The third Grace of Bucolicks is Neatness, which contains all the taking prettiness and sweetness of Expression, and whatsoever is call’d the Delicacies of the more delightful and pleasing Muses:  This the Rural Muses bestow’d on Virgil, as Horace in the tenth Satyr of his first Book says,

  And Virgils happy Muse in Eclogues plays,
  soft and facetious;

Which Fabius takes to signify the most taking neatness and most exquisite Elegance imaginable:  For thus he explains this place, in which he agrees with Tully, who in his Third Book de Oratore, says, the Atticks are Facetious i.e. elegant:  Tho the common Interpreters of these words are not of the same mind:  But if by Facetious Horace had meant jesting, and such as is design’d to make men laugh, and apply’d that to Virgil, nothing {43} could have been more ridiculous; ’tis the design of Comedy to raise laughter, but Eclogue should only delight, and charm by its takeing prettiness:  All ravishing Delicacies of Thought, all sweetness of Expression, all that Salt from which Venus, as the Poets Fable, rose; are so essential to this kind of Poetry, that it cannot endure any thing that is scurillous, malitiously biteing, or ridiculous:  There must be nothing in it but Hony, Milk, Roses, Violets, and the like sweetness, so that when you read you might think that you are in Adonis’s Gardens, as the Greeks speak, i.e. in the most pleasant place imaginable:  For since the subject of Eclogue must be mean and unsurprizing, unless it maintains purity and neatness of Expression, it cannot please.

Therefore it must do as Tully says his friend Atticus did, who entertaining his acquaintance with Leeks and Onions, pleas’d them all very well, because he had them serv’d up in wicker Chargers, and clean Baskets; So let an Eclogue serve up its fruits and flowers with some, tho no costly imbellishment, such as may answer to the wicker Chargers, and Baskets; which may be provided at a cheap rate, and are agreeable to the Country:  yet, (and this rule if you aim at exact simplicity, can never be too nicely observ’d,) you must most carefully avoid all paint and gawdiness of Expression, and, (which of all sorts of Elegancies is the most difficult to be avoided) {44} you must take the greatest care that no scrupulous trimness, or artificial finessess appear:  For, as Quintilian teaches, in some cases diligence and care most most troublesomly perverse; and when things are most sweet they are next to loathsome and many times degenerate:  Therefore as in Weomen a careless dress becomes some extreamly.  Thus Pastoral, that it might not be uncomely, ought sometimes to be negligent, or the finess of its ornaments ought not to appear and lye open to every bodies view:  so that it ought