Which what is honest, base, or just, or good,
  Better than Crantor, or Chrysippus show’d.

For tis Poetry that like a chast unspotted Virgin, shews men the way, and the means to live happily, who afterward are deprav’d by the immodest precepts of vitiated and impudent Philosophy.  For every body knows, that the Epick sets before us the highest example of the Bravest man; the Tragedian regulates the Affections of the Mind; the Lyrick reforms Manners, or sings the Praises of Gods, and Heroes; so that there’s no part of Poetry but hath it’s proper end, and profits.

But grant all this true, Pastoral can make no such pretence:  if you sing a Hero, you excite mens minds to imitate his Actions, and notable Exploits; but how can Bucolicks apply these or the like advantages to its self? He that reads {47} Heroick Poems, learns what is the vertue of a Hero, and wishes to be like him; but he that reads Pastorals, neither learns how to feed sheep, nor wishes himself a shepherd: And a great deal more to this purpose you may see in Modicius, as Pontanus cites him in his Notes on Virgil’s Eclogues.

But when tis the end of Comedy, as Jerom in his Epistle to Furia says, to know the Humors of Men, and to describe them; and Demea in Terence intimates the same thing,

  To look on all mens lives as in a Glass,
  And take from those Examples for our Own,

so that our Humors and Conversations may be better’d, and improv’d; why may not Pastoral be allow’d the same Priviledge, and be admitted to regulate and improve a Shepherd’s life by its Bucolicks?  For since tis a product of the Golden Age, it will shew the most innocent manners of the most ancient Simplicity, how plain and honest, and how free from all varnish, and deceit, to more degenerate, and worse times:  And certainly for this tis commendable in its kind, since its design in drawing the image of a Country and Shepherd’s life, is to teach Honesty, Candor, and Simplicity, which are the vertues of private men; as Epicks teach the highest Fortitude, and Prudence, and Conduct, which are the vertues of Generals, and Kings.  And tis necessary {48} to Government, that as there is one kind of Poetry to instruct the Citizens, there should be another to fashion the manners of the Rusticks:  which if Pastoral, as it does, did not do, yet would it not be altogether frivolous, and idle, since by its taking prettinesses it can delight, and please.  It can scarce be imagin’d, how much the most flourishing times of the Roman Common-wealth, in which Virgil wrote, grew better and brisker by the use of Pastoral:  with it were Augustus, Mecaenas, Asinius Pollio, Alphenus Varus, Cornelius Gallus,