Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/97

 Thus Linus too began his Poem, as appears by a Fragment of it preserv'd by Diogenes Laertius; and the like may be instanc'd in Musæus himself.

So that our Poet here with great Judgment, as always, follows the ancient Custom of beginning their more Solemn Songs with the Creation, and does it too most properly under the person of a Shepherd; and thus the first and best Employment of Poetry was to compose Hymns in Honour of the Great Creator of the Universe.

''Few words will suffice to answer his other Objections. He demands why those several Transformations are mention'd in that'' Poem? ''And is not Fable then the Life and Subject of Poetry? Can himself assign a more proper Subject of Pastoral, than the Saturnia Regna, the Age and Scene of this kind of Poetry? What Theme more fit for the Song of a God, or to imprint Religious awe, than the Omnipotent Power of transforming the Species of Creatures at their pleasure? Their Families liv'd in Groves, near clear Springs; and what better warning could be given to the hopeful young Shepherds, than that they should not gaze too much into the Liquid dangerous Looking-glass, for fear of being stoln by the Water-Nymphs, that is, falling and being drown'd, as Hylas was? Pasiphea's monstrous passion for a Bull, is certainly a Subject enough fitted for Bucolics: Can Mr. F. Tax Silenus for fetching''