several writers to prove that "brevity" is one of the
"graces" of pastoral poetry, he concludes, "I could heap up a great
many more things to this purpose, but I see no need of such a
trouble, since no man can rationally doubt of the goodness of my
Observation" (p.41).

The basic criterion, nevertheless, which Rapin uses in the "Treatise"
is the authority of the Ancients--the poems of Theocritus and Virgil
and the criticism of Aristotle and Horace. Because of his constant
references to the Ancients, one is likely to conclude that he (like
Boileau and Pope) must have thought they and Nature (good sense) were
the same. In a number of passages, however, Rapin depends solely on
the Ancients. Two examples will suffice to illustrate his absolutism.
At the beginning of "_The Second_ Part," when he is inquiring "into
the nature of _Pastoral,_" he admits:
And this must needs be a hard Task, since I have no guide,
neither _Aristotle_ nor _Horace_ to direct me.... And I am of
opinion that none can treat well and clearly of any kind of
_Poetry_ if he hath no helps from these two (p. 16).

In "_The Third_ Part," when he begins to "lay down" his _Rules for
writing_ Pastorals," he declares:
Yet in this difficulty I will follow _Aristotle's_ Example, who
being to lay down Rules concerning _Epicks_, propos'd _Homer_
as a Pattern, from whom he deduc'd the whole Art; So I will
gather from _Theocritus_ and _Virgil_, those Fathers of
_Pastoral_, what I shall deliver on this account (p. 52).

These passages represent the apogee of the neoclassical criticism of
pastoral poetry. No other critic who wrote on the pastoral depends so
completely on the authority of the classical critics and poets. As a
matter of fact, Rapin himself is not so absolute later. In the
section of the _Reflexions_ on the pastoral, he merely states that
the best models are Theocritus and Virgil. In short, one may say
that in the "Treatise" the influence of the Ancients is dominant; in
the _Reflexions_, "good _Sense_."

Reduced to its simplest terms, Rapin's theory is Virgilian. When
deducing his theory from the works of Theocritus and Virgil, his
preference is almost without exception for Virgil. Finding Virgil's
eclogues refined and elegant, Rapin, with a suggestion from Donatus
(p. 10 and p. 14), concludes that the pastoral "belongs properly to
the _Golden Age_" (p. 37)--"that blessed time, when Sincerity and
Innocence, Peace, Ease, and Plenty