Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/332

 of that which they call the Mitigated. The famous Bembus is their Judge; and 'tis worth observing, that he prudently makes them lay down their Crooks, lest they fall together by the Ears.

Now, though in the main our Mantuan has pretty well kept the Allegory, 'tis too ridiculous to find the Controversie between these two sorts of Carmelitans handled Ecloguewise.

Yet I had rather see a Shepherd represent one of these, than have him act the Epicuræan, and say impious things; 'tis what happens sometimes to some of Mantuanus's Shepherds, though they are very Clownish, and he himself was of a Religious Order. Amyntas, one of them, in an angry fit, which makes him rail against the Laws and Vertue, meerly because he is in Love, says, that Men are great Fools to feed themselves up with a Fancy of being taken up to Heaven after their Death; and he adds, that the most that is like to happen then, is that they may chance to transmigrate into some Birds, and so flutter up and down through the Air. In vain to make this excusable, our Fryar says, that Amyntas had liv'd a long time in Town; and as much in vain Badius his worthy Commentator; for as much a Modern as Mantuanus is, he has one, and as bigotted and hot for his Author as those of the Ancients; in vain, I say, he takes from thence an opportunity to make this rare Reflection, that Love causes us to doubt of matters of Faith: 'Tis certain that these Errours, which ought to be detested by all those who have heard of them, ought not to be known, much less mention'd by Shepherds.

To make amends, sometimes our Mantuan makes his Shepherds mighty Godly. In one of his Eclogues you have a Catalogue of all the Virgin Mary's Holidays; in another an Apparition of the Virgin, who promises a Shepherd, that, when he shall have past his Life on Mount Carmel, she'll take him to a more pleasant place, and will make him dwell in Heaven with the Dryades, and Hamadryades, a sort of new-fashion'd Saints whom we did not yet know in Heaven

Such gross and inexcusable Indecencies may be easily avoided in the Character of Shepherds, but there are some that are not so observable, of which some Writers cannot so easily be freed: 'Tis the making their Shepherds speak too wittily. Sometimes even those of the Marquess de Racan are guilty of this, though they generally use to be very reserv'd in that point. As for the Italian Authors, they are always so full of false and pointed Thoughts, that we must resolve right or wrong to give them leave to indulge themselves in that darling Stile of theirs, as natural to them as their Mother Tongue. They never take the pains to make their Shepherds speak in a Pastoral Stile, but make use of as bold and exaggerated Figures, and are as full of Conceipts in that sort of Poetry, as they are in others.