Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/325

 Calpurnius a Writer of Eclogues, who liv'd almost three hundred Years after Virgil, and whose Works however are not wholly destitute of Beauty, seems to have been sorry that Virgil did express but with the Words, Novimus & qui te, those Injurious Terms with which Laco and Comatas treat one another in Theocritus; tho after all, it had yet been better had Virgil wholly supprest that short hint. Calpurnius has judg'd this Passage worthy a larger extent and therefore wrote an Eclogue which is made up of nothing but those Invectives, with which two Shepherds ready to sing for a Prize, ply each other with a great deal of Fury, till the Shepherd who was to be their Judge, is so affrighted that he runs away and leaves 'em. A very fine Conclusion!

But no Author ever made his Shepherds so clownish as J. Baptista Mantuanus, a Latin Poet, who liv'd in the foregoing Age, and who has been compar'd to Virgil, tho he has indeed nothing common with him besides his being of Mantua. The Shepherd Faustus describing his Mistress, says, that she had a good big bloated red Face, and that, though she was almost blind of an Eye, he thought her more beautiful than Diana. 'Twere impossible to guess what precaution another Shepherd takes before he begins a Discourse of considerable length; and who knows but that our modern Mantuan valued himself mightily upon having copied Nature most faithfully in those Passages?

I therefore am of Opinion, that Pastoral Poetry cannot be very charming if it is as low and clownish as Shepherds naturally are; or if it precisely runs upon nothing but rural Matters. For, to hear one speak of Sheep and Goats, and of the care that ought to be taken of those Animals, has nothing which in it self can please us; what is pleasing is the Idea of quietness, which is inseparable from a Pastoral Life. Let a Shepherd say, My Sheep are in good Case, I conduct them to the best Pastures, they feed on nothing but the best Grass, and let him say this in the best Verse in the World, I am sure that your imagination will not be very much delighted with it. But let him say, ''How free from anxious Cares is my Life! In what a quiet state I pass my Days! All my Desires rise no higher than that I may see my Flocks in a thriving condition, and the Pastures wholesome and pleasing; I envy no Man's Happiness'', &c. You perceive that this begins to become more agreeable: The reason of it is, that the Idea runs no longer immediately upon Country Affairs, but upon the little share of Care which Shepherds undergo, and upon the quietness and leisure which they enjoy; and what is the chiefest point, upon the cheapness of their Happiness.

For, all Men would be happy, and that too at an easie rate. A quiet Pleasure is the common object of all their Passions, and we are all controuled by a certain Laziness: Even those who are most