When are we like to meet?
Ah gently, gently, lest thy tender feet
Sharp Ice may wound.
To these he may sometimes joyn some short Interrogations made to
_inanimate Beings_, for those spread a strange life and vigor thro the
whole Composure. Thus in _Daphnis_,
Did not You Streams, and Hazels, hear the Nymphs?
Or give the very Trees, and Fountains sense, as in _Tityrus_,
Thee (_Tityrus_) the Pines, and every Vale,
The Fountains, Hills, and every shrub did call:
for by this the Concernment is express'd; and of the like nature is
that of _Thyrsis_, in _Virgil's_ _Meliboeus_,
{63} When _Phyllis_ comes, my wood will all be green.
And this sort of Expressions is frequent in _Theocritus_, and
_Virgil_, and in these the delicacy of _Pastoral_ is principally
contain'd, as one of the old _Interpreters_ of _Theocritus_ hath
observ'd on this line, in the eighth _Idyllium_,
Ye Vales, and Streams, a race Divine:
But let them be so, and so seldom us'd, that nothing appear vehement,
and bold, for Boldness and Vehemence destroy the sweetness which
peculiarly commends _Bucolicks_, and in those Composures a constant
care to be soft and easie should be chief: For _Pastoral_ bears some
resemblance to _Terence_, of whom _Tully_, in that Poem which he
writes to _Libo_, gives this Character,
His words are soft, and each expression sweet.
In mixing _Passion_ in _Pastorals_, that rule of _Longinus_, in his
golden Treatise *peri hypsous*, must be observ'd, _Never use it, but
when the matter requires it, and then too very sparingly_.
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