Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/106

 Oeconomy of a Poem, Virgil much excells his Master Theocritus. The Poet is better skill'd in Husbandry'' than those that get their Bread by it. He describes the Nature, the Diseases, the Remedies, the proper places, and Seasons, of Feeding, of Watering their Flocks; the Furniture, Diet; the Lodging and Pastimes of his Shepherds. But the Persons brought in by Mr. F. are Shepherds in Masquerade, and handle their Sheep-Hook as awkardly, as they do their Oaten-Reed. They Saunter about with their chers Moutons, but they relate as little to the Business in hand, as the Painter's Dog, or a Dutch Ship, does to the History design'd. One would suspect some of them, that instead of leading out their Sheep into the Plains of Mont-Brison, and Marcilli, to the flowry Banks of Lignon, or the Charanthe; that they are driving directly, à la boucherie, to make Mony of them. I hope hereafter Mr. F. will chuse his Servants better''.

''A sixth Rule is, That as the Style ought to be natural, clear, and elegant, it should have some peculiar relish of the Ancient Fashion of Writing. Parables in those times were frequently us'd, as they are still by the Eastern Nations; Philosophical Questions, Ænigma's, &c. and of this we find Instances in the Sacred Writings, in Homer, Contemporary with King David, in Herodotus, in the Greek Tragedians; this piece of Antiquity is imitated by Virgil with great judgment and discretion: He'' Rh