* * *

No. 523. Thursday, October 30, 1712. Addison.

'--Nunc augur Apollo,
Nunc Lyciae sortes, nunc et Jove missus ab ipso
Interpres Divum fert horrida jussa per auras.
Scilicet is superis labor--'

Virg.

I am always highly delighted with the discovery of any rising Genius
among my Countrymen. For this reason I have read over, with great
pleasure, the late Miscellany published by Mr. _Pope_, [1] in which
there are many excellent Compositions of that ingenious Gentleman. I
have had a pleasure of the same kind, in perusing a Poem that is just
publish'd _on the Prospect of Peace_, and which, I hope, will meet with
such a Reward from its Patrons, as so noble a Performance deserves. I
was particularly well pleased to find that the Author had not amused
himself with Fables out of the Pagan Theology, and that when he hints at
any thing of [this [2]] nature, he alludes to it only as to a Fable.

Many of our Modern Authors, whose Learning very often extends no farther
than _Ovid's Metamorphosis_, do not know how to celebrate a Great Man,
without mixing a parcel of School-Boy Tales with the Recital of his
Actions. If you read a Poem on a fine Woman, among the Authors of this
Class, you shall see that it turns more upon _Venus_ or _Helen_, that on
the Party concerned. I have known a Copy of Verses on a great Hero
highly commended; but upon asking to hear some of the beautiful
Passages, the Admirer of it has repeated to me a Speech of _Apollo_, or
a Description of _Polypheme_. At other times when I have search'd for
the Actions of a great Man, who gave a Subject to the Writer, I have
been entertained with the Exploits of a River-God, or have been forced
to attend a Fury in her mischievous Progress, from one end of the Poem
to the other. When we are at School it is necessary for us to be
acquainted with the System of Pagan Theology, and may be allowed to
enliven a Theme, or point an Epigram with an Heathen God; but when we
would write a manly Panegyrick, that should carry in it all the Colours
of Truth, nothing can be more ridiculous than to have recourse to our
_Jupiters_ and _Junos_.

No Thought is beautiful which is not just, and no Thought can be just
which is not founded in Truth, or at least in that which passes for
such.

In Mock-Heroick Poems, the Use of the Heathen Mythology is not only
excusable but graceful, because it is the Design of such Com