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e xact Tones and Measures; by which he justly repre-sents them, marks the sublime of the Sentiments andAction, and distinguishes the Beautiful from the Defor -med, the Amiable from the Odious* The moral Artist,who can thus imitate the Creator, and is thus knowingin the inward Form and Structure os his Fellow-creature,will hardly, I presume, be found unknowing in himself,or at a Loss in those Numbers which make the Har-mony of a Mind. For Knavery is mere Dissonance and"Disproportion . And tho’ Villains may have strong Tonesand natural Capacities of Action; 'tis impossible that trueJudgment and Ingenuity should reside, where Harmonyand Honesty have no Being.
So much the Poet must necessarily borrow of the Phi-losopher, as to be Master of the common Topicks ofMorality, and to have a Sense of that moral Truth, onwhich poetick Truth and Beauty must naturally depend.
ui didicit patriœ quid debeat , & quid amicis ,
Quo ft amore par ens ^ quo frater amandus et hospes y^uodfit conscripti, quod judicis ojficium
- ille profeSlo.
Reddere personce scit convenientia cuiq ;
He must, at least, be speciously honest, and in all Ap-pearance, a Friend to Virtue throughout his Poem. TheGood and Wife will abate him nothing in this Kind.And the People, tho' corrupt, are in the main best satis-fied with this Conduct.
- Speciosa