How to make Dedications, Panegyricks, or Satires, and of the Colours of Honourable and Dishonourable.

OW of what neceffity the foregoing Project may prove, will appear from this fingle confideration, that nothing is of equal confequence to the fuccefs of our Works, as Speed and Dispatch. Great pity it is, that folid brains are not like other folid bodies, conftantly endowed with a velocity in finking, proportioned to their heavinefs: For it is with the Flowers of the Bathos as with thofe of Nature, which if the careful

gardener brings not haftily to market in the Morning, muft unprofitably perish and wither before Night. And of all our Productions none is fo fhort-lived as the Dedication and Panegyric, which are often but the Praife of a Day, and become by the next, utterly useless, improper, indecent, and falfe. This is the more to be lamented, inafmuch as these two are the forts whereon in a manner depends that Profit, which must still be remembered to be the main end of our Writers and Speakers.

We fhall therefore employ this chapter in fhewing the quickest method of compofing them; after. which we will teach a bort Way to Epic Poetry. And these being confeffedly the works of moft Importance and Difficulty, it is prefumed we may. leave the rest to each author's own learning or practice.

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First of Panegyric: Every man is honourable, who is fo by Law, Cuftom, or Title. The Publick are better judges of what is honourable than private Men. The Virtues of great Men, like thofe of Plants, are inherent in them whether they are exerted or not; and the more strongly inherent, the lefs they are exerted; as a man is the more rich, the lefs he fpends. All great Minifters, without either private or oeconomical Virtue, are virtuous by their Pofts; liberal and generous upon the Publick Money, provident upon Publick Supplies, juft by paying Publick Intereft, couragious, and magnanimous by the Fleets and Armies, magnificent upon the Publick Expences, and prudent by Publick Succefs. They have by their Office, a right to a fhare of the Publick Stock of Virtues; befides they are by Prefcription immemorial invested in all the celebrated virtues. of their Predecefors in the fame ftations, especially those of their own Ancestors.

As to what are commonly called the Colours of Honourable and Dishonourable, they are various in VOL. VII

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different Countries: In this they are Blue, Green, and Red.

But forafmuch as the duty we owe to the Pub lick doth often require things in a ftrong light, others, I fhall explain the cious Man into a Hero.

that we should put fome and throw a fhade over method of turning a vi

The firft and chief rule is the Golden Rule of Transformation, which confifts in converting Vices into their bordering Virtues. A Man who is a Spendthrift, and will not pay a just Debt, may have his Injustice transformed into Liberality; Cowardice may be metamorphofed into Prudence; Intemperance into good Nature and good Fellowfhip; Corruption into Patriotism; and Lewdnefs into Tenderness and Facility.

The fecond is the Rule of Contraries: It is certain, the lefs a Man is endued with any Virtue, the more need he has to have it plentifully beftowed, efpecially thofe good qualities of which the world generally believes he hath none at all: For who will thank a Man for giving him that which he has?

The Reverse of these Precepts will serve for Satire, wherein we are ever to remark, that whoso lofeth his place, or becomes out of favour with the Government, hath forfeited his fhare in publick Praife and Honour. Therefore the truly publick fpirited writer ought in duty to trip him whom

the government hath ftripped; which is the real poetical Fuftice of this age. For a full collection of Topicks and Epithets to be ufed in the Praife. and Difpraife of Minifterial and Unminifterial Per-. fons, I refer to our Rhetorical Cabinet; concluding with an earnest exhortation to all my brethren, tò obferve the Precepts here laid down, the neglect of which hath coft fome of them their Ears in a Pillory.

CHA P. XV.

A Receipt to make an Epic Poem.

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N Epic Poem, the Critics agree, is the great

eft work human nature is capable of. They have already laid down many mechanical rules for compofitions of this fort, but at the fame time they cut off almost all undertakers from the poffibility of ever performing them; for the firft qualification they unanimously require in a Poet, is a Genius. I fhall here endeavour (for the benefit of my Countrymen) to make it manifeft, that Epic Poems may be made without a Genius, nay without Learning or much Reading. This must neceffarily be of great ufe to all those who confefs they never Read, and of whom the world is convinced they never Learn. Moliere

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obferves of making a dinner, that any man can do it with Money, and if a profeffed Cook cannot do it without, he has his Art for nothing; the fame may be faid of making a Poem, 'tis eafily brought about by him that has a Genius, but the skill lies in doing it without one. In purfuance of this end I fhall present the reader with a plain and certain Recipe, by which any author in the Bathos may be qualified for this grand performance.

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For the FABLE.

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Take out of any old Poem, Hiftory-book, Romance, or Legend (for inftance, Geoffry of Monmouth, or Don Belianis of Greece) thofe parts of story which afford moft fcope for long Defcriptions: Put thefe pieces together, and throw all the adventures you fancy into one Tale. Then take a Hero, whom you may chufe for the found of his name, and put him into the midst of these adventures: There" let` him work for twelve books; at the end of which you may take him out, ready prepared to conquer or to marry; it being neceffary that the conclufion of an Epic Poem be fortunate.

Take any remaining adventure of your former collection, in which you could no way involve your Hero; or any unfortunate accident that was too