The design, the disposition, the manners, and the thoughts are all
before it; where any of those are wanting or imperfect, so much wants
or is imperfect in the imitation of human life; which is in the very
definition of a poem. Words, indeed, like glaring colours, are the
first beauties that arise, and strike the sight: but if the draught
be false or lame, the figures ill-disposed, the manners obscure or
inconsistent, or the thoughts unnatural, then the finest colours are
but daubing, and the piece is a beautiful monster at the best. Neither
Virgil nor Homer were deficient in any of the former beauties; but in
this last, which is expression, the Roman poet is at least equal to
the Grecian, as I have said elsewhere; supplying the poverty of his
language by his musical ear, and by his diligence. But to return: our
two great poets, being so different in their tempers, one choleric and
sanguine, the other phlegmatic and melancholic; that which makes them
excel in their several ways is, that each of them has followed his own
natural inclination, as well in forming the design, as in the execution
of it.
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