APPENDIX. 167 



venient to the fubject;" fo likewife is the Poet to reject all inci- 

 dents which are foreign to his Poem, and are naturally no parts 

 of it : They are wens, and other excrefcences, which belong 

 not to the body, but deform it. No perfon, no incident in 

 the piece, or in the play, but muft be of ufe to carry on the 

 main defign. All things elfe ar? like fix fingers to the hand, 

 when Nature, which is fuperfluous in nothing, can do her 

 work with five. " A Painter mud reject all trifling ornaments;" 

 fo muft a Poet refufe all tedious and unneceffary defcriptions. 

 A robe, which is too heavy, is lefs an ornament than a burden. 

 In Poetry, Horace calls thefe things r 



Verfus inopes rerum r nugaeque canorsc. 



Thefe are alfo the lucus & ara Dianae, which he mentions in 

 the fame Art of Poetry : But fmce there muft be ornaments, 

 both in Painting and Poetry, if they are not necefTary, they 

 muft at leaft be decent; that is, in their due place, and but 

 moderately ufed. The Painter is not to take fo much pains 

 about the drapery, as about the face, where the principal re- 

 femblance lies ; neither is the Poet, who is working up a paf- 

 iion to make fimiles, which will certainly make it languim. 

 My Montezuma dies with a fine one in his mouth, but it is out 

 of feafon. Where there are more figures in a picture than are 

 necefTary, or at leaft ornamental, our author calls them " Figures 

 to be lett," becaufe the picture has no ufe of them : So I have 

 feen in fome modern plays above twenty actors, when the ac- 

 tion has not required half the number. In the principal 

 figures of a picture, the Painter is to employ the finews of his 

 art, for in them confifts the principal beauty of his work. 

 Our Author faves me the comparifon with Tragedy: for he 

 fays, that " herein he is to imitate the Tragic Poet, who em- 

 ploys his utmoft force in thofe places, wherein confifts the 



height and beauty of the action," 



Du 



