333. Aut prodesse volunt, aut delectare poetae, &c.] Though these lines have the appearance of general criticism, yet do they more especially respect the dramatic poesy. This will be evident from attending to the context. The full boast and glory of the drama is to delight and instruct mankind. 1. The latter praise was more especially due to the ancient tragic muse, who did not think it sufficient to paint lovely pourtraitures of public and social virtue, and to call in the moralizing chorus to her assistance, but, which was one of her discriminating characters, she was perpetually inculcating every branch of true moral in those brief sententious precepts, which inform and solemnize her page. To these precepts then the poet manifestly refers in those lines,
Quicquid præcipies, esto brevis; ut cito dicta
Percipiant animi dociles, teneantque fideles.
But what follows is still clearer, [2.] The other end of the drama is to entertain, and this by the means of probable fiction.
Ficta, voluptatis causa, sint proxima veris.
And the poet applies this to the case of the drama in express words:
Ne quodcunque volet, poscat sibi fabula credi:
Neu pransæ Lamiæ vivum puerum extrahat alvo.
The instance of Lamia, as Mr. Dacier observes, is certainly taken from some poet of that time, who had been guilty of this misconduct. The reader may learn from hence, how intently Horace pursues his design of criticizing the Roman stage, when, in treating a subject, from its nature, the most general of any in the epistle, viz. critical correctness, we yet find him so industriously recurring to this point.
343. Miscuit utile dulci.] The unnatural separation of the DULCE ET UTILE hath done almost as much hurt in letters as that of the HONESTUM ET UTILE, which Tully somewhere complains of, hath done in morals. For while the polite writer, as he is called, contents himself with the former of these qualities, and the man of erudition with the latter, it comes to pass, as the same writer expresses it, that ET DOCTIS ELOQUENTIA POPULARIS, ET DISERTIS ELEGANS DOCTRINA DESIT [Orat. iii.]