Trips to the Moon | Page 6

to the former, the licence is immoderate, and there is scarce
any law but what the poet prescribes to himself. When he is full of the
Deity, and possessed, as it were, by the Muses, if he has a mind to put
winged horses {25a} to his chariot, and drive some through the waters,
and others over the tops of unbending corn, there is no offence taken.
Neither, if his Jupiter {25b} hangs the earth and sea at the end of a
chain, are we afraid that it should break and destroy us all. If he wants
to extol Agamemnon, who shall forbid his bestowing on him the head
and eyes of Jupiter, the breast of his brother Neptune, and the belt of
Mars? The son of Atreus and AErope must be a composition of all the
gods; nor are Jupiter, Mars, and Neptune sufficient, perhaps, of
themselves to give us an idea of his perfection. But if history admits
any adulation of this kind, it becomes a sort of prosaic poetry, without
its numbers or magnificence; a heap of monstrous stories, only more
conspicuous by their incredibility. He is unpardonable, therefore, who
cannot distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of

poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as ridiculous as it
would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who is as hard as an oak,
in fine purple, or some such meretricious garb, and put paint {26} on
his cheeks; how would such ornaments debase and degrade him! I do
not mean by this, that in history we are not to praise sometimes, but it
must be done at proper seasons, and in a proper degree, that it may not
offend the readers of future ages; for future ages must be considered in
this affair, as I shall endeavour to prove hereafter.
Those, I must here observe, are greatly mistaken who divide history
into two parts, the useful and the agreeable; and in consequence of it,
would introduce panegyric as always delectable and entertaining to the
reader. But the division itself is false and delusive; for the great end and
design of history is to be useful: a species of merit which can only arise
from its truth. If the agreeable follows, so much the better, as there may
be beauty in a wrestler. And yet Hercules would esteem the brave
though ugly Nicostratus as much as the beautiful Alcaeus. And thus
history, when she adds pleasure to utility, may attract more admirers;
though as long as she is possessed of that greatest of perfections, truth,
she need not be anxious concerning beauty.
In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable; and flattery is disgusting
to all readers, except the very dregs of the people; good judges look
with the eyes of Argus on every part, reject everything that is false and
adulterated, and will admit nothing but what is true, clear, and well
expressed. These are the men you are to have a regard to when you
write, rather than the vulgar, though your flattery should delight them
ever so much. If you stuff history with fulsome encomiums and idle
tales, you will make her like Hercules in Lydia, as you may have seen
him painted, waiting upon Omphale, who is dressed in the lion's skin,
with his club in her hand; whilst he is represented clothed in yellow and
purple, and spinning, and Omphale beating him with her slipper; a
ridiculous spectacle, wherein everything manly and godlike is sunk and
degraded to effeminacy.
The multitude perhaps, indeed, may admire such things; but the
judicious few whose opinion you despise will always laugh at what is

absurd, incongruous, and inconsistent. Everything has a beauty peculiar
to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most beautiful
becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place. I need not add, that
praise is agreeable only to the person praised, and disgustful to
everybody else, especially when it is lavishly bestowed; as is the
practice of most writers, who are so extremely desirous of
recommending themselves by flattery, and dwell so much upon it as to
convince the reader it is mere adulation, which they have not art
enough to conceal, but heap up together, naked, uncovered, and totally
incredible, so that they seldom gain what they expected from it; for the
person flattered, if he has anything noble or manly in him, only abhors
and despises them for it as mean parasites. Aristobulus, after he had
written an account of the single combat between Alexander and Porus,
showed that monarch a particular part of it, wherein, the better to get
into his good graces, he had inserted a great deal more than was true;
when Alexander seized the book and