Some are of opinion that whatever is done in the Country, and in one word, every thing that hath nought of the City in it may be treated of in _Pastorals_; and that the discourse of Fishers, Plow-men, Reapers, Hunters, and the like, belong to this kind of Poetry: which according to the Rule that I have laid down cannot be true for, as I before hinted nothing but the action of a { 28} Shepherd can be the Subject of a Pastoral.
I shall not here enquire, tho it may seem proper, whether we can decently bring into an Eclogue Reapers, Vine-dressers, Gardners, Fowlers, Hunters, Fishers, or the like, whose lives for the most part are taken up with too much business and employment to have any vacant time for Songs, and idle Chat, which are more agreeable to the leisure of a Sheapards Life: for in a great many Rustick affairs, either the hardship and painful Labor will not admit a song, as in Plowing, or the solitude as in hunting, Fishing, Fowling, and the like; but of this I shall discourse more largely in another place.
Now 'tis not sufficient to make a Poem a true _Pastoral_, that the Subject of it is the action of a Shepherd, for in _Hesiods_ *erga* and _Virqils Georgicks_ there are a great many things that belong to the employment of a Shepherd, yet none fancy they are Pastorals; from whence 'tis evident, that beside the _matter_, which we have defin'd to be the action of a Sheapard, there is a peculiar _Form_ proper to this kind of _Poetry_ by which 'tis distinguish'd from all others.
Of Poetry in General _Socrates_, as _Plato_ tells us, would have _Fable_ to be the _Form_: _Aristotle_ Imitation: I shall not dispute what difference there is between these two, but only inquire whether Imitation be the _Form_ of _Pastoral_: 'Tis certain that _Epick_ Poetry is differenc't from _Tragick_ only by { 29} the manner of imitation, for the latter imitates by _action_, and the former by bare _narration_: But _Pastoral_ is the imitation of a _Pastoral_ action either by bare narration, as in _Virgil's_ _Alexis_, and _Theocritus's_ 7th _Idyllium_, in which the Poet speaks all along in his own Person: or by action as in _Virgil's_ _Tityrus_, and the first of _Theocritus_, or by both mixt, as in the Second and Eleventh _Idylliums_, in which the Poet partly speaks in his own Person, and partly makes others speak, and I think the old _Scholiast_ on _Theocritus_ took an hint from these when he says, that Pastoral is a mixture made up of all sorts, for 'tis Narrative, Dramatick, and mixt, and _Aristotle_, tho obscurely, seems to hint in those words, _In every one of the mentioned Arts there is Imitation, in some simple, in some mixt_; now this latter being peculiar to _Bucolicks_ makes its very form and Essence: and therefore _Scaliger_, in the 4th Chapter of his first Book of Poetry, reckons up three Species of _Pastorals_, the first hath but one Person, the second several, which sing alternately; the third is mixt of both the other: And the same observation is made by _Heinsius_ in his Notes on _Theocritus_, for thus he very plainly to our purpose, _the Character of_ Bucolicks _is a mixture of all sorts of Characters, Dramatick, Narrative, or mixt_: from all which 'tis very manifest that the manner of _Imitation_ which is proper to _Pastorals_ is the mixt: for in other kinds of Poetry 'tis one and simple, at least { 30} not so manifold; as in _Tragedy Action_: in _Epick_ Poetry _Narration_.