NOTE A
From Background 1 In "Preface To Poetry"

The incredulus odi attitude of the period may be seen in Rymer's heavy insistence on probability:

'Poetry has no life, nor can have any operation, without probability; it may indeed amuse the People, but moves not the Wise' ('Preface to Rapin', Spingarn, ii. 171)

A year later, in his Ninth Epistle, Boileau made the uncompromising assertion:

Rien n'est beau que le vrai: le vrai seul est aimable;
Il doit régner partout....