of the hero's mind were not more properly the poet's work than the strength of his body. Nor does this anything contradict the opinion of Horace, where he tells us,
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.
For he says immediately after,
————————————Non tamen intus
Digna geri promes in scenam; multaq; tolles
Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia præsens.
Among which many he recounts some:
Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,
Aut in avem Progne mutetur, Cadmus in anguem n; &c.
That is, those actions which by reason of their cruelty will cause aversion in us, or by reason of their impossibility, unbelief, ought either wholly to be avoided by a poet, or only delivered by narration. To which we may have leave to add, such as, to avoid tumult, (as was before hinted,) or to reduce the plot into a more reasonable compass of time, or for defect of beauty in them, are rather to be related than presented to the eye. Examples of all these kinds are frequent, not only among all the ancients, but in the best received of our English poets. We find Ben Johnson using them in his Magnetick Lady n, where one comes out from dinner, and relates the quarrels and disorders of it, to save the undecent appearance of them on the stage, and to abbreviate the story; and this in express imitation of Terence, who had done the
