Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/331

 Gallus, Virgil's Contemporary, and the Honours which he receives on Paruassus; after which, we presently come to the Fables of Scylla and Philomela. 'Tis honest Silenus that gives all this fine Medly; and, as Virgil tells us, that according to his laudable Custom, he had taken a hearty Carouse the Day before, I am afraid, the Fumes were hardly yet got out of his Head.

Here let me once more take the freedom to own that I like better the design of an Eclogue of this kind, by Nemesianus, an Author who was Calpurnius's Contemporary, and who is not altogether to be despis'd. Some Shepherds, finding Pan asleep, try to play on his Pipe, but as a Mortal can make a God's Pipe yield only a very unpleasing sound. Pan is awak'd by it; and tells them, that if they are for Songs, he'll gratifie them presently. With this be sings to them something of the History of Bacchus, and dwells on the first Vintage that ever was made, of which he gives a Description which seems to me very agreeable; this Design is more regular than that of Virgil's Silenus, and the Verses also are pretty good.

The Moderns have been often guilty of handling high Subjects in their Eclogues. The French Poet Ronsard has given us in his the Praises of Princes and of France, and almost all that looks like Bucolick in them, is his calling Henry II. Henriot, [or Harry.] Charles IX. Carlin, and Queen Catherine de Medicis, Catin, [or Kate.] 'Tis true, he owns that he did not follow the Rules, but it had been better to have done it, and thus have avoided the Ridicule which the disproportion that is between the Subject and the Form of the Work produces. Hence it happens that in his first Eclogue it falls to the Lot of the Shepherdess Margot [or Peg] to sing the Elogy of Turnebus, Budæus, and Vatable, the greatest Men of their Age for Greek and Hebrew, but with whom, certainly Peg ought not to have been acquainted.

Because Shepherds look well in some kinds of Poetry, many Writers prostitute them to every Subject. They are often made to sing the Praises of Kings in the sublimest Stile the Poet can write; and provided he has but talk'd of Oaten Pipes, Meads and Plains, Fern or Grass, Streams or Vallies, he thinks he has written an Eclogue. When Shepherds praise a Hero, they shou'd praise him Shepherd-like, and I do not doubt but that this wou'd be very ingenious and taking, but it wou'd require some Art, and the shortest cut it seems is to make the Shepherds speak the common Dialect of praise, which is very big and softy indeed, but very common and consequently easie enough of Conscience.

Allegorical Eclogues also are not very easie. J. B. Mantuanus, who was a Carmelite Fryar, has one in which two Shepherds dispute, the one representing a Carmelite Fryar, who is of that Party of the Order which they call, The strict Observance, and the other