Whilst on his Reed he Shepherd's stifes conveys,
And soft complaints in smooth Sicilian lays.
To these may be added _sports_, _Jests_, _Gifts_, and _Presents_; but
not _costly_, such are yellow Apples, young stock-Doves, Milk,
Flowers, and the like; all things must appear delightful and easy,
nothing vitious and rough: A perfidious Pimp, a designing Jilt, a
gripeing Usurer, a crafty factious Servant must have no room there,
but every part must be full of the simplicity of the _Golden-Age_, and
of that Candor which was then eminent: for as _Juvenal affirms_
Baseness was a great wonder in that Age;
Sometimes _Funeral-Rites_ are the subject of an _Eclogue_, where the
Shepherds scatter flowers on the Tomb, and sing Rustick Songs in honor
of the Dead: Examples of this kind are left us by _Virgil_ in his
_Daphnis_, and _Bion_ in his _Adonis_, and this hath nothing
disagreeable to a Shepherd: In {26} short whatever, the decorum being
still preserv'd, can be done by a _Sheapard_, may be the Subject of a
_Pastoral_.
Now there may be more kinds of Subjects than _Servius_ or _Donatus_
allow, for they confine us to that Number which _Virgil_ hath made use
of, tho _Minturnus_ in his second Book _de Poeta_ declares against
this opinion: But as a glorious _Heroick_ action must be the Subject
of an _Heroick_ Poem, so a _Pastoral_ action of a _Pastoral_; at least
it must be so turn'd and wrought, that it might appear to be the
action of a _Shepherd_; which caution is very necessary to be
observ'd, to clear a great many difficulties in this matter: for tho
as the Interpreters assure us; most of _Virgils_ Eclogues are about
the Civil war, planting Colonys, the murder of the Emperor, and the
like, which in themselves are too great and too lofty for humble
_Pastoral_ to reach, yet because they are accomodated to the Genius of
Shepherds, may be the Subject of an _Eclogue_, for that sometimes will
admit of Gods and Heroes so they appear like, and are shrouded under
the Persons of Shepherds: But as for these matters which neither
really are, nor are so wrought as to seem the actions of Shepherds,
such are in _Moschus's_ _Europa_, _Theocritus's_ _Epithalamium of
Helen_, and _Virgil's_ _Pollio_, to declare my opinion freely, I
cannot think them to be fit Subjects for _Bucolicks_: And upon this
account I suppose 'tis that _Servius_ in his {27} Comments on
_Virgil's_ _Bucoliks_ reckons only seven of _Virgil's_ ten Eclogues,
and onely ten of _Theocritus's_ thirty, to be pure Pastorals, and
_Salmasius_ upon _Solinus_ says, that _amongst Theocritus's_ _Poems
there are some which you may call what you please Beside Pastorals_:
and _Heinsius_ in his _Scholia_ upon _Theocritus_ will allow but Ten
of his _Idylliums_ to be _Bucoliks_, 1.
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