tho' it may be true in other Occasions, does not hold in this; because in the present Case, though the Persons who fall into Misfortune are of the most perfect and consummate Virtue, it is not to be considered as what may possibly be, but what actually is our own Case; since we are embarked with them on the same Bottom, and must be Partakers of their Happiness or Misery.
In this,
some other very few Instances,
Aristotle's
Rules for Epic Poetry (which he had drawn from his Reflections upon
Homer
) cannot be supposed to quadrate exactly with the Heroic Poems which have been made since his Time; since it is plain his Rules would
still have been