Young sportive Creatures, and of spotted hue, Which suckled twice a day, I keep for you: These_ Thestilis _hath beg'd, and beg'd in vain, But now they're Hers, since You my Gifts disdain.
For what can be more Rustical, than to design those _Goats_ for _Alexis_, at that very time when { 59} he believes _Thestylis's_ winning importunity will be able to prevail? yet there is nothing Clownish in the words. In short, _Bucolicks_ should deserve that commendation which _Tully_ gives _Crassus_, of whose Orations he would say, _that nothing could be more free from childish painting, and affected finery_. So let the Expression in _Pastoral_ be without gawdy trappings, and all those little fineries of Art, which are us'd to set off and varnish a discourse: But let an ingenuous Simplicity. and unaffected pleasing Neatness appear in every part; which yet will be flat, if 'tis drawn out to any length, if not close, short, and broken, as that in _Virgil_,
He that loves _Bavius_ Verses, hates not Thine:
--It is not safe to drive too nigh, The Bank may fail, the Ram is hardly dry:
To learn this Art what won't _Amyntas_ do?
And in _Theocritus_ much of the same nature may be seen; as in his other _Pastoral Idylliums_, so chiefly in his fifth. Thus _Battus_ in the fourth _Idyllium_, complaining for the loss of _Amaryllis_,
{ 60} Dear Nymph, dear as my Goats, you dy'd.
And how soft and tender is that in the third _Idyllium_,
And she may look on me, she may be won, She may be kind, she is not perfect Stone,
And in this _concise_, close way of Expression lies the chiefest Grace of _Pastorals_: for in my opinion there's nothing in the whole Composition that can delight more than those frequent stops, and breakings off. Yet lest in these too it become dull and sluggish, it must be quickned by frequent lively touches of Concernment: such as that of the Goatherd in the third Idyllium,
Or _Daphnis's_ despair, which _Thyrsis_ sings in the first _Idyllium_,
Ye Wolves, and Pards, and Mountain Bores adieu, The Herdsmen now must walk no more with You.
How tender are the lines, and yet what passion they contain! And most of _Virgil's_ are of this nature, but there are likewise in him some touches of despairing Love, such as is this of _Alphesiboeus_,