Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/108

 we behold Stars of all Magnitudes, promiscuously moving together, than if those glorious Lights were rank'd in their several Orders, or reduc'd into the finest Geometrical Figures.

Another Rule omitted by P. Rapine, as some of his are by me, (for I do not design an entire Treatise in this Preface,) is, that not only the Sentences should be short, and smart, upon which account, he justly blames the Italian, and French'', as too Talkative, but that the whole piece should be so too. Virgil transgress'd this Rule in his first Pastorals, I mean those which he compos'd at Mantua, but rectifi'd the Fault in his Riper Years. This appears by the Culex, which is as long as five of his Pastorals put together. The greater part of those he finish'd, have less than an Hundred Verses, and but two of them exceed that Number. But the Silenus, which he seems to have design'd for his Master-piece, in which he introduces a God singing, and he too full of Inspiration, (which is intended by that ebriety, which Mr. F. so unreasonably ridicules,) tho' it go thro' so vast a Field of Matter, and comprizes the Mythology of near Two Thousand Years, consists but of Fifty Lines; so that its brevity is no less admirable, than the subject Matter; the noble Fashion of handling it, and the Deity speaking. Virgil keeps up his Characters in this respect too, with the strictest decency. For Poetry and Pastime was not the Business of Mens Lives in those days, but only their seasonable''