amples; but I do not remember at present any such Pastoral. You are
not widely deficient, Cubbin, I think, in this particular. Your first
show's us, that the best Preservative a young Lass can have against Love
and our deluding Sex, is, to be wholly unacquainted therewith. Little
Paplet is eager of Listning to Soflin's Account of Men and Love; but
that first set's her _Heart_ on the Flutter; then she is taken with
Soflin's _SWEET-HEART_; tho' all the while she is ignorant of the Cause
of her Uneasiness.

The Moral to your second Pastoral, which contain's Instructions to
_COQUETTS_, warning them not to take pleasure in giving Pain, is, I
think, not worst than this.

But the Moral to your Third (call'd the Bashful Swain), methinks, is not
so good. It is also directed to the _COQUETTS_; and instruct's 'em not
to give a Lover any Hopes, whom they do not intend to make happy. If the
young Lass there, had jilted Cuddlett, she had mist of her good Fortune;
and her Unwillingness to encrease the Number of her Admirers, is the
Cause of her Happiness. But, I know not how, this like's me not so well
as the other Three; or, perhaps it is not produced so naturally by the
Fable, and that may prevent it's pleasing.

SECT. 2.

_How to form the most regular kind of Moral_.

If a Writer's only Aim was the preserving Poetical Justice in his Moral,
he would have nothing to do but to show a Person defective in some
slight Particular, and from thence Unhappy; but as a Poet always reaches
at Perfection, these following Rules are to be observ'd.

The Inadvertency or Fault which the Character commit's, must be such a
Fault as is the natural or probable Consequence of his Temper. And his
Misfortune such an one as is the natural or probable Consequence of his
Fault. As in Othello: (For how can I instance in Pastoral.) I rather
suppose the Moor's Fault, to be a too rash and ungrounded Jealousy; than
that Fault, common to almost all our Tragedies, of marrying without the
Parent's Consent. A rash _Jealousy_ then, is the natural consequence of
an open and impetuous Temper; and the Murder of his Wife is a probable
Consequence of such a Jealousy, in such a Temper. So that the Hero's
Temper naturally produces his Fault, and his Fault his Misfortunes.

If you allow that the fault should be the natural or probable
Consequence of the Temper; let me ask you then, if those Tragedies or
Pastorals can be so perfect, where the original natural Temper of