Therefore an unfortunate _Shepherd_ may be brought in, complaining of
his successless Love to the _Moon, Stars_, or _Rocks_, or to the
Woods, and purling Streams, mourning the unsupportable anger, the
frowns and coyness of his proud _Phyllis_; singing at his _Nymphs_
door, (which _Plutarch_ reckons among the signs of Passion) or doing
any of those fooleries, which are familiar to Lovers. Yet the Passion
must not rise too high, as _Polyphemus's_, _Galateas's_ mad Lover, of
whom _Theocritus_ divinely thus, as almost of every thing else:
His was no common flame, nor could he move
In the old Arts, and beaten paths of Love,
No Flowers nor Fruits sent to oblige the Fair,
{62} His was all Rage, and Madness:
For all violent Perturbations are to be diligently avoided by
_Bucolicks_, whose nature it is to be _soft_, and _easie_: For in
small matters, and such must all the strifes and contentions of
Shepherds be, to make a great deal of adoe, is as unseemly, as to put
_Hercules's_ Vizard and Buskins on an Infant, as _Quintilian_ hath
excellently observ'd. For since _Eclogue_ is but weak, it seems not
capable of those Commotions which belong to the _Theater_, and
_Pulpit_; they must be soft, and gentle, and all its Passion must seem
to flow only, and not break out: as in _Virgil's Gallus_,
Ah, far from home and me You wander o're
The _Alpine_ snows, the farthest Western shore,
And frozen _Rhine_.
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