successive order springs:

And afterward

How Pyrra's Stony race rose from the ground,
And Saturn reign'd with Golden plenty crown'd,
How bold _Prometheus_ (whose untam'd desire,
Rival'd the Sun with his own Heavenly Fire)
Now doom'd the _Scythian_ Vulturs endless prey
Severely pays for Animating Clay:

So true, so certain 'tis, that nothing is so high and lofty to which
_Bucolicks_ may not successfully aspire. But if this be so, what will
become of _Macrobius, Georgius Valla, Julius Scaliger, Vossius,_ and
the whole company of Grammarians? who all affirm that simplicity and
meanness is so essential to _Pastorals_, that it ought to be confin'd
to the State, Manners, Apprehension and even common phrases of
Sheapards: for nothing can {23} be said to be _Pastoral_, which is not
accommodated to their condition; and for this Reason _Nannius
Alcmaritanus_ in my opinion is a trifler, who, in his comments on
_Virgils Eclogues_, thinks that those sorts of Composures may now and
then be lofty, and treat of great subjects: where he likewise divides
the matter of _Bucolicks_, into _Low_, _Middle_, and _High_: and makes
_Virgil_ the Author of this Division, who in his Fourth _Eclogue_, (as
he imagines) divides the matter of _Bucolicks_ into Three sorts, and
intimates this division by these three words: _Bushes_, _Shrubs_ and
_Woods_.

Sicilian Muse begin a loftier strain,
The Bushes and the Shrubs that shade the Plain
Delight not all; if I to Woods repair
My Song shall make them worth a Consuls Care.

By Woods, as he fancys, as _Virgil_ means high and stately Trees, so
He would have a great and lofty Subject to to be implyed, such as he
designed for the _Consul_: by Bushes, which are almost even with the
ground, the meanest and lowest argument; and by Shrubs a Subject not
so high as the one, nor so low as the other, as the thing it-self is,
And therefore these lines

If I to Woods repair
My Song shall make them worth a _Consuls_ care.

{24} are thus to be understood, That if we choose high and sublime
arguments, our work will be fit for the Patronage of a _Consul_, This
is _Nanniu's_ interpretation of that place; too pedantial and subtle
I'me affraid, for tis not credible that ever _Virgil_ thought of
reckoning great and lofty things amongst the Subjects of _Bucolicks_
especially since

When his _Thalia_ rais'd her bolder voice
And Kings and Battles were her lofty choice,
_Phoebus_