Question 3

(a) Complaints of poverty of poets are as old as their art, but I never heard that they wrote the worse verses for it. It is enough, probably, to call for their most vigorous efforts, that poetry is admired and honoured by their countryman.

(b) Probable impossibilities are to be preferred (in tragedy) to improbable possibilities. Plots also should not be composed from irrational parts, but as much as possible indeed should have nothing irrational in them. If, however, this is impossible, care should be taken that the irrational circumstance does not pertain to the story, as in the case of Oedipus’s not knowing how Laius died.

(c) Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as ‘spectacles’ to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions.