Test of Excellence, than which there can be no greater Absurdity in any manner of Writing. Besides, in Pindaric Poems the happy Transitions and Digressions, and the natural Return to the Subject, contains an Art peculiar to it self, and which cannot be done without a Mastery of Judgment. And this is the Excellence of Pindar himself, but what a few or none of our modern Gentlemen ever think of. If they fill a Sheet or two of Paper with some irregular Rhymes, and various Numbers, they immediately entitle it a Pindaric Poem. Not that I deny the Poet the same Liberty in English, which Pindar himself took in Greek; but I wou'd not have him imagine, that it is in this particular that his Excellence is distinguish'd from all their Lyric Poets, who took a less Liberty, or rather License of Verse. I know the ingenious Mr. Congreve has attempted to prove a Regularity of the Numbers of Pindar; but I am afraid there is too much of Fancy and Imagination in it. Horace I am sure, in the second Ode of his fourth Book, tells us of Pindar, &lblank; Numerisque fertur Lege solutis. And Mr. Cowley, who seems perfectly acquainted with this Author, and who made him his Study for some Time, is of another Mind; for thus he says in his Preface to his Pindarics. And lastly (which were enough for my Purpose) we must consider that our Ears are Strangers to the Musick of his Numbers, which sometimes (especially in his Songs and Odes) almost without any thing else makes an excellent Poet. For tho the Grammarians and Criticks have labour'd to reduce his Verses into regular Feet, and Measures (as they have also these of the Greek and Latin Comedies) yet in effect they are little better than Prose to our Ears. I have seen a Pindaric in English, which is not yet publish'd, call'd, The Female Reign, which, if I am not much deceiv'd, has come closer to the fine Transitions and Returns of Pindar to the Subject, than I have before seen in our Language.

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