Taught Trees to sound his _Amaryllis_ name.
{5} On the one side _Meliboeus_ is forc't to leave his Country, and
_Antony_ on the other; the one a Sheapard, the other a great man, in
the Common-Wealth; how disagreeable was the Event? the Sheapard could
endure himself; and sit down contentedly under his misfortunes, whilst
lost _Antony_, unable to hold out, and quitting all hopes both for
himself and his Queen, became his own barbarous Executioner: Than
which sad and deplorable fall I cannot imagine what could be worse,
for certainly nothing is so miserable as a Wretch made so from a
flowrishing & happy man; by which tis evident how much we ought to
prefer before the gaity of a great and shining State, that Idol of the
Crowd, the lowly simplicity of a Sheapards Life: for what is that but
a perfect image of the state of Innocence, of that golden Age, that
blessed time, when Sincerity and Innocence, Peace, Ease, and Plenty
inhabited the Plains?
Take the Poets description
Here Lowly Innocence makes a sure retreat,
A harmless Life, and ignorant of deceit,
and free from fears with various sweet's encrease,
And all's or'e spread with the soft wings of Peace:
Here Oxen low, here Grots, and purling Streams,
And Spreading shades invite to easy dreams.
And thus Horace,
Happy the man beyond pretence
Such was the state of Innocence, &c.
{6} And from this head I think the dignity of _Bucolicks_ is
sufficiently cleared, for as much as the Golden Age is to be preferred
before the _Heroick_, so much _Pastorals_ must excell _Heroick_ Poems:
yet this is so to be understood, that if we look upon the majesty and
loftiness of _Heroick_ Poems, it must be confest that they justly
claim the preheminence; but if the unaffected neatness, elegant,
graceful smartness of the expression, or the polite dress of a Poem be
considered, then they fall short of _Pastorals_: for this sort flows
with Sweet, Elegant, neat and pleasing fancies; as is too evident to
every one that hath tasted the sweeter muses, to need a farther
explication: for tis not probable that _Asinius Pollio_, _Cinna_,
_Varius_, _Cornelius Gallus_, men of the neatest Wit, and that lived
in the most polite Age, or that _Augustus Caesar_ the Prince of the
_Roman_ elegance, as well as of the common Wealth, should be so
extreamly taken with _Virgils Bucolicks_, or that _Virgil_ himself a
man of such singular prudence, and so correct a judgment, should
dedicate his Eclogues to those great Persons; unless he had known that
there is somewhat more then ordinary Elegance in those sort of
Composures, which the wise perceive, tho far above the understanding
of the Crowd: nay if _Ludovicus Vives_, a very learned man, and
admired for politer studies may be believed, there is somewhat more
sublime and excellent in those _Pastorals_, than the Common {7} sort
of Grammarians imagine: This I shall discourse of in an other place,
and now inquire into the Antiquity of Pastorals.
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