Now why _Bucolicks_ should require such Brevity, and be so essentially sparing in _Expression_, I see no other reason but this: It loves _Simplicity_ so much that it must be averse to that Pomp and Ostentation which _Epick_ Poetry must show, for that must be copious and flowing, in every part smooth, and equal to it self: But _Pastoral_ must dissemble, and hide even that which it would { 42} show, like _Damon's_ _Galatea_, who flies then when she most desires to be discovered.
And to the Bushes flys, yet would be seen.
And this doth not proceed from any malitious ill-natur'd Coyness, as some imagine, but from an ingenuous modesty and bashfulness, which usually accompanies, and is a proof of _Simplicity: Tis very rare_, says Pliny, _to find a man so exquisitely skillful, as to be able to show those Features in a Picture which he hides_, and I think it to be so difficult a task, that none but the most excellent Wits can attempt it with success: For small Wits usually abound with a multitude of words.
The third Grace of _Bucolicks_ is _Neatness_, which contains all the taking prettiness and sweetness of Expression, and whatsoever is call'd the Delicacies of the more delightful and pleasing _Muses_: This the Rural _Muses_ bestow'd on _Virgil_, as _Horace_ in the tenth _Satyr_ of his first Book says,
And _Virgils_ happy Muse in Eclogues plays, soft and facetious;
Which _Fabius_ takes to signify the most taking neatness and most exquisite Elegance imaginable: For thus he explains this place, in which he agrees with _Tully_, who in his _Third Book de Oratore_, says, the _Atticks_ are Facetious _i.e._ elegant: Tho the common Interpreters of these words are not of the same mind: But if by _Facetious Horace_ had meant _jesting_, and such as is design'd to make men laugh, and apply'd that to _Virgil_, nothing { 43} could have been more ridiculous; 'tis the design of _Comedy_ to raise laughter, but _Eclogue_ should only delight, and charm by its takeing _prettiness_: All ravishing _Delicacies_ of Thought, all sweetness of Expression, all that Salt from which _Venus_, as the Poets Fable, rose; are so essential to this kind of _Poetry_, that it cannot endure any thing that is scurillous, malitiously biteing, or ridiculous: There must be nothing in it but _Hony, Milk, Roses, Violets_, and the like sweetness, so that when you read you might think that you are in _Adonis's_ Gardens, as the _Greeks_ speak, _i.e._ in the most pleasant place imaginable: For since the subject of _Eclogue_ must be mean and unsurprizing, unless it maintains purity and neatness of Expression, it cannot please.