Then there are three things in which, as in its parts, the whole Character of a Pastoral is contain’d: Simplicity of Thought and expression: Shortness of Periods full of sense and spirit: and the Delicacy of a most elegant ravishing unaffected neatness.
Next I will enquire in to the Efficient, and then into the Final Cause of Pastorals.
Aristotle assigns two efficient Causes of Poetry, The natural desire of Imitation in Man whom he calls the most imitative Creature; and Pleasure consequent to that Imitation: Which indeed are the Remote Causes, but the Immediate are Art and Nature; Now according to the differences of Genius’s several Species of Poetry have been introduced. For as the Philosopher hath observ’d, διεσπάθη κατὰ τὰ οἰκεῖα ἤθη ἡ ποίησις Thus those that were lofty imitated great and Illustrious; those that were low spirited and groveling mean Actions: And every one, according to the various inclination of his Nature, follow’d this or that sort of Poetry: This the Philosopher expresly affirms, And Dio Chrysostomus says of Homer that he received from the Gods a Nature fit for all sorts of Verse: but this is an happiness which none partake but, as he in the same place intimates, Godlike minds.
Not to mention other kinds of Poetry, what particular Genius is requir’d to Pastoral I think, is evident from the foregoing Discourse, for as every part of it ought to be full of simple and inartificial neatness, so it requires a Wit naturally neat and pleasant, born to delight and ravish, which are the qualifications certainly of a great and most excellent Nature: For whatsoever in any kind is delicate and elegant, that is usually most excellent: And such a Genius that hath a sprightfulness of Nature, and is well instructed by the rules of Art, is fit to attempt Pastorals.
Of the end of Pastorals tis not so easy to give an account: For as to the end of Poetry in General: The Enemies of Poets run out into a large common place, and loudly tell us that Poetry is frivolous and unprofitable. Excellent men! that love profit perchance, but have no regard for Honesty and Goodness; who do not know that all excellent Arts sprang from Poetry at first.
Which what is honest, base, or just, or good,
Better than Crantor, or Chrysippus show’d.
For tis Poetry that like a chast unspotted Virgin, shews men the way, and the means to live happily, who afterward are deprav’d by the immodest precepts of vitiated and impudent Philosophy. For every body knows, that the Epick sets before us the highest example of the Bravest man; the Tragedian regulates the Affections of the Mind; the Lyrick reforms Manners, or sings the Praises of Gods, and Heroes; so that there’s no part of Poetry but hath it’s proper end, and profits.
But grant all this true, Pastoral can make no such pretence: if you sing a Hero, you excite mens minds to imitate his Actions, and notable Exploits; but how can Bucolicks apply these or the like advantages to its self? He that reads Heroick Poems, learns what is the vertue of a Hero, and wishes to be like him; but he that reads Pastorals, neither learns how to feed sheep, nor wishes himself a shepherd: And a great deal more to this purpose you may see in Modicius, as Pontanus cites him in his Notes on Virgil’s Eclogues.
But when tis the end of Comedy, as Jerom in his Epistle to Furia says, to know the Humors of Men, and to describe them; and Demea in Terence intimates the same thing,
To look on all mens lives as in a Glass,
And take from those Examples for our Own,