Woolves sheep destroy, Winds Trees when newly blown,
Storms Corn, and me my Amaryllis frown.
And that in the eighth Eclogue,
As Clay grows hard, Wax soft in the same fire,
So Daphnis does in one extream desire.
And such Comparisons are very frequent in him, and very suitable to the Genius of a Shepherd; as likewise often repetitions, and doublings of some words: which, if they are luckily plac’d have an unexpressible quaintness, and make the Numbers extream sweet, and the turns ravishing and delightful. An instance of this we have in Virgil’s Melibœus,
Phyllis the Hazel loves; whilst Phyllis loves that Tree,
Myrtles than Hazels of less fame shall be.
As for the Manners of your Shepherds, they must be such as theirs who liv’d in the Islands of the Happy or Golden Age: They must be candid, simple, and ingenuous; lovers of Goodness, and Justice, affable, and kind; strangers to all fraud, contrivance, and deceit; in their Love modest, and chast, not one suspitious word, no loose expression to be allowed: and in this part Theocritus is faulty, Virgil never; and this difference perhaps is to be ascrib’d to their Ages, the times in which the latter liv’d being more polite, civil, and gentile. And therefore those who make wanton Love- stories the subject of Pastorals, are in my opinion very unadvis’d; for all sort of lewdness or debauchery are directly contrary to the Innocence of the golden Age. There is another thing in which Theocritus is faulty, and that is making his Shepherds too sharp, and abusive to one another; Comatas and Lacon are ready to fight, and the railing between those two is as bitter as Billingsgate: Now certainly such Raillery cannot be suitable to those sedate times of the Happy Age.
As for Sentences, if weighty, and Philosophical, common Sense tells us they are not fit for a Shepherd’s mouth. Here Theocritus cannot be altogether excus’d, but Virgil deserves no reprehension. But Proverbs justly challenge admission into Pastorals, nothing being more common in the mouths of Countrymen than old Sayings.
Thus much seem’d necessary to be premis’d out of RAPIN, for the direction and information of the Reader.