Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/222

80 most capable of Ornament. Virgil was so well acquainted with this Secret, that to set off his first Georgic, he has run into a set of Precepts, which are almost foreign to his Subject, in that Beautiful account he gives us of the Signs in Nature, which precede the Changes of the Weather.

And if there be so much Art in the choice of fit Precepts, there is much more requir'd in the Treating of 'em; that they may fall in after each other by a Natural unforc'd Method, and shew themselves in the best and most advantagious Light. They shou'd all be so finely wrought together into the same Piece, that no course Seam may discover where they join; as in a Curious Brede of Needle-Work, one Colour falls away by such just degrees, and another rises so insensibly, that we see the variety, without being able to distinguish the total vanishing of the one from the first appearance of the other. Nor is it sufficient to range and dispose this Body of Precepts into a clear and easie Method, unless they are deliver'd to us in the most pleasing and agreeable manner: For there are several ways of conveying the same Truth to the Mind of Man, and to chuse the pleasantest of these ways, is that which chiefly distinguishes Poetry from Prose, and makes Virgils Rules of Husbandry pleasanter to read than Varros. Where the Prose-writer Rh