I should be loth to beleeve those written of vs, which the truth of our owne knowledge will not allow us to beleeve: and therefore the often & vehement inuersion of Poets, sheweth not, that they sinned, but that they are enemies: for they that beare rule in the commonwealth, and that haue the preseruation of publike good in their shoulders, doe not in this only err, but they are commonly most vehement, when they feele least: where as Poets that vse but a little licence in their fables, to make the matter faster beleeued, and consequently more profitable, doe not at all leaue their old end, which was, to instruct and delight.
The nature of a Poet is not so to speake what men haue done, but what might be done: and should be done: that thereby they might allure and mooue men to vse their vttermost endeuours in well doing; and to carrie them vnto a more perfect imitation of vertue. For as for old writers of morality, those hauing seene men, and the order of the world, describe thinges as they haue been, and therefore be commonly thought to abuse or deforme that they touch: but Poets, as men that are workemen of the minde, shew what ought to be, and what may be, and last of all what is: and in that comparatiue consideration they are more well allowed than the other.
But whereas some will say, that Poets moue vices rather then vertues, and bewray mens faults rather then they correct them, I answere, that Poets vse to mingled effects, and so to couer vices and vertues with an euen hand, as the painter mixt colours: nay rather they amplifie vertues, and set them in more glorious liuery, to allure men to imitation. For if the end of a tragedy be to shew what may be done, it will be lesse to make men do ill, then to make them thinke they may do good: and to thinke that, is the first step toward action.
Moreover, to deface the fable of Poets, and to vnweare their ornament, were to punish not onely their fables, but their faculties; for the verie turning of a nicenesse into fault, sheweth that men are not angry with the Poets for their fables, but with their owne ignorance, that perceiue not, that those fables be but but meanes to the ende. And in this point, philosophers themselues, who would seeme to bee the onely teachers of truth, do complaine, that the Poets haue oftentimes delivered trueth in such fancies, as men would not willingly beleeue, vnlesse couered with pleasant disguises.
The Poets therefore (who were before philosophers, and taught by nature, and by vse to conceiue either better or more delightful imaginations) were hence called the mouers, because they moued the affections by stroking to example, and to imitation. For example is the rightest precept: for when we be entreated with a likely shew of thinges to be done, and then seene by our imitation, immediately we are more perswaded to follow, then by the bare precept of reason: for rethorick persuadeth by words, poesie by images.
And although some of the olde Poets haue beene carped at, for their impieties, and cruelties, yet the fault is in the doers, not in the worke: for he that contenteth himselfe in hanging vp a story of cruelty, to gaine more admiration or terror, doth not therefore shew cruelty to be an admirable thing: but rather by the shewing thereof, and by the end whereto it leadeth, he sheweth men to abhorre it, and to frame themselves to better dealings.
Touching the accusation of Lyes, which some of the serious call upon Poets, that they are but garmenters of untruth, we answere, that the Poets do not lie, though they feigne; for they feigne for ensample, not for deceit: they make new thinges speak, not to hold men in errors, but to instruct them in vertue. In which respect we may well terme them not liars, because in that which they propound they propose nothing but such things as are possible and probable, and which may be lawfullly imagined for the good of man.
If it be objected, that the Poets allure men with pleasures, to those things which are lesse good, we say that their pleasures be instruments of good things: for no man taketh pleasure in a vertue, but because the vertue itself is pleasant: if therefore a Poet set foorth the pleasures of vertue, he doth but the more encourage men to the practice thereof. And if he vse pleasures in shewing the punishment of vice, he doth but shew the contrarie, that is, he sheweth the end of vice to be miserable, and thereby driues men from it.
Finally, if any object that Poets instruct not so strictly as Philosophers, we answere, that the Poets vse a generall compendious perswasion, which toucheth the affections, and so worketh a more certaine and shorter way to the will then any long precepts of moral philosophy can do: for men are stirred sooner with examples then with definitions, and the imagination is the readiest guide to motion.
Thus hauing shewed what manner of thing the Poet is, and what the end of his worke, I will now conclude, that his office is so excellent, and his effect so necessarie to the well ordering of humane life, that whosoever would take from him his freedom of licence, and his liberty to vse fable for the furtherance of vertue, would in deede make a poore factious world, and giue tyrannie to ignorance.