Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/109

 ''after necessary Labours. And therefore the length of some of the Modern Italian, and English Compositions, is against the Rules of this kind of Poesy.''

I shall add something very briefly touching the Versification of Pastorals'', tho' it be a mortifying Consideration to the Moderns. Heroic Verse, as it is commonly call'd, was us'd by the Greeks in this sort of Poem, as very Ancient and Natural. Lyrics, Iambics, &c. being Invented afterwards: but there is so great a difference in the Numbers, of which it may be compounded, that it may pass rather for a Genus, than Species, of Verse. Whosoever shall compare the numbers of the three following Verses, will quickly be sensible of the truth of this Observation.''

The first of the Georgics,

and of the Æneis,

The Sound of the Verses, is almost as different as the Subjects''. But the Greek Writers of Pastoral, usually limited themselves to the Example of the first; which Virgil found so'' Rh