ng
any thing belonging to Sheapards for their Subject, must by no means
be accounted _Pastoral_, But of this more in its proper place.

My present inquiry must be what is the _Subject Matter_ of a
_Pastoral_, about which it is not easy to resolve; since neither from
_Aristotle_, nor any of the _Greeks_ who have written _Pastorals_, we
can receive certain direction. For sometimes they treat of high and
sublime things, like _Epick Poets_; what can be loftier than the whole
_Seaventh Idyllium of Bias_ in which _Myrsan_ urges _Lycidas_ the
Sheapard to sing the Loves of _Deidamia_ and _Achilles_. For he
begins from _Helen's_ rape, and goes on to the revengful fury of the
_Atrides_, and shuts up in one _Pastoral_, all that is great and
sounding in _Homers Iliad_.

{21} Sparta was fir'd with Rage
And gather'd Greece to prosecute Revenge.

And _Theocritus_ his verses are sometimes as sounding and his
thoughts as high: for upon serious consideration I cannot mind what
part of all the _Heroicks_ is so strong and sounding as that
_Idyllium_ on _Hercules_ *leontophono* in which _Hercules_ himself
tells _Phyleus_ how he kill'd the Lyon whose Skin he wore: for, not to
mention many, what can be greater than this expression.

And gaping Hell received his mighty Soul:

Why should I instance in the *dioskouroi*, which hath not one line
below Heroick; the greatness of this is almost inexpressible.

*aner hyperoplos enemeros, endiaaske
deinos idein*

And some other pieces are as strong as these, such is the _Panegyrick
on Ptolemy_, _Helen's Epithalamium_, and the Fight of young _Hercules_
and the Snakes: now how is it likely that such Subjects should be fit
for _Pastorals_, of which in my opinion, the same may be said which
_Ovid_ doth of his _Cydippe_.

Cydippe, Homer, doth not fit thy Muse.

For certainly _Pastorals_ ought not to rise to the Majesty of
_Heroicks_: but who on the other side {22} dares reprehend such great
and judicious Authors, whose very doing it is Authority enough? What
shall I say of _Virgil_? who in his Sixth _Eclogue_ hath put together
allmost all the particulars of the fabulous Age; what is so high to
which _Silenus_ that Master of Mysterys doth not soar?

For lo! he sung the Worlds stupendious birth,
How scatter'd seeds of sea, of Air, and Earth,
And purer Fire thro universal night
And empty space did fruitfully unite:
From whence th' innumerable race of things
By circular