I

SECT. IV.

Of the RAPE of the Lock.

F the Moderns have excelled the Ancients

in any species of writing, it seems to be in fatire: and, particularly in that kind of fatire, which is conveyed in the form of the epopee, a pleafing vehicle of fatire, seldom, if ever, ufed by the ancients; for we know fo little of the Margites of Homer, that it cannot be produced as an example. As the poet difappears in this way of writing, and does not deliver the intended censure in his own proper person, the satire becomes more delicate, because more oblique. Add to this, that a tale or story more ftrongly engages and interefts the reader, than a feries of precepts or reproofs, or even of characters themselves, however lively and natural. An heroi-comic poem may therefore be justly esteemed the moft excellent kind of fatire.

THE invention of it is ufually ascribed to Aleffandro Taffoni; who in the year 1622, published

published at Paris, a poem composed by him, in a few months of the year 1611, entitled LA SECCHIA RAPITA, or The Rape of the Bucket. To avoid giving offence, it was first printed under the name of Androvini Melifoni. It was afterwards reprinted at Venice, corrected, with the name of the author, and with fome illustrations of Gafparo Salviani. But the learned and curious Crefcembini, in his Iftoria della Volgar Poefia*, informs us, that it is doubtful whether the invention of the

heroi-comic poem ought to be ascribed to Taffoni, or to Francesco Bracciolini, who wrote Lo SCHERNO DE GLI DEI, which performance, though it was printed four years after LA SECCHIA, is nevertheless declared in an epiftle prefixed, to have been written many years fooner. The real fubject of Taffoni's poem was the war which the inhabitants of Modena declared against those of Bologna, on

* Lib. i. pag. 78. In Roma, per il Chracas, 1698. +E tal Poefia puo diffinirfi, e chiamarfi, immitazione d'azione feria fatto con rifo. Crefcembini, ibid.

§ In Venetia, 1627. There is prefixed, by way of preface, a facetious dialogue betwixt Thalia and Urania.

T

the refufal of the latter to restore to them fome towns, which had been detained ever fince the time of the emperor Frederic II. The author artfully made ufe of a popular tradition, according to which it was believed, 'that a certain wooden bucket, which is kept at Modena, in the treasury of the cathedral, came from Bologna, and that it had been forcibly taken away by the Modenese. Crefcembini adds, that because Taffoni had feverely ridiculed the Bolognefe, Bartolomeo Bocchini, to revenge his countrymen, printed at Venice 1641, a tragico-heroi-comic poem, entitled LE PAZZIE DE SAVI, overo, IL LAMBERTACCIO, in which the Modenefe are spoken of with much contempt. The Italians have a fine turn for works of humour, in which they abound. They have another poem of this fpecies, called MALMANTILE RACQUISTATO, written by Lorenzo Lippi, in the year 1676, which Crefcembini * highly commends, calling it, Spiritofifimo e legiadriffimo poema giacofo." It was after

Pag. 368. lib. 5.

wards

wards reprinted at Florence 1688, with the useful annotations of Puccio Lamoni, a Florentine painter, who was himself no contemptible poet.

THE LUTRIN of Boileau was the fecond remarkable poem, in which the Serious and Comic were happily blended. Boileau himself has given a circumftantial account of what gave occafion to this poem: which account, because it is entertaining, and not printed in the common editions of his works, I will infert at length. "I fhall not here act like Ariofto, who frequently when he is going to relate the most abfurd story in the world, folemnly protests it to be true, and supports it by the authority of archbishop Turpin. For my part I freely declare, the whole poem of the DESK is nothing but pure fiction; that it is all invented, even to the name itself of the place where the action paffes. An odd occafion gave rife to this poem. In a company I was lately engaged in, the converfation turned upon epic poetry: every one delivered his opinion, according to his abili

ties; when mine was afked, I confirmed what I had advanced in my Art of Poetry, that an heroic poem, to be truly excellent, ought to be charged with little MATTER, which it was the business of invention to fupport and extend. The opinion was warmly contested: but after many reasons for and against, it happened, as it generally does in this fort of difputes, that nobody was convinced, and that each continued in his own opinion. The heat of difpute being over, we talked on other fubjects; and laughed at the violence into which we had been betrayed, in difcuffing a question of fo little confequence. We moralized on the folly of men who pass almost their whole lives, in treating the greatest trifles in a serious manner; and in making to themselves an important affair of fomething quite indifferent. To this purpose, a country gentleman related a famous quarrel, that had lately happened in a little church. in his province, between the treasurer and the chantor, the two principal dignitaries of that church, about the place in which a reading

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