But to this the
answer is very obvious. God has placed us in our several stations;
the virtues of a private Christian are patience, obedience,
submission, and the like; but those of a magistrate or a general or
a king are prudence, counsel, active fortitude, coercive power,
awful command, and the exercise of magnanimity as well as justice.
So that this objection hinders not but that an epic poem, or the
heroic action of some great commander, enterprised for the common
good and honour of the Christian cause, and executed happily, may be
as well written now as it was of old by the heathens, provided the
poet be endued with the same talents; and the language, though not
of equal dignity, yet as near approaching to it as our modern
barbarism will allow--which is all that can be expected from our own
or any other now extant, though more refined; and therefore we are
to rest contented with that only inferiority, which is not possibly
to be remedied.
I wish I could as easily remove that other difficulty which yet
remains.
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