CHAP. III.
Of Pastoral Descriptions. And what Authors have the finest.
Of Images are form'd Descriptions, as by a Combination of Thoughts a
Speech is composed. And a Description is good or bad, chiefly as the
Images or Circumstances are judiciously, or otherwise, chosen; and
artfully put together.
As to the putting them together, I shall only observe, that in Descriptions of the Heat of Love, not in Pastoral, but in such Pieces as Sapho's, or the like, the Circumstances should be couch'd extreamly close; in Epick Poetry the Circumstances should be somewhat less closely heap'd together; and that Pastoral requires 'em the most diffuse of any; being of a Nature extreamly calm and sedate.
Hence we may learn what Length Pastoral will admit of in it's
Descriptions. And certain it is, that as we are easily wearied by a cold
Speech, so are we by a cold Description, unless very concise.
But as those Poets whose Minds have delighted in Pastoral Images have always been Men of Pleasurable Fancies, and who never would bring their Minds under the Regulation of Art; all who have touch'd Pastoral the finest have egregiously offended in this Particular. The only Writers, I think, who have ever had Genius's form'd for Pastoral Images, are Ovid and Spencer; which appear's from the Metamorphoses of the first, and the Fairy-Queen of the latter. As for Theocritus, he seem's to me to be better in the Pastoral Thought than Image; and as I rank together Ovid and Spencer, so I put Theocritus in the same Class with Otway. And I think any one of these Four, if he had form'd his Mind aright by Art, (that is, had either thoroughly understood Criticism in all it's Branches, or else never vitiated his natural Genius by any Learning) was capable of giving the World a perfect Sett of Pastorals. The former two would have run most upon beautiful Images, and the latter two upon Agreeable Thoughts.
I need not instance in the tedious Descriptions of Theocritus, Ovid and Spencer. But certainly, if long Descriptions are faulty in Epick Poetry, as they prevent the Curiosity of the Reader, and leave him nothing to invent, or to imploy his own Mind upon, they are in Pastoral much more disagreeable. Tho' if any thing would excuse a long Description, there is in Ovid and Spencer, that inimitable Delightfulness, which would make 'em pass. Virgil has no Descriptions in his Pastorals so long as Spencer, and Heavens deliver us if he had; for as 'tis, I can better read the longest of Spencer's, than the shortest of his, in his Pastorals.