Woods, and purling Streams, mourning the unsupportable anger, the
frowns and coyness of his proud _Phyllis_; singing at his _Nymphs_
door, (which _Plutarch_ reckons among the signs of Passion) or doing
any of those fooleries, which are familiar to Lovers. Yet the Passion
must not rise too high, as _Polyphemus's_, _Galateas's_ mad Lover, of
whom _Theocritus_ divinely thus, as almost of every thing else:

His was no common flame, nor could he move
In the old Arts, and beaten paths of Love,
No Flowers nor Fruits sent to oblige the Fair,
{62} His was all Rage, and Madness:

For all violent Perturbations are to be diligently avoided by
_Bucolicks_, whose nature it is to be _soft_, and _easie_: For in
small matters, and such must all the strifes and contentions of
Shepherds be, to make a great deal of adoe, is as unseemly, as to put
_Hercules's_ Vizard and Buskins on an Infant, as _Quintilian_ hath
excellently observ'd. For since _Eclogue_ is but weak, it seems not
capable of those Commotions which belong to the _Theater_, and
_Pulpit_; they must be soft, and gentle, and all its Passion must seem
to flow only, and not break out: as in _Virgil's Gallus_,

Ah, far from home and me You wander o're
The _Alpine_ snows, the farthest Western shore,
And frozen _Rhine_. When are we like to meet?
Ah gently, gently, lest thy tender feet
Sharp Ice may wound.

To these he may sometimes joyn some short Interrogations made to
_inanimate Beings_, for those spread a strange life and vigor thro the
whole Composure. Thus in _Daphnis_,

Did not You Streams, and Hazels, hear the Nymphs?

Or give the very Trees, and Fountains sense, as in _Tityrus_,

Thee (_Tityrus_) the Pines, and every Vale,
The Fountains, Hills, and every shrub did call:

for by this the Concernment is express'd; and of the like nature is
that of _Thyrsis_, in _Virgil's_ _Meliboeus_,

{63} When _Phyllis_ comes, my wood will all be green.

And this sort of Expressions is frequent in _Theocritus_, and
_Virgil_, and in these the delicacy of _Pastoral_ is principally
contain'd, as one of the old _Interpreters_ of _Theocritus_ hath
observ'd on this line, in the eighth _Idyllium_,

Ye Vales, and Streams, a race Divine:

But let them be so, and so seldom us'd, that nothing appear vehement,
and bold, for Boldness and Vehemence destroy the sweetness which
peculiarly commends _Bucolicks_, and in those Composures a constant
care to be soft an