another sort of pleasure, opposite to that which is designed in an
epic poem. One raises the soul and hardens it to virtue; the other
softens it again and unbends it into vice. One conduces to the
poet's aim (the completing of his work), which he is driving on,
labouring, and hastening in every line; the other slackens his pace,
diverts him from his way, and locks him up like a knight-errant in
an enchanted castle when he should be pursuing his first adventure.
Statius (as Bossu has well observed) was ambitions of trying his
strength with his master, Virgil, as Virgil had before tried his
with Homer. The Grecian gave the two Romans an example in the games
which were celebrated at the funerals of Patroclus. Virgil imitated
the invention of Homer, but changed the sports. But both the Greek
and Latin poet took their occasions from the subject, though (to
confess the truth) they were both ornamental, or, at best,
convenient parts of it, rather than of necessity arising from it.
Statius (who through his whole poem is noted for want of conduct and
judgment), instead of staying, as he might have done, for the death
of Capaneus, Hippomedon, Tydeus, or some other of his Seven
Champions (who are heroes all alike), or more properly for the
tragical end of the two brothers whose exequies the next successor
had leisure to perform when the siege was raised, and in the
interval betwixt the poet's first action and his second, went out of
his way--as it were, on prepense malice--to commit a fault; for he
took his opportunity to kill a royal infant by the means of a
serpent (that author of all evil) to make way for those funeral
honours which he intended for him. Now if this innocent had been of
any relation to his Thebais, if he had either farthered or hindered
the taking of the town, the poet might have found some sorry excuse
at least for detaining the reader from the promised siege. On these
terms this Capaneus of a poet engaged his two immortal predecessors,