nnocence makes a sure retreat,
A harmless Life, and ignorant of deceit,
and free from fears with various sweet's encrease,
And all's or'e spread with the soft wings of Peace:
Here Oxen low, here Grots, and purling Streams,
And Spreading shades invite to easy dreams.

And thus Horace,

Happy the man beyond pretence
Such was the state of Innocence, &c.

{6} And from this head I think the dignity of _Bucolicks_ is
sufficiently cleared, for as much as the Golden Age is to be preferred
before the _Heroick_, so much _Pastorals_ must excell _Heroick_ Poems:
yet this is so to be understood, that if we look upon the majesty and
loftiness of _Heroick_ Poems, it must be confest that they justly
claim the preheminence; but if the unaffected neatness, elegant,
graceful smartness of the expression, or the polite dress of a Poem be
considered, then they fall short of _Pastorals_: for this sort flows
with Sweet, Elegant, neat and pleasing fancies; as is too evident to
every one that hath tasted the sweeter muses, to need a farther
explication: for tis not probable that _Asinius Pollio_, _Cinna_,
_Varius_, _Cornelius Gallus_, men of the neatest Wit, and that lived
in the most polite Age, or that _Augustus Caesar_ the Prince of the
_Roman_ elegance, as well as of the common Wealth, should be so
extreamly taken with _Virgils Bucolicks_, or that _Virgil_ himself a
man of such singular prudence, and so correct a judgment, should
dedicate his Eclogues to those great Persons; unless he had known that
there is somewhat more then ordinary Elegance in those sort of
Composures, which the wise perceive, tho far above the understanding
of the Crowd: nay if _Ludovicus Vives_, a very learned man, and
admired for politer studies may be believed, there is somewhat more
sublime and excellent in those _Pastorals_, than the Common {7} sort
of Grammarians imagine: This I shall discourse of in an other place,
and now inquire into the Antiquity of Pastorals.

Since _Linus_, _Orpheus_, and _Eumolpus_ were famous for their Poems,
before the _Trojan_ wars; those are certainly mistaken, who date
Poetry from that time; I rather incline to their opinion who make it
as old as the World it self; which Assertion as it ought to be
understood of Poetry in general, so especially of _Pastoral_, which,
as _Scaliger_ delivers, was the most antient kind of Poetry, and
resulting from the most _antient_ way of Liveing: _Singing first began
amongst Sheapar