Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/220

78 greatness in it, and can be often render'd more deep and sonorous by the Pronunciation of the Ionians. But in the middle Stile, where the Writers in both Tongues are on a Level: we see how far Virgil has excell'd all who have written in the same way with him.

There has been abundance of Criticism spent on Virgil's Pastorals and Æneids, but the Georgics are a Subject which none of the Criticks have sufficiently taken into their Consideration; most of 'em passing it over in silence, or casting it under the same head with Pastoral; a division by no means proper, unless we suppose the Stile of a Husbandman ought to be imitated in a Georgic as that of a Shepherd is in Pastoral. But tho' the Scene of both these Poems lies in the same place; the Speakers in them are of a quite different Character, since the Precepts of Husbandry are not to be deliver'd with the simplicity of a Plow-Man, but with the Address of a Poet. No Rules therefore that relate to Pastoral, can any way affect the Georgics, which fall under that Class of Poetry which consists in giving plain and direct Instructions to the Reader; whether they be Moral Duties, as those of Theognis and Pythagoras; or Philosophical Speculations, as those of Aratus and Lucretius; or