are observed to relieve oftener than to cure; for it is the nature
of spirits to make swift impressions, but not deep. Galenical
decoctions, to which I may properly compare an epic poem, have more
of body in them; they work by their substance and their weight.

It is one reason of Aristotle's to prove that tragedy is the more
noble, because it turns in a shorter compass--the whole action being
circumscribed within the space of four-and-twenty hours. He might
prove as well that a mushroom is to be preferred before a peach,
because it shoots up in the compass of a night. A chariot may be
driven round the pillar in less space than a large machine, because
the bulk is not so great. Is the moon a more noble planet than
Saturn, because she makes her revolution in less than thirty days,
and he in little less than thirty years? Both their orbs are in
proportion to their several magnitudes; and consequently the
quickness or slowness of their motion, and the time of their
circumvolutions, is no argument of the greater or less perfection.
And besides, what virtue is there in a tragedy which is not
contained in an epic poem, where pride is humbled, virtue rewarded,
and vice punished, and those more amply treated than the narrowness
of the drama can admit? The shining quality of an epic hero, his
magnanimity, his constancy, his patience, his piety, or whatever
characteristical virtue his poet gives him, raises first our
admiration; we are naturally prone to imitate what we admire, and
frequent acts produce a habit. If the hero's chief quality be
vicious--as, for example, the choler and obstinate desire of
vengeance in Achilles--yet the moral is instructive; and besides, we
are informed in the very proposition of the "Iliads" that this anger
was pernicious, that it brought a thousand ills on the Grecian camp.
The courage of Achilles is proposed to imitation, not his pride and