But are habits
to be introduced at three hours' warning? Are radical diseases so
suddenly removed? A mountebank may promise such a cure, but a
skilful physician will not undertake it. An epic poem is not in so
much haste; it works leisurely: the changes which it makes are
slow, but the cure is likely to be more perfect. The effects of
tragedy, as I said, are too violent to be lasting. If it be
answered, that for this reason tragedies are often to be seen, and
the dose to be repeated, this is tacitly to confess that there is
more virtue in one heroic poem than in many tragedies. A man is
humbled one day, and his pride returns the next. Chemical medicines
are observed to relieve oftener than to cure; for it is the nature
of spirits to make swift impressions, but not deep. Galenical
decoctions, to which I may properly compare an epic poem, have more
of body in them; they work by their substance and their weight.
It is one reason of Aristotle's to prove that tragedy is the more
noble, because it turns in a shorter compass--the whole action being
circumscribed within the space of four-and-twenty hours.
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